Party divisions in Congress since the formation of the Republican Party in 1856. Parties as constituted at the beginning of each Congress are given. These figures were liable to change by contests for seats, etc. a During the Civil War most of the Southern States were unrepresented in Congress. b Liberal Republicans. Illinois. c Greenbackers. d David Davis, Independent, of e Two Virginia Senators were Readjusters, and voted with the Republicans. f People's party, except that in the House of Representatives of the Fiftyfourth Congress one member is classed as Silver party. g Three Senate seats were vacant (and continued so) and two Representative seats were unfilled (Rhode Island had not yet effected a choice) when the session began. Rhode Island subsequently elected two Republicans. h Five Populists, two Silver party, three Independents. i Including fifteen members classed as Fusionists. j Including three members classed as Silver party. There was one vacancy. k Six Populists, three Silver party. 1 Five Populists, one Silver party, two Independents, and three vacancies. m Three Populists, one Silver party, one Fusion party, one vacancy. In One Populist, one Silver party, one Fusionist, two vacancies. o Two Union Labor and two vacancies-one Democratic, one Republican. You cannot get consumers through the mints; you get them through the factories.-Maj. McKinley to delegation of farmers, Aug. 24, 1896. Resuscitation will not be prompted by recrimination. The distrust of the present will not be relieved by a distrust of the future. A patriot makes a better citizen than a pessimist.-President McKinley before Manufacturers' Club, Philadelphia, June 2, 1897. Nothing should ever tempt us-nothing ever will tempt us -to scale down the sacred debt of the nation through a legal technicality.-President McKinley before National Association of Manufacturers, New York, Jan. 27, 1898. The administration of exact justice by courts without fear or favor, unmoved by the influence of the wealthy or by the threats of the demagogue, is the highest ideal that a government of the people can strive for, and any means by which a suitor, however unpopular or poor, is deprived of enjoying this is to be condemned.-Hon. Wm. H. Taft, at Columbus, Ohio. A railroad company engaged in interstate commerce should not be permitted to issue stock or bonds and pat them on sale in the market except after a certificate by the interstate commerce commission that the securities are issued with the approval of the commission for a legitiwonte railroad purpose.-Hon. Wm. H. Taft, at Columbus, Presidential vote and political record by States, 1864 to 1904. Ꭱ D Ꭱ Michigan 14 Ꭱ '84 '88 '92 '96 96 1900 '04 Ꭱ Ꭱ Ꭱ DDRRRRDARRRRRDPRDRRRDDRRRRRRDRRRRRDRPPRRDRRRR **R* RA* * *RRRRD* RRRRR* R✶ ✶ RRAR✶ ✶ RRRR AARARKAAAZ=========ZADAZAZZZAZZZZZAZAARZAZZZZ 8 Nebraska Nevada 3 f R One electoral vote given to opposing party. Five electoral votes given to opposing party. Republican and Democratic vote in all close States in Presidential elections, 1880 to 1904, and in congressional elections, 1898 to 1905. Montana Nebraska 78,515 [Compiled from New York Tribune Almanac.] 144,766 139,382 139,735 136,797 128,700 164,755 124,985 152,363 126,290 205,226 89,294 155,897 1880. 1884. 1888. 1892. 1896. 1898. State Rep. Dem. Rep. Dem. Rep. Dem. Rep. Dem. Rep. Dem. Rep. Idaho 375,048 340,821 400,082 368,280 416,054 396,455 405,909 24,934 103,064 26,975 34,888 Kentucky 80,348 80,426 102,416 89,288 124,816 117,729 118, 149 318,037 277,321 54,979 28,523 76,912 54,391 108,425 80,552 Pennsylvania Tennessee Wisconsin 21,650 43,778 12,242 48,779 154,648 221,707 164,808 183,576 164,199 245,164 164,566 172,261 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT In William Howard Taft the Republican National Convention has nominated for the Presidency a man exceptionally equipped, not only by nature and training, but by experience and achievement, to perform the delicate and arduous duties of the greatest office in the gift of any people. For nearly thirty years he has given himself with single-minded devotion to the public service. He has displayed throughout a broad grasp of affairs, a literally dauntless courage, an unshakable integrity, a quick and all embracing sympathy, a deep and abiding sense of justice, a marvelous insight into human nature, a sure and unwavering judg ment, executive ability of the highest order, and a limitless capacity for hard work. In all the years of its history the Republican party has never selected as its leader in a National Campaign a man so tried beforehand, and so amply proved equal to the task. A Family of Jurists. Mr. Taft comes of a family distinguished in the law and the public service. The first American Tafts came of the English yeomanry, transplanted across the Atlantic by the great upheaval for conscience's sake which peopled New England with its sturdy stock. In this country they turned to the study and practice of the law. Peter Taft was both a maker and an interpreter of laws, having served as a member of the Vermont legislature, and afterwards as a judge. Alphonso Taft, son of Peter, was graduated from Yale College, and then went out to the Western Reserve to practice law. He settled in Cincinnati, and it was at Mt. Auburn, a surburb of that city, on September 15, 1857, that his son, William Howard Taft, first became a presidential possibility. The boy grew up in an atmosphere of earnest regard for public duty too little known in these days of the colossal and engrossing material development of the country. His father earned distinction in the service of city and state and nation, going from the Superior bench, to which he had been elected unanimously, to the place in Grant's cabinet now held by the son, then, as Attorney General, to the Department of Justice, and finally into the diplomatic service, as minister first to Austria and then to Russia. His mother, who was Miss Louise M. Torrey, also came of that staunch New England stock with whom conscience is the arbiter of action and duty performed the goal of service. His Mother's Influence. It was her express command that sent him away from her last fall when both knew that she was entering upon the last stage of her life He had promised the Filipinos that he would go to Manila and in person formally open their Assembly. It was to be their first concrete experience in self-government, and he, more than any other man, had made it possible. If he should not keep his promise there was danger that the suspicious Filipinos would impute his failure to sinister motives, to indifference or altered purpose, with result vastly unfortunate to them and to us. Mr. Taft saw all that very clearly, yet in view of his mother's health he would have remained at home. But she forbade. She said his duty lay to the people he had started on the path to liberty, and although it involved what each thought to be the final parting she commanded him to go. He went and before he could return his mother had passed away. Much was to be expected of a boy of such parentage, and young Taft fulfilled the expectation. He began by growing big physically. He has a tremendous frame. The cartoonists have made a false presentment of him familiar to the country by draw ing him always as a mountain of flesh. But if they had gone to the same extreme of leanness, and still honestly protrayed his frame they would have represented a man above the average weight. At College. Of course he went to Yale. His father had been the first alumnus elected to the corporation, and when young Taft had completed his preparatory course at the public schools of Cincinnati he went to New Haven for his college training. He was a big, rollicking, good natured boy, who liked play but still got fun out of work. He did enough in atheletics to keep his 225 pounds of muscle in good condition, but gave most of his time to his studies. When the class of '78 was graduated Taft was its salutatorian, having finished second among 120. He was also elected class orator by the class. He was then not quite 21. He went back to Cincinnati and began the study of law in his father's office, at the same time doing court reporting for the newspaper owned by his half-brother, Charles P. Taft. His salary at first was $6 a week. He did his work so well, however, that Murat Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, employed him to work for that paper, at the increased salary of $25 a week. While he was doing this he was keeping up his studies, taking the course at the Cincinnati Law School, from which he was graduated in 1880, dividing first honors with another student, and being admitted to the bar soon afterward. His Respects to a Blackmailer. That fall there occurred one of the most celebrated and characteristic incidents in his life. A man named Rose was then running a blackmailing paper in Cincinnati. He had the reputation of being a dangerous man. He had been a prize fighter, and was usually accompanied by a gang of roughs ready to assault any whom he wanted punished. Alphonso Taft had been the unsuccessful candidate for governor at that election, and Rose's paper slanderously assailed him. For once young Taft forgot his judicial temperament and legal training, and instead of setting the law on the blackmailer he marched down to his office and gave Rose a terrific thrashing. Rose quit Cincinnati that night and his paper never appeared again. Young Taft had had his first spectacular fight, and it was in behalf of somebody else. It is not the purpose of this sketch to attempt a detailed biography of Mr. Taft. It merely seeks by a discussion of a few of the more important events of his life to show what manner of man he is. They reveal him as a student of application and ability; a man with an abiding sense of justice, slow to wrath, but terrible in anger; courageous, aggressively honest and straightforward; readier to take up another's cause than his This is a foundation on which experience may build very largely, and that is what it has done for Taft. own. The Call to Public Office. one A He was hardly out of his boyhood when he was called to public office, and in most of the years since then he has devoted himself to the public service. First he was assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County, under Miller Outcalt, now of the leading lawyers of Ohio. In 1881 he became collector of internal revenue for the first Ohio district, and demonstrated the same ability in business that he had shown in the law. year later he resigned that office and went back to the practice of law, with his father's old partner, H. P. Lloyd. In 1884 he became the junior counsel of a Bar Committee to constitute testament proceedings against Campbell, whose methods of practicing law had brought on the hearing of the Hamilton County Court house in Cincinnati. Though technically unsuecessful, Mr. Taft made a good reputation from his conduct of this matter and Campbell was drawn from Cincinnati. In 1885 he became assistant county solicitor. Two year later Governor |