Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| throughout the land to “work up” a strenuous demand for him to fill the second place on the ticket. So, they reasoned, he would be out of the way for four years, and four years might bring many things. As Vice-President he would not be in 1904 anything like the candidate before the people which two years more as Governor of the Empire State would make him. Back of the spoils politicians were the big corporations that had neither forgotten nor forgiven the franchise-tax law that made them pay on their big dividend-earning properties, as any poor man was taxed on his home. Anything to beat him for Governor and for the Presidency four years hence! The big traction syndicates in the East made the pace: Roosevelt for Vice-President! He was not deceived; but the plotters were. Their team ran away with them. The demand they desired came from the West and swept him into the office. From perhaps one State in the East and one in the West it was a forced call. From the great and bounding prairies, from the rugged mountain sides, and from the sunny western slope of the Rockies, where they knew Roosevelt for what he was, and loved him; from the young |