Who should be the Republican
candidate? The President, naturally, wished to be elected and
thereby to hold the office in his own right and not by the chance
of assassination. Senator Hanna surprised many of the politicians
by bagging a good many delegates for himself. He probably did not
desire to be President; like Warwick he preferred the glory of
king-maker to that of king; but he was a shrewd business man who
knew the value of having goods which, although he did not care
for them himself, he might exchange for others. I doubt whether
he deluded himself into supposing that the American people would
elect so conspicuous a representative of the Big Interests as he
was, to be President, but he knew that the fortunes of candidates
in political conventions are uncertain, and that if he had a
considerable body of delegates to swing from one man to another,
he might, if his choice won, become the power behind the new
throne as he had been behind McKinley's. And if we could suspect
him of humor he may have enjoyed fun to a mild degree in keeping
the irrepressible Roosevelt in a state of suspense.
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