By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Donald Trump gave his acceptance speech last night. I listened to it. It got me longing for that faraway time, just about a century ago, when Charles Evans Hughes accepted the nomination of the Republican Party, not in Cleveland, but in New York City, at Carnegie Hall, when that venue was a mere 25 years old. Carnegie Hall was not the scene of the Republican Convention, which that year was held in Chicago. Mr. Hughes, who was at that time Justice Hughes, did not actively seek the nomination, but indicated he would not turn it down if it was offered to him. He did not attend the convention, but remained in the nation’s capital, where as a justice on the highest court in the land, he had work to do, cases to consider, colleagues to persuade, opinions to write. He was nominated on the the third ballot. When he was informed of his nomination by telegram, he resigned from the Supreme Court and sent back a telegram of acceptance. The convention had bypassed former President Theodore Roosevelt, who was for a short time under consideration by the Republican Party convention-goers and who had been threatening to run as a Progressive Party candidate. Former President Roosevelt graciously stepped aside, accepting Mr. Hughes as the Republican standard bearer that year, while threatening to jump back into the race as a third party candidate if, in the words of one contemporary chronicler, Mr. Hughes “turned out to be pacifistic, pussy-footed, or pro-German…”
When Mr. Hughes gave his belated acceptance speech, he was in the position of having to pay homage to former President Roosevelt by pledging obeisance to Americanism and preparedness. That he did. But he also had to make clear that he was committed to putting a Republican into the White House, satisfy the Republican machine, which was at odds with the progressiveness embodied by Teddy Roosevelt, while wooing or at least not offending both the active pro-Ally sympathizers as well as the pro-Germans, and appealing to women, who at that time were permitted to vote in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona, and in Illinois…
In his speech, Mr. Hughes succeeded, as the New Republic reported in its August 1916 edition, in accomplishing all of this when he “managed with considerable skill to find the least common denominator” of all of these divergent interests…
With former President Roosevelt in sitting in one of the opera boxes within Carnegie Hall, Mr. Hughes spoke of his vision of an efficiently-run government, which he could well do with authority as a consequence of his splendid record as New York governor from 1907 until he was nominated to the Supreme Court by then-president William Howard Taft in 1910. But he appealed as well to the concept of nationalism, of the opportunity for all American men to be of heroic service to their country. He hinted at, but did not openly avow sympathy for the Allies – the British, the French, the Italians and the Russians in their struggle against the Germans, the Austrians, the Hungarians and the Turks. He was deferential to Senator Warren Harding of Ohio, pro-preparedness advocate Senator Francis Emroy Warren of Wyoming, Utah Senator Reed Smoot and former Massachusetts governor and senator Murray Crane. Instead of coming off as a hero, like former President Roosevelt, or a rabid Republican, Mr. Hughes concentrated on making a case against the incumbent president, Woodrow Wilson, while seeking to harnass the disparate Republican elements behind his candidacy. He appealed to the workingman. He appealed to businessmen. Criticism of Wilson appealed to Roosevelt and his minions; it inspired the Republican establishment; it appealed to the pro-Ally contingent, based upon Wilson’s unwillingness up to that point to enter the European fray; and it pleased those favoring the Germans because they saw Wilson, despite not getting America directly involved in the fighting, as favoring the British by allowing American armament to sail the Atlantic to Southhampton and Liverpool…
In attacking President Wilson, Mr. Hughes was able to make the very credible points that he would be a far more efficient adminstrator of government than the incumbent, more decisive, more effective all around and a more vigorous and masculine leader of America in the world. Without pledging military action against Mexico, he spoke passionatley about the unstable political situation south of the border and decried Pancho Villa’s attacks on border towns in New Mexico and Texas. He insisted the United States under his leadership would maintain friendly relations with its southern neighbor but would remain firm. He lambasted President Wilson for the poor quality of his appointments. He suggested that American neutrality in Eurpoe and American isolation would come to an end, that this would end the war and that once all or our competitors were back in the swing of things and producing goods, the United States should protect itself in the worldwide economic struggle that would replace war with tariffs…