Root replied, "The
Chairman rules that the gentleman's point of order is well
taken." And everybody laughed. There was one dramatic moment
which, as Dean Lewis remarks, has had no counterpart in a
National Convention. When the Machine had succeeded, in spite of
protests and evidence, in stealing the two delegates from
California, the friends of Mr. Taft gave triumphant cheers. Then
the Roosevelt men rose up as one man and sent forth a mighty
cheer which astonished their opponents. It was a cheer in which
were mingled indignation and scorn, and, above all, relief.
Strictly interpreted, it meant that those men who had sat for
four days and seen their wishes thwarted, by what they regarded
as fraud, and had held on in the belief that this fraud could not
continue to the end, that a sense of fairness would return and
rule the Regulars, now realized that Fraud would concede nothing
and that their Cause was lost. And they felt a great load lifted.
No obligation bound them any longer to the Republican Party which
had renounced honesty in its principles and fair play in its
practice.
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