"The truth is that, whatever may have been the President's sins of commission or omission, he offers really few vulnerable points of attack to the adversary. Popular sentiment may not approve all he has done or left undone; but it esteems cordially this honest, blunt, impulsive American whose strenuous, courageous, many-sided life appeals to its Americanism."

Thus said a non-partisan leading journal early in June. The eyes of the world were set upon Chicago, which in a few days was to set out the platform of the campaign and name the two men who were to represent the Republican party as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CONVENTION OF 1904-President's Address at Valley Forge, June 19th-Convention Opens June 21st-The Hal-First Day, Speech of Elihu Root-Second Day, The Platform-Third Day, Foreshadowing of the Vice-Presidential Nomine-Sketch of Mr. Fairbanks-The Morning of the Day-Speech of Mr. Black-Nomination of Roosevelt-Thenthusiasm-Mr. Beveridge's Speech-Speech of H. S. Cummings-Nomination of Senator Fairbanks-Cortelyou, Chairman-Incidents of the Nominations -The Parades-How Mr. Roosevelt Received Word of his Nomination-Congratulations-November to Decide.

W

HILE the convention of 1904 was preparing to meet in Chicago President Roosevelt, as the guest of Attorney General Knox, made a public appearance at Valley Forge, June 19, in the service in celebration of the Revolutionary camp at that historic spot. Never before had a President of the United States visited Valley Forge. Washington was only there before he became chief magistrate. The celebration was held in Washington Chapel, a temporary structure, standing in the shade of a young wood close to the spot where the winter headquarters of General Huntington's officers are said to have been. The cornerstone of the permanent chapel was laid June 19, 1903, in the presence of a distinguished company, and the chapel was to be erected before the anniversary of 1905.

The President spoke as follows:

"It is a great pleasure to come here this afternoon to say a word in behalf of the project to erect a memorial chapel on this great historic site. Three weeks ago I was at the field where the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the Civil War was fought. It is a noteworthy thing that this State of Pennsylvania should have within its borders the places which marked the two turning points of our history-Gettys

burg, which saw the high tide of the Rebellion; Valley Forge, which saw the passing of the danger point of the Revolution. There have been two great crises in our national history-two crises in which failure meant the absolute breaking in sunder of the nation-one the Revolutionary War, one the Civil War.

"If the men who took arms in '76 for national independence had failed, then not merely would there never have been a national growth on this continent, but the whole spirit of nationality for the younger lands of the world would have perished, still-born. And if the men of '61 had failed in the great struggle for national unity, then it would have meant that the work done by Washington and his associates might almost or quite as well have been left undone.

"There would have been no point in commemorating what was done at Valley Forge, if Gettysburg had not given us the national right to commemorate it. If we were now split up into a dozen wrangling little nations, which could not show a united front to foreign aggression, then, indeed, the Declaration of Independence would read like empty sound, and the Constitution would not have been worth the paper on which it was written, save as a study for antiquarians.

"There were other crises than those which culminated in the Revolution and the Civil War; there were great deeds and great men at other periods of our national history; but there has never been any deed vital to the welfare of the nation save the two deeds of which I am speaking the deed of the man who founded and the deed of the man who saved the republic. There have never been any men whose lives were vital to the republic save Washington and Lincoln.

"I do not see how any American can think of Valley Forge without thinking of the other field, too, because they represent the same work. And think how fortunate we are as a nation, what it means to us as a people, that our young men should have as their ideals two men who, though they were conquerors, were not conquerors who won glory by

wrongdoing; not men whose lives were spent in order to compass their own advancement, but men who lived, and one who died, that the nation might grow steadily greater and better-the man who founded the republic, and took no glory from it himself save what was freely given him by his fellow citizens, and that only in the shape of the chance of rendering them service, and the man who afterward saved the republic without striking down liberty.

"We have seen how States have been saved and liberty been stricken down. Lincoln saved the Union, and lifted the cause of liberty higher than ever. Washington created the republic; rose by statecraft to the highest position, and used it for the welfare of his fellows, and only so long as they wished him to keep it.

"It is a good thing that these great historic landmarks of our country, Gettysburg and Valley Forge, should be preserved; that one should commemorate a single tremendous effort, and the other what we need, on the whole, much more-much more commonly-and which is a more difficult thing-constant effort. Only men with a touch of the heroic could have lasted out that three days wrestle at Gettysburg; only men fitted to rank with the great men of all times could have beaten back the mighty onslaught of that gallant and wonderful army of Northern Virginia, whose final, supreme effort failed at the stone wall on Cemetery Hill, on that July day, now forty-one years ago.

"But, after all, hard as it is to rise to the supreme height of selfsacrifice at a time of crisis that is brief; hard as it is to make the single, great effort, it is harder yet to rise to the level of a crisis when it takes the form of a need of constant, patient, steady work, month after month, year after year; when, too, it does not end after a struggle in a glorious day of victory; when, too, triumph is wrested bitterly away at the end.

"Here at Valley Forge, Washington and his Continentals warred, not against foreign soldiery, but against themselves; against all the