President Roosevelt holds a “presidency” violin and sits in a seat beside a chair labeled “Mark.” A Republican elephant holds a “vice-presidency” violin out to Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna, who walks away and says, “Here’s where I ‘stand pat.'” Meanwhile, Myron T. Herrick exits via stage right.
Comments and Context
When President Theodore Roosevelt was the beneficiary of Senator Joseph Foraker’s “checkmate” of fellow Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna’s stillborn pursuit of the 1904 presidential nomination, there was speculation in the press about subsequent relations between the president and Senator Hanna.
On the surface the pair had worked together as good party men, but there was little secret about Hanna’s past assessments of Roosevelt as “that damned cowboy” and a “madman.”