visionaries, for there were few among them who could be called
"practical politicians," but, as one writer of note has said, the
delegates were "typical of that class of society on which the nation
ever depends in a great crisis, the sort from which all moral movements
spring. . . ."
It has often been said that the excitement of presidential campaigns is
detrimental to the nation. This could hardly be said of the campaign of
1908. To produce political excitement there must be debatable questions
termed, by the politicians as "issues." Just what the issues were in the
campaign few people could determine. There were no issues which involved