1908 Republican National Convention

The 1908 Republican National Convention, the fourteenth presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States, was held in Chicago Coliseum, Chicago, Illinois on July 16 to July 19, 1908. It convened to nominate a successor to the popular GOP President, Theodore Roosevelt and his Vice President, Charles W. Fairbanks.

In the event, United States Secretary of War William Howard Taft of Ohio won Roosevelt's endorsement and received the nomination. The convention nominated New York Representative James Schoolcraft Sherman to be his running mate.

The Platform

The Republican platform celebrated the Roosevelt administration's economic policies such as the keeping of the protective tariff, establishment of a permanent currency system (the Federal Reserve), additional government supervision and control over trusts. It championed enforcement of railroad rate laws, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission authority to investigate interstate railroads, and reduction of work hours for railroad workers, as well as general reduction in the work week.

In foreign policy, it supported a buildup of the armed forces, protection of American citiziens abroad, extension of foreign commerce, vigorous arbitration and the Hague treaties, a revival of the U.S. Merchant Marine, support of war veterans, self-government for Cuba and the Philippines with citizenship for residents of Puerto Rico.

In other areas, it advocated court reform, creation of a federal Bureau of Mines and Mining, extension of rural mail delivery, environmental conservation, upholding of the rights of African-Americans and the civil service, and greater efficiency in national public health agencies.

The platform lastly expressed pride in U.S. involvement in the building of the Panama Canal, the admission of the New Mexico and Territories; called for the celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln; and generally deplored the Democratic Party while celebrating the policies of the Republicans.

Candidates for the Presidential nomination

*William Howard Taft (Ohio)
*Joseph Gurney Cannon (Illinois)
*Charles W. Fairbanks (Indiana)
*Joseph B. Foraker (Ohio)
*Charles Evans Hughes (New York)
*Philander Chase Knox (Pennsylvania)
*Robert M. La Follette (Wisconsin)
*Leslie M. Shaw (Iowa)

Candidates for the Vice Presidential nomination

*Curtis Guild, Jr. (Massachusetts)
*Franklin Murphy (New Jersey)
*James Sherman (New York)

ee also

* 1908 Democratic National Convention
* United States presidential election, 1908

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