McKinley's successor, drew toward an end, he was
nominated by the Republican Party to succeed himself. There was
some talk of opposition within his party, especially from the
friends of "big business" who thought that he was not sufficiently
reverent and submissive to the moneyed interests. This opposition
took the form of a move to nominate Senator Hanna. But the Senator
died, and the talk of opposition which was mostly moonshine, faded
away.
When the campaign came in the autumn of 1904, his opponent was the
Democratic nominee, Judge Parker, also from New York. Mr.
Roosevelt was elected by a majority of more than two million and a
half votes,--the largest majority ever given to a President in our
history, either before or since that time.
On the night of election day he issued a statement in which he
said: "Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept
another nomination." Of this he writes:
The reason for my choice of the exact phraseology used was
twofold. In the first place, many of my supporters were insisting
that, as I had served only three and a half years of my first
term, coming in from the Vice-Presidency when President McKinley
was killed, I had really had only one elective term, so that the
third term custom did not apply to me; and I wished to repudiate
this suggestion. I believed then (and I believe now) the third
term custom or tradition to be wholesome, and therefore, I was
determined to regard its substance, refusing to quibble over the
words usually employed to express it.
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