The Benefits of Incumbency.

Political events in the early part of 1904 — especially Senate approval of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, Roosevelt's greatest foreignjolicy triumph to date — bolstered the president's election chances. In March Roosevelt openly courted Union Army veterans, traditionally a powerful block of Republican voters, by having the Pension Bureau issue an order lowering the age at which Union veterans could receive benefits. That same month his trust-busting program, which worried conservative Republicans and their wealthy supporters, gained a boost when the Supreme Court handed down a decision favoring the government in the Northern Securities case. His efforts to emphasize conservation were gaining support as well. The last part of his "Square Deal" — the friendliness toward organized labor that he demonstrated by how he had settled the anthracite-coal strike in 1902 — rounded out the successes of his first term.

The Convention.

The death...