Garret Hobart - Legacy

Legacy

Hobart significantly expanded the powers of the vice presidency, becoming a presidential adviser, and taking a leadership role as president of the Senate. Although Magie, writing in 1910, stated that Hobart's death "fixed his memory at the height of his fame", the former vice president is today little remembered. According to Hatfield, he is best known for his death, clearing the way for the ascent of New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, who took Hobart's place on the Republican ticket in 1900 and succeeded as president after McKinley's assassination in 1901.

A statue of Hobart, erected in 1903, stands outside Paterson's city hall. The community of Hobart, Oklahoma, founded in 1901, is named after the former vice president. Connolly finds Hobart to be very much a man of his times:

The public increasingly identified Republicans with the union of big business, big money, and big government, a union that ignited a Progressive reaction after 1900. Vice President Garret A. Hobart directed that union as lawyer, business receiver and director, and New Jersey Republican. He represented everything Progressives hated: a railroad advocate when railroads became America's most mistrusted industry, a corporate attorney who facilitated the agglomeration of capital when the public revolted against monopolies and trusts, a financial operator who used his political insight to capture lucrative business opportunities, and a national leader who moved easily between the worlds of political pull and economic power. As much as Hanna or any Gilded Age business-politician, Hobart symbolized the era.