The Republican Party has been doing things, because it believes George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton, and all our fathers, when they made the Constitution, intended to bring into the family of nations a sister not inferior in sovereign power, but one equal in sovereign power to the greatest of all the nations; and they foresaw that the time would come when this American Republic would stand, not at the foot, but at the head of the nations, as we do today. (Applause.) We have simply proceeded upon this idea. The results are known of all men. (Prolonged applause.)

Election day came, and Roosevelt and Fairbanks were elected by overwhelming popular majorities and by a majority of 196 votes in the Electoral College.

There had grown up a sort of custom according to which a Vice President succeeding to the Presidency on account of the death of a President was spoken of as "His Accidency." There were many among the critics of President Roosevelt who had prior to his election applied that title to him. A few days after the election I returned to Washington and called upon President Roosevelt to pay my respects. When I was ushered into his office he walked forward briskly to shake hands and welcome me. In doing so he announced with manifest satisfaction, "You are shaking hands with His Excellency, not His Accidency."

He

I congratulated him upon his decisive victory. expressed great satisfaction that his majority was so pronounced, and remarked in that connection that he accounted himself fortunate in having had Judge Parker for his opponent; not because of any lack of appreciation for Judge Parker's ability and character, but because his views were such that a large element in the Democratic Party could not very well become his supporters.

In the conversation that followed he thanked me profusely for the work I had done in the campaign, and spoke of his forthcoming administration as one with respect to which he would feel at liberty to have his own policies, rather than under obligation to continue the policies of McKinley, which he had until that time been pursuing.

As I look back to that conversation I think I might well have taken some alarm as to the future. But I did not.

He spoke of his pleasant relations with different Senators, mentioning particularly Senator O. H. Platt of Connecticut. He spoke of him with words of highest praise and said he hoped during the next four years to have these same pleasant relations continue with all of us, so that at the end we might lay down our labors with the same respect and feeling of warm friendship for each other that then prevailed.

He was a very happy man. He was full of the spirit of triumph and full of hope and courage with respect to the future.

He fully realized that a great opportunity had come to him for usefulness to both his party and his country, and was determined to embrace and improve that opportunity to the utmost.

I had the same opinion and entertained the most optimistic expectations as to his forthcoming administration. He went out of office saying, according to a published interview, that he had "had a bully good time," and expressing the thought that he "had made good."

I am sure he did have a "bully good time," and that as to most matters he "made good," but in some particulars there is at least room for argument. At any rate I was compelled to disagree with him as to some important questions, of which I shall speak in the next chapter; not, however, either offensively or defensively, but only because not to do so would be to leave these notes incomplete.

While testifying (April 23, 1915) as a witness in his own behalf in the Barnes libel suit, he said, speaking of me, according to newspaper reports, that I had bitterly opposed him, but "nevertheless he always had for me a great liking.” This was a kind expression which I not only appreciate but fully reciprocate, and never more so than now when "watchful waiting," truckling to Colombia and the Panama Canal surrender combine to recall in refreshing contrast his stalwart Americanism, his virile character, his fearless courage and his rugged and aggressive way of doing things that ought to be done.

CHAPTER XL.

DIFFERENCES WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

PRIOR to President Roosevelt's election in 1904, he and

I had never had any serious differences of opinion about public affairs. Later I differed with him in a broad way as to the Initiative, the Referendum, the Recall and all the other Socialistic ideas, as I regarded them, that had been advocated by W. J. Bryan and other Democrats, and by Socialistic leaders generally, to the extent he adopted and advocated them.

It is not my purpose to speak in this connection of that difference, but rather of three matters that presented themselves in concrete form, about which my Senatorial duties required me to differ with him positively and earnestly. They were Joint Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona, the conferring of the rate making power on the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Brownsville shooting affray, on account of which he discharged a whole battalion of the 25th Infantry, colored troops, without sufficient evidence as I thought then and still think.

In the Senate I discussed at length and repeatedly all these subjects generally and in detail. It never occurred to me in connection with the question of Joint Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona, or the discussion of the rate bill, that I was either saying or doing anything that would give him offense, or cause him to have any kind of ill feeling. I assumed that he was strong enough and broadminded enough and had respect enough for my duties as a Senator to accord me the privilege of differing from him and of maintaining and advocating with respect to such differences such views as my convictions of duty might lead me to entertain.

I am sure if there had been only these two differences there would not have been any trouble—not more at least than a mere temporary disappointment.

As to the Brownsville matter it was different, but I shall deal with that in another chapter.

So far as the Statehood matter is concerned that has already been, perhaps, sufficiently dealt with. If I add anything at all to what has been said, let it be that the President first officially announced his position in favor of Joint Statehood in his Message sent to Congress December 5, 1905. On this subject he said:

I recommend that Indian Territory and Oklahoma be admitted as one State and that New Mexico and Arizona be admitted as one State. There is no obligation upon us to treat territorial subdivisions, which are matters of convenience only, as binding us on the question of admission to statehood. Nothing has taken up more time in the Congress during the past few years than the question as to the statehood to be granted to the four Territories above mentioned, and after careful consideration of all that has been developed in the discussions of the question, I recommend that they be immediately admitted as two States. There is no justification for further delay; and the advisability of making the four Territories into two States has been clearly established.

With special reference to his claim that territorial subdivisions involve no obligation on the part of the Government to adhere to them in making States, I pointed out in the course of the debate on the subject that when the territory of Arizona was created in 1863 during the administration of Mr. Lincoln, Congress provided in the act

That said government shall be maintained and continued until such time as the people residing in said territory shall apply for and obtain admission as a State.

This I contended was in the nature of a pledge given by the Government on which the people of Arizona had a right to rely in becoming citizens of that territory and in taxing themselves for the erection of public buildings and the establishment of schools and colleges.

In addition to the fact that I entertained the views I expressed in debate, on account of which it was impossible for me to accept and follow the President's recommendation for Joint Statehood, the record shows that as early as in 1903 I had, in support of the bill then under consideration

providing for separate Statehood, taken the same position and made the same character of arguments to which I adhered until the end. In other words, the position I took and contended for throughout was taken and contended for long before the President expressed any opinion on the subject.

So far as the Joint Statehood matter was concerned, it was not, therefore, a difference of my seeking, as some one charged, for I was not aware we had different opinions on the subject until his Message of December, 1905.

So far as the giving of the rate making power to the Interstate Commerce Commission was concerned, a much broader and more important question was involved.

The President first advocated this proposition in his Message to Congress of December 5, 1904.

I was a member of the Interstate Commerce Committee of the Senate. For several years that committee had constantly under consideration measures of various kinds for the further and more efficient regulation of the railroads, most of them brought forward at the instance of commercial bodies and labor organizations, but quite aside from my membership of that committee I was active in promoting legislation of that character.

As early as June 24, 1902, I introduced Senate Bill No. 3560, known as the Railroad Safety Appliance Bill, which became a law March 2, 1903. I introduced this measure at the request of the organized employees of the railroads and championed it in the committee and on the floor of the Senate, where I had charge of the measure when it was put on its passage.

I took an active and very prominent part both in the committee and in the Senate in the work of bringing about the enactment of what was known as the Elkins law, passed February 19, 1903.

The Interstate Commerce Committee referred this measure to a sub-committee, composed of Mr. Elkins, Chairman, Senator Clapp and myself. We recast the measure and put