The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

290
THE CANDIDATES NOMINATED
applauding our great statesmen, living and dead, and agreeing with them. In that
convention there will be the only two living exponents of Democratic principles.
On the one side will be Democracy's only president rising and saying, "Be
sane." On the other side, in opposition, will come their last candidate for president,
saying, "Be Democrats." The two are incompatible.
ILLUSTRATES WITH A STORY
Now, my friends, while we present the positive, the convention which meets on
July 6th represents that element unknown heretofore in American politics, the oppor-
tunist. It is waiting for bankruptcy, waiting for panic, waiting for industrial depres-
sion, waiting for financial distress.
There was an old farmer upon the Maine coast who owned a farm with a rocky
ledge running out into the ocean called Hurricane Point, and on it ships were
wrecked and he gathered his harvest from the wrecks, and in his will he wrote: "I
devise my farm equally among my children, but Hurricane Point shall be kept for
all of you forever, for while the winds blow and the waves roll the Lord will
provide."
But we have put a lighthouse on Hurricane Point, a lighthouse of protection,
with a revolving light shedding gold over the ocean, and American commerce going
and coming is absolutely safe.
OF FULL PRESIDENTIAL SIZE
Now, gentlemen, it is my privilege in looking for vice-presidential possibilities to
announce what you all know, that we have found a vice-presidential candidate of
full presidential size. Every one knows that if the towering figure of Theodore
Roosevelt had been out of this canvass one of the promising candidates before con-
vention for president of the United States would have been Charles W. Fairbanks.
New York, appreciating his great ability as a lawyer, appreciating the national
name he has made for himself as a senator, appreciating his dignity, his character,
and his genius for public affairs, seconds the nomination of Charles W. Fairbanks
for vice-president of the United States.
FORAKER ADDRESSES CONVENTION
Senator Foraker of Ohio then was introduced and spoke
as follows:
Gentlemen of the Convention: We have come here to do three things: Make
a platform, name the next president of the United States, and also name the next
vice-president of the United States. We have done two of these things and are
about to do the third. And we have done both of the things well.