Former Vice President Fairbanks Gives Talk – 1916
Former Vice President Fairbanks Speaks in Missoula – 1916
Charles W. Fairbanks was a senator from Indiana and the vice president under Republican Theodore Roosevelt – 1905 to 1909. As vice president he actually worked against some of Roosevelt’s policies. Roosevelt did not support him in the next presidential campaign, but instead campaigned for William H. Taft who won that election. In revenge, Fairbanks later backed William Howard Taft in 1912 against Roosevelt. Fairbanks ran for president himself in 1916, but was selected as the vice-presidential candidate to run with the Republican, Charles Evans Hughes. They lost to president Woodrow Wilson in that election.
Fairbanks Alaska is named for him. As a senator from Indiana he worked for President McKinley to settle the Alaska boundary dispute.
Fairbanks spoke at the Missoula Theater in October of 1916. He was introduced by Montana republican senator Joseph Dixon from Missoula. He criticized President Wilson, stating that the current prosperity was the result of the war in Europe. “He told how the war orders began to trickle in and of the resulting prosperity founded on the blood of the warring nations of Europe. . . What is going to become of our workmen when the millions in the trenches turn from the shedding of blood to the work of production for the markets of the world?”[1]
Fairbanks also expressed his support for Republican candidate Jeanette Rankin in her race for a Montana Congressional seat.