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IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT  
By Lawrence F. Abbot

CHAPTER THREE

THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY

   WHEN Roosevelt emerged from the African wilderness in March, 1910, I met him at Khartum in the desert on the edge of the jungle, fifteen hundred miles up the river Nile from Cairo. He had no sooner discarded the trappings of the jungle—and rather ragged and dilapidated trappings they were—and resumed the garb of the civilian en grand tour—in his case this garb was always simple and unaffected though appropriate—than he was confronted with all sorts of invitations to take up politics again. These invitations were conveyed by letter, cablegram, and even by personal delegation. He was asked to become a candidate for mayor of the City of New York and for senator from the State of New York, for example. All these invitations he declined with decision and without discussion. In more than one conversation he declared that his greatest desire, his sole ambition, was to return to his home at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, for which I know, as do all his friends, that he had a deep and abiding affection. There it was his plan, he said, to live the life of a country gentleman, spending his time out of doors in the countryside which he knew so well, and his time indoors in study, reading, and in writing on historical, scientific, or political questions, with such occasional public speaking as might be appropriate. I am reminded of what Roosevelt said at that time by an incident related by Brander Matthews in a note which I received from him after Roosevelt's death:
I think it was in February, 1893, that we spent a week in Washington. We dined one night with the Roosevelts. I made some pleasant allusion to his future in public life. He looked at me, seriously and almost sadly. (Roosevelt was then Civil Service Commissioner.) Then he said: "My future? How can I have a future in public life? Don't you know as Civil Service Commissioner I have made an enemy of every professional politician in the United States ? I can't have any political prospects."

I retorted that he would be President sooner or later. Whereupon he smiled and asked, "Then what will you want?" And then I smiled and answered: "I think I would rather go to London."
In this same vein Roosevelt said to me in Khartum: "My political career is ended. No man in American public life has ever reached the crest of the wave as I appear to have done without the wave's breaking and engulfing him. Remember Dewey."
In reply I told him I did not think the two cases were at all parallel; that the American people knew him, Roosevelt, after thirty years of trial in the whitest kind of light; that his acts, achievements, and character were tested and understood; and that the people had taken him into their confidence and affection permanently, for better or for worse. On the other hand, I argued that Dewey had suddenly been seized upon as a kind of idol by the American people, not because they knew him very well, but because of one great dramatic episode; and that when he did something which they disliked they discarded him, although unjustly, without any wrench or sense of personal loss. "No," insisted Roosevelt, "I am going down like Dewey." More than once during our journey through Europe he referred to this assumed parallel in his career and that of the hero of the Naval Battle at Manila. "Remember Dewey" became almost a slogan or shibboleth in our political conversations, although Roosevelt used it not jocosely but very seriously.

Coming back on the steamer from Southampton to New York in June of that year, the usual entertainment given in the saloon, for the benefit of some seamen's fund or other, took the form of a "chalk talk" by the late Homer Davenport, then one of the foremost of American newspaper cartoonists. The passenger list of the ship, was a very large one, many people choosing this particular steamer because Roosevelt was on it, and the saloon

He's good enough for all of us!
A Davenport cartoon of the presidential campaign of 1904 in which Mr. Bryan was thought to be not wholly averse to Judge Parker's defeat
on the evening when Davenport spoke was crowded to its extreme capacity. Davenport's "chalk talks" consisted of a series of stories, usually humorous, each one being illustrated by a picture or a portrait which he rapidly drew with black crayon on a very large-sized pad of brown paper placed on an easel in sight of the audience. On this particular evening the last story which he told was one about Admiral Dewey. The story, somewhat condensed, ran about as follows:
At the time when Admiral Dewey was being bitterly attacked in the newspapers, and criticized throughout the country because of the disposition which he made of the house presented to him in honour of his victory at Manila, I published in one of the newspapers a cartoon in his defense. I thought the Admiral was most outrageously treated, and I rather laid myself out to make the cartoon a striking and effective one. A few days after it was published a friend of mine who knew Dewey met me on the street in New York and said: "Dewey has seen your cartoon and wants to see you. Will you go over to Washington?" "Sure," I replied. We went over, and my friend took me to the Admiral's house. We entered the drawing room; I was presented to Mrs. Dewey; and just as the Admiral came forward to give me his hand, he burst into tears and threw himself upon a sofa in a paroxysm of weeping. Mrs. Dewey apologized and said: "You must excuse the Admiral, Mr. Davenport. He has been wrought almost to a pitch of nervous prostration by the unjust attacks made upon him. We had decided to go to Europe, never to set foot on American soil again, and had actually packed our trunks when we saw your cartoon. It was the first ray of light, and made us change our minds, and we have decided to remain in America, although some of our trunks are still upstairs just as we packed them for our departure."
Davenport thereupon rapidly sketched a portrait of Admiral Dewey and his talk or lecture was finished. There were calls for Mr.> Roosevelt. He rose:

" Mr. Davenport," said he," may I ask if the story you have just related of Admiral Dewey is accurate in all its details, or have you taken the pardonable liberty of an artist and put in a little colour?"
"No," answered Davenport, "the incident is just as I related it, in every detail."

Whereupon Mr. Roosevelt paid an eloquent tribute to Dewey, defending him from the attacks that had been made upon him, and, after thanking Davenport, sat down. I happened to be next to him, and immediately on taking his seat he turned to me, and—recalling the numerous times in the month or two preceding in which he had remarked that he was "going down like Dewey"—said, sotto voce, "Lawrence, they may treat me like Dewey, but I'll tell you one thing, I shall neither weep nor shall I go to Europe!"

Unhappily first the country and then the Government did treat him like Dewey, but he neither wept nor did he abandon his country. He did not even show resentment or disappointment, but kept up his fight to the very end, in the greatest good spirits. His buoyancy, his capacity to rise superior to all external disappointments, was, I think, one of his greatest qualities.
When Roosevelt arrived in New York in June, 1910, after more than a year's absence, and after President Taft's Administration had been in power for more than a year, he found the Republican party in a condition of chaos, if not completely disrupted. He believed that under the leaders then in control the party was going backward, that instead of being a party of progress it was becoming a party of reaction. His foresight was confirmed in the autumn by the Democratic victories and especially by the loss to the Republican party of Ohio, President Taft's own state. The disruption was caused by "Cannonism" the term used to describe Speaker "Joe" Cannon's control of party councils and party legislation, by the controversy over the Ballinger case and by Mr. Taft's apparent indecision and inconsistent public utterances on the tariff question. This domination of the reactionary group led some of the younger and forward-looking men in the party to make a protest. It was rebellion, and was in fact called the Insurgent Movement. It is well to remember that the Insurgents (so-called) of 1910 were the direct political progenitors of the Progressives of 1912.

It is, of course, a fact that not long after his return from Europe in 1910 Mr. Roosevelt did plunge into active politics again, was elected a delegate to the State Republican Convention at Saratoga, and made himself the leader of that convention, not by "steam-roller methods"—for he did not possess the power of official authority—but by the sheer force of his personal influence and persuasive argument. He not only did not shut off debate but contended that the "Old Guard," or Reactionary Group, should have complete freedom of discussion and the right to vote untrammelled by any technical procedure. It was the most open and, in the best sense of the word, the most democratic convention that New York had seen for a long time. Roosevelt's candidate for governor, Mr. Henry L. Stimson—later from 1911 to 1913 Secretary of War—was nominated for governor although he was defeated for election in the autumn by Mr. Dix, the Democratic candidate. Mr. Stimson's defeat at the polls was regarded as a defeat for Roosevelt, and his opponents asserted that it meant the elimination of his active influence or authority in American politics. But in this judgment they were as mistaken as he himself had been when he compared himself to Admiral Dewey.

How is it possible to reconcile Mr. Roosevelt's professions that he wished to keep out of active politics and had no ambition for political preferment, with his political activities in the summer of 1910, his organization of the Progressive party in 1912, and his candidacy for President under the auspices of that party ? It was commonly said at the time, and is perhaps now believed by some people, that his course was prompted by the desire to destroy Mr. Taft politically because of rancour and antagonism that had sprung up between them. Fortunately I have in my possession a document which may throw some light upon this question.

I had known through intimate association with Mr. Roosevelt of all the incidents which had led to the estrangement between himself and Mr. Taft. In the various political contests between 1910 and 1912 people had not infrequently come to me and asked for the facts, or had made statements to me that I knew were not accurate. I finally went to Mr. Roosevelt and asked his permission to describe the situation as I knew it, permission being necessary, I thought, because my knowledge had been acquired through confidential relationships. For example, when he left New York for Africa, in March, 1909,1 went with him, by invitation, to the steamer on which he sailed. Just before the ship pulled out into the stream I asked whether there were not something I could do of final service. "Yes," he said, "I wish you would send a telegram to Taft." I thereupon sat down at a table in the suite of rooms which he was to occupy and took down in long hand, at his dictation, a message—-which I later despatched myself to Mr. Taft—a cordial and warm-hearted telegram bidding his old friend, now his successor in the White House, good-bye.

I later learned that Mr. Roosevelt never received any reply or acknowledgment of his telegram, and that the first communication which came to him "from Mr. Taft was not received until a year and three months later, when he arrived in London, although friends and acquaintances, and even strangers, had sent him, when he reached Khartum, cablegrams and letters of congratulation on his success in passing through the dangers of his African journey. This letter from Mr. Taft, written in his own hand, was received by Roosevelt in London in June, 1910. It stated the political difficulties into which the Republican party had been plunged and asked Mr. Roosevelt's counsel and help in extricating the party from those difficulties.
On receiving Mr. Roosevelt's permission to make public, as I saw fit, such facts as these and others I wrote in January, 1912, for the weekly paper in my own home town—the Cornwall, New York Local Press—an article which was stated by the editor to give "some facts concerning the personal relations of President Taft and Mr. Roosevelt never before published." The issue in which this paper appeared was that of January 4, 1912. I did not consult Mr. Roosevelt while writing the article, but after it was printed I cut it out, pasted it on some sheets of white paper with wide margins, and showed it to him. These margins contain annotations, in his own hand, written with an indelible pencil. 
(A photographic reproduction of a portion of the "Local Press" article, showing Roosevelt's  autographic comments on the Presidential Campaign of 1908, {Could not be reproduced with a scan for this project, sorry.)

It seems to me that the best way I can interpret Mr. Roosevelt's course from 1908 to 1912 is to quote here the essential portions of that article giving especially his own notes upon my statements. I do this with some reluctance because Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt resumed friendly relations before the latter's death, and because I personally share in the country's affection for Mr. Taft's genial kindliness of spirit. But my purpose, indeed my duty is to interpret Mr. Roosevelt, and that can only be done by frankly stating the facts connected with the Progressive campaign of 1912.
the "local press" article with mr. roosevelt's annotations

In order to understand the present political situation [January 1912] with regard to the presidential nomination next summer it may be interesting to review Mr. Roosevelt's connection with National politics during the last three years.
In 1908 Mr. Roosevelt declined the Republican nomination which he could very easily have had. In fact, the party tried everything in its power to make him take it. But he stood by his public statement, made in 1904, that he would not take the nomination in 1908 even if it were offered to him. In keeping this promise it is quite within the bounds of truth to say that he worked harder to prevent his nomination in 1908 than most presidential candidates have to work to capture a nomination. [This statement was one that Roosevelt made to me in more than one conversation.]

Mr. Roosevelt having eliminated himself, it was necessary for the Republican Party in 1908 to find a candidate who would be considered by the country as capable of carrying out the uncompleted programme of the Roosevelt Administration. The chief feature of this programme was the establishment of successful principles and methods by which the great railway and industrial corporations of the country could be brought under government control.

The three prominent figures in the Republican Party at that time, next to Mr. Roosevelt, were Governor Hughes, Secretary Root and Secretary Taft. Governor Hughes had not then won the great national confidence which he afterward enjoyed. It was thought by the political managers, unjustly no doubt, that he did not possess those qualities of personal magnetism, the lack of which defeated President Harrison in 1892.

Mr. Root, a great lawyer and a great Secretary of State, was a man of presidential timber, and in my judgment would have made a great President, but there was at that time throughout the country such a feeling of antagonism toward the great corporations and so-called trusts, that it was believed that Mr. Root's reputation as a great corporation lawyer might endanger his election. This was especially feared in view of the fact that Mr. Bryan was likely to make an anti-corporation campaign. [Note by Mr. Roosevelt: "I found that the westerners would not stand Root."}
It is easy enough now to look back and feel that probably any high minded Republican could have been elected, but those who remember the activities of the campaign of 1908 will also remember that there were times when even the Republican managers felt that Mr. Bryan's chances of election were altogether too good for their comfort.

When it was finally decided that the nomination of either Mr. Hughes or Mr. Root was out of the question for the reasons I have given above, Mr. Taft was left as the most available, I may almost say, the only available candidate. It has been sometimes said that his candidacy was forced upon the party by Mr. Roosevelt. This is not so. He was the free choice of the party. [Note by Mr. Roosevelt: "But it is so! I could not have nominated an extreme -progressive or an extreme conservative but I could by a turn of the hand have thrown the nomination to either Taft or Hughes. The only way to prevent my own nomination was for me actively to champion and to force the nomination of some one else; I chose Taft rather than Hughes, and I still think I was wise."} He had won a deservedly national reputation through his administration of the Philippine Islands; he had been a successful and popular Secretary of War; he was believed to understand intimately Mr. Roosevelt's philosophy and principles of government and to be in sympathy with them; he was a warm personal friend of Mr. Roosevelt; and his nomination gave satisfaction not only to the party but to the country. Mr. Roosevelt entered into the campaign for Mr. Taft's election with his characteristic enthusiasm and tireless vigour. His speeches, his letters, his knowledge of the conditions and his political experience contributed so largely to the successful result of the election that his critics have said that he alone nominated and elected Mr. Taft.

Unfortunately, some of Mr. Taft's advisers took this mistaken view of the case and, between the date of his election and his inauguration in 1909, urged him to separate himself so thoroughly from any Roosevelt associations that his administration could create its own policies and that thus he might be renominated and reelected in 1912-on his own individual merits "without any taint of Roosevetism."

When Mr. Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency on the death of Mr. McKinley he promised to carry out Mr. Mc-Kinley's policies. This he did loyally. He retained in his Cabinet all of the members of Mr. McKinley's Cabinet and it was not until he was elected in 1904 that he began to shape the government upon the policies, in centra-distinction to those of Mr. McKinley, which have now become historically associated with his administration. [Note by Mr, Roosevelt: "No; the mere force of events had made me strike absolutely my own note by October 1902, when I settled the coal strike and started the trust control campaign. In 190) I took Panama."]

Mr. Taft on his election no doubt wished to carry on the work of his predecessor, and, if not publicly, often privately said that it was his desire and intention to retain those Cabinet colleagues of Mr. Roosevelt who had contributed so much to the re-creation of the Republican Party. [Note by Mr. Roosevelt: "He told me so, and authorized me to tell the Cabinet, specifically Garfield, Straus and Luke Wright."} But this intention became gradually modified during the winter of 1908-09. Only one member of the Roosevelt Cabinet was retained, and the one member who was Mr. Roosevelt's most intimate associate and on whom he depended more than on any one else in his struggle to take the government out of the control of "big business," the member of all others whom he would have preferred to see retained, was not retained. I refer, of course to Mr. James Garfield, Mr. Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior.

In the Ballinger controversy, which has had so disastrous an effect upon the Taft Administration, another of Mr. Roosevelt's intimate colleagues, Mr. GifFord Pinchot, was practically dismissed. It was perfectly manifest from these and many other occurrences, of which these are only exampies, that Mr. Taft preferred to "go it alone." No one has ever accused Mr. Roosevelt of being dull in his perceptions. He quickly found that Mr. Taft wished to be relieved of any intimate Roosevelt associations, and he cheerfully and promptly acquiesced. One of the reasons why he went to Africa, to bury himself in the wilds for nearly a year, was to remove any possible ground for the charge that he was interfering with Mr. Taft's administration. [Mr. Roosevelt often told me that this was one of his motives for his African trip.]

People have said to me sometimes, "Why is it that Mr. Roosevelt, who was such an intimate friend of Mr. Taft's, ceased to maintain that intimacy after Mr. Taft got into the White House?" I should suppose it would be apparent to any one who stops to think that Mr. Roosevelt refrained from imposing himself upon the new President, from the highest sense of delicacy. The ex-President of a college who remains on the Board of Trustees, and constantly attempts to advise or correct or meddle with his successor is one of the most unpleasant persons in the world.

Mr. Roosevelt has never failed to respond quickly and cordially to the slightest wish expressed by Mr. Taft for his company or his advice. Take for instance one incident in the political campaign of the autumn of 1910 when Mr. Roosevelt was carrying on his almost single-handed fight in the State of New York. One stormy day Mr. Roosevelt jumped into a motor boat at Oyster Bay, crossed Long Island Sound, and had a private interview with Mr. Taft at New Haven, when the latter was attending a meeting of the Corporation of Yale University. The following day the newspapers announced—very unfortunately with the apparent acquiescence of those nearest to Mr. Taft—[as a matter of fact the announcement was made in an official despatch from the presidential train on which Mr. Taft was travelling] that the meeting was sought by Mr. Roosevelt for the purpose of getting some help in his contest with the "Old Guard" of the New York State Republican Machine. The facts are—and I have learned them not from Mr. Roosevelt but from a friend of Mr. Taft's who knew all the circumstances, that Mr. Taft sent word to Mr. Roosevelt asking Roosevelt to come in order that he, Mr. Taft, might get the benefits of Mr. Roosevelt's advice regarding the serious split in the national affairs of the Republican Party, which resulted from the fight of the "progressives" in Congress against so-called "Cannonism." The newspapers, not knowing the facts, said, "Aha! This is just like Roosevelt. He has neglected Mr. Taft but the moment he gets into trouble he runs to him for help!"
The exact contrary is true and when Mr. Taft called on Mr. Roosevelt he quickly and generously responded to the call.

These facts have never been published, for, of course, Mr. Roosevelt could not publish them; he simply had to grin and bear it, as he has borne many other unjustifiable criticisms. I am stating them now on my own responsibility without consultation with Mr. Roosevelt, as an example of the misinterpretation which every man in public life has often to undergo. [Note by Mr. Roosevelt: "My personal feeling about Taft's relations with me never influenced by one iota my public course; it took 18 months to convince me that he was a first-class lieutenant, but no leader, with no real conviction on or appreciation of the magnitude of the really vital problems before this country."]
He [Mr. Roosevelt] arrived in New York about the middle of June, 1910, and began at once to devote himself to the editorial work on the Outlook. The gubernatorial campaign of this state was in full swing. Some of the younger leaders in the party came to him and asked him to go into the campaign. He declined. They said to him that it was not fair to decline; that the Republican Party had heaped honours upon him and that now in the time of its tribulation and
danger when they were honestly trying to purge it of some of the corrupt elements he ought not to desert them. "If that is the way you feel about it," was his reply, "I will take hold and do what I can, but I warn you that there is hardly a fighting chance for success and that we shall all probably go down to ignominious defeat together." [Note by Mr. Roosevelt: "Hughes in especial asked me."]
The result of the campaign is a matter of record. Mr. Roosevelt was defeated. For a time he suffered from a most pronounced reversal of popularity and his opponents and his critics rejoiced in their openly expressed belief that he was permanently down and out. He made no complaint but went on with his editorial work, discussing questions of politics and public importance with zest and without repining. As the year 1911 came into its last quarter, the people of the State, even some of the most enthusiastic supporters of Governor Dix, began to perceive that what Mr. Roosevelt had said in his public speeches during the campaign was true. The defeat of Mr. Stimson meant the saddling of Tammany upon the whole political machinery of the State.
What Mr. Roosevelt does or says will be interpreted by some critics to his disadvantage. In the building where the Outlook has its offices there are two elevators, one in the main hall and one in the side hall. Mr. Roosevelt once said with a laugh during the campaign of 1910 when the Outlook office was crowded with people who came to consult him: "If I go down in the front elevator, my critics call it ostentation; if I go down in the side elevator, they call it secretiveness!"
If Mr. Roosevelt is ever elected President again it will not be because he seeks or wants the office; it will be because the country wants him in the office to perform a certain job. He has had all the political and official honours that any normal man can possibly want. He accepted a nomination for the Vice-Presidency in 1900 when such a nomination was thought to be equivalent to political oblivion, and although he wanted to run again for governor of the State of New York in order to complete some important work in that office. But his friends told him that it was his duty to sacrifice himself in order to strengthen Mr. McKinley's nomination and the campaign for sound money and the financial honour of the Nation. He accepted the nomination on that ground, although at the time both his friends and his enemies said it would mean the end of his political career. But instead of plunging into oblivion it brought to him an election to the Presidency in 1904 by one of the largest popular and electoral majorities ever received by an American President. This is what his critics call "Roosevelt luck."

In 1908 he not only declined, but put a stop to his nomination at a time when such a nomination was equivalent to an election. He has a European reputation as a statesman which has never been surpassed by any other American in political life and he appears to-day to be as popular among his own countrymen as he ever was. What possible incentive can there be to a man with such a record of achievements and honours to enter the arduous, disagreeable and often disastrous contests into which the candidate who struggles for the Presidency is inevitably plunged.
To be understood properly the notes which Roosevelt made upon the document here reproduced need some interpretation. He wrote them briefly and categorically because he was aware that I would understand them without amplification.

   When he says: "I could have nominated Hughes more easily than Taft" or: "I could not have nominated an extreme Progressive or an extreme Conservative," he means, of course, not that he was acting as a dictator but as the acknowledged leader of his party to whom not only the party managers but the delegates themselves came for advice. What they wanted was that he should tell them whom they should vote for in the convention if not for him. It was his moral and personal leadership and not his dictatorial and official power that made him the arbiter of the nomination.

The same interpretation is to be given to his phrase: "In 1903 I took Panama." Of course he could not have taken it in the sense in which Philip II of Spain took the free cities of the Netherlands. The meaning of the phrase will be more clear if it is paraphrased in this way: "In 1903 I took action, guided almost solely by my own judgment of what was wise and proper, that resulted in the building of the Panama Canal." The fact that the inhabitants and the government of Panama itself were the most enthusiastic supporters and approvers of this action is proof that Roosevelt did not use the verb "to take" in the sense of seizure or conquest.

What he says about Mr. Taft being "a first-class lieutenant but no leader, with no real convictions on or appreciation of the magnitude of the really vital problems before the country," I shall discuss more fully later. He did not mean that Mr. Taft had no convictions of any kind. On the contrary, I am convinced that he believed Mr. Taft's convictions on legal and judicial questions were of a very high order. In another chapter, that entitled "A Man of Letters," I quote in full Roosevelt's own statement of the reasons that led him to become a Progressive. From the time of his governorship of the State of New York he had been slowly but steadily coming to the conviction that there needed to be a thorough-going reform of the relations of government to industry both as regards capital and as regards labour. He felt that the country was approaching a crisis in its social and industrial conditions, a feeling that the outcome of the European war has more than confirmed. His belief was that Mr. Taft did not share this conviction and did not appreciate the magnitude and imminence of the crisis. The cleavage between the two men was due not to friction in their personal relations but to a fundamental difference in their point of view. The personal friction was not the cause but the result of the difference in their political philosophies. I hope it is not presumptuous in me to say that I think Mr. Taft's attitude toward these social and human problems has changed since 1912, and that he and Roosevelt found themselves much more in agreement during the last year of the European war. Mr. Taft's vigorous and broadminded leadership in support of the plan for a League of Nations against the bitter opposition of powerful members of his own party discloses those qualities of statesmanship in matters of national and international procedure which originally drew him and Roosevelt together during the years of the latter's Presidency.

The statement that "Hughes in especial asked me" refers to these facts: Mr. Hughes at the Harvard Commencement of 1910 added his urgency to that of the younger Republicans who were begging Roosevelt to go into the state campaign of that year. Mr. Hughes put this request on the ground that the Direct Primary cause which he had inaugurated needed Roosevelt's backing. Roosevelt assented and went into the fight, but somewhat to his chagrin Mr. Hughes then failed to give him any active support in the contest.

As the Local Press article was commented upon by Mr. Roosevelt and in that way received the stamp of his personal approval it may be taken as a fair indication of his state of mind as to politics at the opening of the campaign of 1912. The dissatisfaction of the Liberals or "Progressives" in the Republican party with the course of Mr. Taft's administration had steadily grown during 1911. Early in 1912 President Taft made a speech at Cleveland in which he reviewed and defended his Administration. The Outlook made the following comment on that speech, and as Mr. Roosevelt was then a member of the editorial staff I know that its comment was not inharmonious with his own view.
Why is it that there should be wide-spread popular discontent with the Administration, not only on the part of the President's political opponents, but also within the ranks of the President's own party?

In the first place, the President [Mr. Taft] has allowed himself to become identified in the public mind with those elements in his party which have been frankly opposed to progress. It was not, for example, merely his defense of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, as made in his Winona speech, that set the Progressive element in his own party to questioning his attitude; it was even more the evidence that in the conferences over the tariff he seemed to find most congenial to him those leaders in the party who had been most opposed to real tariff reform. Another illustration of this point was the famous Norton letter, in which it was admitted that the President had used Federal patronage against the Progressives in Congress. This feeling on the part of the Progressive element in the party has been confirmed by many expressions of the President himself. A notable illustration occurs in the closing sentence of his Cleveland speech:

"On this, the natal day of William McKinley, let us
take new vows in behalf of the Grand Old Party, standing by the Constitution, standing by the rights of liberty and property of the individual, and willing to face defeat many times in behalf of the cause of sound Constitutional government."

This might have been said in exactly these words by Mr. Cannon or any of the so-called standpatters who believe that the prime function of party government is to promote material prosperity or mere money-making. In such a sentence there is no hint of that feeling for which the Progressive element of Mr. Taft's party stands, that feeling which is growing more and more throughout the country—that in the end when human rights clash with property rights, human rights should prevail. In this sentence there is no hint of really sympathetic understanding of that movement which has changed the complexion of Congress and which has put the reactionary element in both parties on the defensive.
The Progressive element, for the reasons thus set forth, was busily seeking for a candidate representing the Liberal wing of the Republican party who could be put in nomination against Mr. Taft at the National Republican Convention at Chicago in June. The Liberal leaders were in constant consultation with Mr. Roosevelt, and his office was daily crowded with people. It was a veritable political headquarters. When urged to accept the titular leadership of the Liberal wing he steadily declined, and more than once I heard him say during this period that, while he was glad to help in any way he could, Senator La Follette of Wisconsin was the man on whom the Liberals must probably depend. This was not because of his personal admiration for Senator La Follette, about whom there was much which was not sympathetic to Roosevelt, but because he thought that justice to Senator La Follette required recognition of the sacrifices he had made in fighting the champions of reaction, for the Senator had devoted himself for many years with unflagging energy to the cause of popular government as opposed to special privilege.

But in February, 1912, Senator La Follette collapsed in an aggravated attack of nervous prostration. This collapse came in a dramatic and tragic fashion while he was making a speech at the annual dinner of the Periodical Publishers' Association in Philadelphia, a speech which I happened to hear and which culminated in one of the most painful public spectacles I have ever witnessed. As a result of that unfortunate episode, during which for two hours the Senator rambled on, sometimes violently, sometimes incoherently, his friends and political managers announced his withdrawal as a presidential candidate.

The pressure upon Mr. Roosevelt then became greater than ever. He finally said that if there was any evidence that a considerable body of the Republican party wanted him to be a candidate he would agree to follow their wishes. Whereupon seven Republican governors, of the states of West Virginia, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Kansas, and Missouri, addressed a letter to Mr. Roosevelt urging him to be a candidate and saying:
We feel that you will be unresponsive to a plain public duty if you decline to accept the nomination coming as the voluntary expression of the wishes of a majority of the Republican voters of the United States through the action of their delegates in the next National Convention.
Even before this letter was sent to Mr. Roosevelt steps had been taken in various parts of the country to elect Roosevelt delegates to the National Convention. Mr. Roosevelt believed that this letter of the seven governors was voicing a common popular demand and he replied, agreeing to become a candidate. In his letter he said:
One of the chief principles for which I have stood and for which I now stand and which I have always endeavoured and always shall endeavour to reduce to action, is the genuine rule of the people; and, therefore, I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to who shall be the nominee of the Republican Presidential Convention.
On the publication of the letter of the seven governors and Roosevelt's reply the campaign began with a full swing. Indeed, in so far as Mr.
     Roosevelt's political principles and policies were concerned, it had begun some weeks before, for early in February he had been invited to address the Constitutional Convention in Columbus, the capital city of Ohio, and had there stated certain principles which he called "A Charter of Democracy."    He announced his belief in the short ballot; in direct nominations by the people including preferential primaries for the election of delegates to the national nominating conventions; in the election of United States senators by direct vote; in the initiative and referendum "which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresen-tative"; and finally he promulgated a theory which, because it was misinterpreted and misunderstood, raised a tremendous storm in the campaign—the theory of "The  Recall of Judicial  Decisions." Briefly, he asserted that under this doctrine the voters at the ballot box should have an opportunity of saying whether a law nullified by the courts as contrary to the Constitution was in fact unconstitutional or not.   On reading the speech it is apparent he had in mind the application of this principle or doctrine only to the individual states with regard to laws affecting social justice and that he doubted whether it could be adopted with regard to decisions of the United States Supreme
Court.

Not long after this address, which was popularly known throughout the campaign as the Columbus speech, he made another at Carnegie Hall in the City of New York. It was delivered on March 20, 1912, under the auspices of The Civic Forum, a non-partisan organization. The Carnegie Hall speech was notable for two or three things. In it he took issue with Mr. Taft for the first time in public. He said:
Mr. Taft's position is the position that has been held from the beginning of our government, although not always so openly held, by a large number of the reputable and honourable men who, down at bottom, distrust popular government, and, when they must accept it, accept it with reluctance, and hedge it round with every species of restriction and check and balance, so as to make the power of the people as limited and as ineffective as possible. Mr. Taft fairly defines the issue when he says that our government is and should be a government of all the people by a representative part of the people. This is an excellent and moderate description of an oligarchy. It defines our government as a government of all of the people by a few of the people. Mr. Taft, in his_able speech, has made what is probably the best possible presentation of the case for those who feel in this manner.
He reaffirmed the creed which he had uttered before the Ohio Constitutional Convention saying:
I stand on the Columbus speech. The principles there asserted are not new, but I believe that they are necessary to the maintenance of free, democratic government. The part of my speech in which I advocated the right of the people to be the final arbiters of what is due process of law in the case of statutes enacted for the general welfare will ultimately, I am confident, be recognized as giving strength and support to the courts instead of being revolutionary and subversive.
The Carnegie Hall speech contains a good example of Roosevelt's enjoyment in occasionally treating his own foibles humorously, in poking fun at himself, so to speak. William Draper Lewis, Dean of the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, who afterward became intimately associated with Roosevelt in the Progressive campaign, had, in a newspaper article, referred to the recall of judicial decisions with approval on the whole. He had commended the plan as being not only in favour of popular rights but as entirely harmonious with the best-established legal principles, adding, however:
I think it unfortunate that it should have been proposed by Colonel Roosevelt. He is a man of such marked characteristics and his place in the political world is such that he arouses intense enthusiasms on the one hand and intense animosities on the other. Because of this, the great idea which he has propounded is bound to be beclouded and its adoption to be delayed. It is a pity that anything so important should be confounded with any man's personality.
During his speech Roosevelt read Dean Lewis's entire critique of the plan and said with that characteristic intonation of voice which indicated his sense of humour:
As regards the Dean's last paragraph I can only say that I wish somebody else whose suggestions would arouse less antagonism had proposed it; but nobody else did propose it and so I had to. I am not leading this fight as a matter of aesthetic pleasure. I am leading because somebody must lead, or else the fight would not be made at all.
The Carnegie Hall speech contained one of the most eloquent and moving passages in the whole range of Roosevelt's public utterances. Toward the conclusion of the speech he uttered these words:
Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social and industrial justice, achieved through the genuine rule of the people. This is our end, our purpose. The methods for achieving the end are merely expedients, to be finally accepted or rejected according as actual experience shows that they work well or ill. But in our hearts we must have this lofty purpose, and we must strive for it in all earnestness and sincerity, or our work will come to nothing. In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; arid if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is "Spend and be spent." It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind.
The audience, recognizing the personal implication of these words, responded by instinctively rising to their feet and bursting into a storm of applause. I happened to be sitting in a box and could look down upon the people who filled every available seat in the body of the hall. I noticed William Barnes of Albany, the well-known leader of the "Old Guard" faction in the Republican party, a typical reactionary, who had fought Roosevelt in the gubernatorial campaign of 1910 and who was later to engage in a bitter libel suit with him as a result of their political antagonisms. But Barnes rose and applauded with the rest. A friend told me that when Barnes later in the evening at one of the clubs was twitted for this public tribute to his arch-enemy he replied: "Why, I was on my feet before I knew it. Roosevelt, confound him, has a kind of magnetism that you cannot resist when you are in his presence!"

It is not necessary here to go into the historical details of the Progressive campaign. Roosevelt was the popular candidate for the Republican nomination. He was seeking not merely the nomination, but to establish the free primary system by which the people at large could exercise their choice directly in the National conventions. At the Republican Convention in Chicago delegates who were elected to vote for his nomination were refused credentials and delegates whom he and his friends believed did not represent popular will but who were pledged to vote for Mr. Taft were seated. Roosevelt felt that this was not merely an injustice to himself but that it was a corrupt and brazen violation of popular rights. How close he came to the nomination was related as follows by one of my associates on the staff of the Outlook, Mr. Travers Carman, who accompanied Roosevelt to the Republican Convention as a personal friend and aide.
It was known that Mr. Roosevelt lacked twenty-eight delegates (my recollection is that this was the number) to secure the nomination. The most memorable conference I ever attended (and I was there merely in the capacity of "doorman") was held that night at the Colonel's headquarters on the second floor of the Congress Hotel, and attended only by those most concerned in the success of Mr. Roosevelt's campaign. The entire situation was carefully discussed, analyzed, and dissected. By questionable means the Colonel would not, and by fair means apparently he could not, secure the nomination, and then came the memorable climax; a delegate to see Mr. Roosevelt, on a vitally important matter, who, when admitted to the conference, announced with ill-concealed excitement that he represented thirty-two Southern delegates to the Republican Convention who would pledge themselves to vote for the Colonel as the Presidential candidate, provided that they would be permitted to vote with the old-line Republicans on all motions with reference to party organization, platform, etc. Here were thirty-two votes, and all that Mr. Roosevelt needed was twenty-eight.

Without a moment's hesitation and in the deathlike silence of that room the Colonel's answer rang out, clearly and distinctly: "Thank the delegates you represent, but tell them that I cannot permit them to vote for me unless they vote for all progressive principles for which I have fought, for which the Progressive element in the Republican party stands and by which I stand or fall."

Strong men broke down under the stress of that night. Life-long friends of Mr. Roosevelt endeavoured to persuade him to reconsider his decision. After listening patiently he turned to two who had been urging him to accept the offer of the Southern delegates, placed a hand on the shoulder of each, and said: "I have grown to regard you both as brothers; let no act or word of yours make that relationship impossible."
While the formalities of Mr. Taft's nomination were as yet incomplete the delegates supporting Mr. Roosevelt, who were convinced that they were a true majority of the Republican Convention, gathered almost spontaneously in Orchestra Hall and nominated Roosevelt for the Presidency. The Progressive party was thus born. It was completely organized in every state in the Union during the next few weeks and cast more than four million votes in November. It was a political achievement, solely the fruit of Roosevelt's extraordinary personality, unparalleled in the history of this country—or any other for that matter.

The Progressive campaign was one of very deep feeling and earnestness and of some bitterness, although I do not think that the bitterness was greater—perhaps it was even less—than that of the presidential campaigns of my boyhood and early manhood. Possibly the very fact that they had formerly been close friends led both Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt to feel especially strongly about the personal contest in which they had become involved. This peculiar feeling of antagonism found vent in two speeches, both made in New England, one by Mr. Taft, and one by Mr. Roosevelt, in which some invective was employed on both sides. I think it is only fair to Mr. Roosevelt's memory to say that it was not he who cast the first stone, but that he struck back only when he felt that he had been himself "hit below the belt." And during the rest of the campaign, although his own motives were repeatedly attacked, he never resorted to aspersing the motives or personal character of his opponents.

That, however, is happily an episode of the past, and it is a satisfaction to all their friends, many of whom shared their friendship with each man, that the two ex-Presidents were reconciled before the end came. Whatever harshness of language Mr. Roosevelt may have employed in the one speech to which I have referred, acrimony was not at all characteristic of him. Indeed, there may well be repeated of him what Lord Rosebery, in his life of William Pitt, said of Charles James Fox:
The mastering passion of Fox's mature life was the love of liberty; it is this which made him take a vigorous, occasionally an intemperate, part against every man or measure in which he could trace the taint or tendency to oppression; it is this which sometimes made him speak with unworthy bitterness; but it was this which gave him moral power, which has neutralized the errors of his political career, which makes his faults forgotten and his memory sweet.
During the entire summer of 1912, while he was involved in a contest that cost him friendships and associations that meant much to him, he preserved his poise and equanimity in a very marked degree. He went through the National campaign of 1912 as he went through the state campaign of 1910, in a vigorous, alert, undismayed, and actually happy frame of mind. I think he was sustained by the knowledge that there were thousands upon thousands of Americans, whom he had never seen or spoken to, who liked him and trusted him. My brother who once made a campaign trip with him, during the period in which the Progressive party was gradually developing, has described as follows, for a French periodical, this affection of the plain people for the man whom they delighted to call "Teddy":
It was my fortune to accompany him on this journey in a private car. He was not then President, for he had retired from office the year before; he was not a candidate for election. He was simply a private citizen; but everywhere people came in throngs to greet him. He was their man. I remember one night, while the train was rushing through one of the great central prairie states, I looked out of the window just before I went to sleep and saw in the lighted doorway of one isolated farmhouse a little family group gathered and waving a flag; as I watched, another farmhouse flashed by and there was another little group waving their salute. It was as if they had waited up to bid a welcome and a good-bye to a brother, though they knew in advance he would be unseen and unseeing. And in the morning I waked up very early; it was scarcely dawn; but as I looked out the people were up and greeting their friend. All night long, apparently, these friends of Theodore Roosevelt whom he never saw, one family group after another, had been giving him their benediction.

Another day on this same journey stands out in my memory. It was a Sunday. Mr. Roosevelt had stated positively that he would make no speeches that day. The special train was to run from the morning until almost dusk without a stop. It had not run far when I heard a strange sound. It swelled suddenly into a confusion of voices and then subsided. I looked out. We had just passed a railway station in a wide stretch of country. Around the station I saw a crowd of people. Where had this crowd come from? Every farmhouse for miles must have contributed its entire household. Again as we passed another station came the crescendo and diminuendo of the sound of voices. Mr. Roosevelt came out from his stateroom where he had been reading. He could not pass these friends of his, friends he had never before seen, but friends who had cared so much for him that they had driven for miles over the rough country roads, in all sorts of vehicles, simply in order to be beside the track as his train went by. So thirty times that day the sound of cheering voices swelled, thirty times the train stopped, thirty times Mr. Roosevelt left his reading to be out on the rear platform and greet those who had for the most part never seen him, and had no hope of seeing him, but who came just to show their friendship.
I am reminded, by my brother's account of Roosevelt's genius for friendship, of an incident which came under my own observation.

During the gubernatorial campaign of 1910, which resulted in the defeat of Mr. Roosevelt's object, a defeat which I think he foresaw, he maintained his good spirits and even gayety of humour, although it must have been a very trying summer. The days that he spent at his office were constantly interrupted by an interminable procession of callers with all of whom he was patient, although in only a few cases could he have had any interest in seeing them. One day while I was seated in his private office, which was a fairly good-sized room, his secretary announced Senator Carter of Montana. The Senator was shown into the room. He was dressed, as I recall it, in a gray frock coat.    His round face, surmounted with red hair, shone with pleasure.

To my intense amazement Mr. Roosevelt leaped out of his chair, seized the Senator by the hands and they began dancing back and forth across the room, chanting the following doggerel in unison:
"Oh, the Irish and the Dutch They don't amount to much, But huroo for the Scandinoo-vian!"
After Senator Carter had left, Mr. Roosevelt, amused at the look of surprised interrogation on my face, volunteered the following explanation: "Tom Carter is a good friend of mine, although we have often disagreed radically on political principles and issues. He is something of a standpatter and I am afraid he sometimes thinks I am something of a visionary crank. Some years ago, during a political campaign, he and I were scheduled to speak on the same occasion in a town of the Northwest. When we came out of the hall and were walking along the boardwalk of the little village to our hotel we met a huge Swede or Norwegian who was somewhat exhilarated from pouring too many libations in honour of the Republican party. As he zigzagged his way along the narrow sidewalk, we had to step aside to avoid a collision. He was singing at the top of his lungs that song about the Irish and the Dutch. Now Senator Carter is Irish and I am Dutch and we thought it was a very good joke on us. So every time we have met since, unless there are too many people about, we are apt to greet each other as we did just now. It has become a kind of ritual."

The Progressive campaign of 1912, with its exhausting work and its depressing disappointments, was a severe test for any man. Roosevelt came through it with two of his marked and engaging personal qualities unimpaired—his capacity for friendship and his unquenchable sense of humour.