CHAPTER 14
The "Bull Moose"

AFTER more than a year's absence in Africa and Europe, Roosevelt returned to the United States in June, 1910, and again, both by inclination and the compelling force of circumstances, took an active interest in politics.

While Roosevelt was hunting in Africa, there came a sharp division in the Republican party.  The conservatives who supported Taft and the rebels who could see no good in his policies developed into bitter factions, each of which tried to win the support of Roosevelt when he returned home crowned with world honors.  For a time Roosevelt kept silent, hearing both sides of the matter, weighing the evidence in the dispute, trying to determine whether it was wise to continue the support he had given Taft formerly, or to listen to these new but strong voices that had arisen in his party since he himself left the Presidency.

The first indication of the stand Roosevelt was to take appeared when he let it become known that he approved Gifford Pinchot's stand in his controversy with Ballinger, whom Taft had supported.  He also announced that he opposed certain treaties with Japan and South America which Taft was advocating.  As the months passed Taft became the champion of conservative Republicanism, and the forceful personality and progressive spirit of Roosevelt made him the natural leader of the revolting group.

In 1910 Roosevelt made a tour of the country, in which he announced the doctrine of the New Nationalism.  He advocated a closer relation between the states and the national government; making economic opportunity equal; conserving the resources of the nation; military preparedness; and the shifting of the viewpoints of the courts from too much emphasis on the security of property and contracts to a greater concern for the welfare of human beings.

To these principles Roosevelt added, in 1912, the issues of direct nominations, preferential primaries, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall for judicial decisions as well as for officials.  These reforms he announced as a new Charter for Democracy and when, in 1912, in answer to the appeal of seven Governors, he announced that he would become a candidate for the Presidency, these doctrines were embodied in the platform of his party.

Roosevelt made a typically strenuous fight for the control of delegates to the national Republican Convention, and when he was defeated he and his supporters created the Progressive party, by which at Chicago, he was nominated for the Presidency.  In response to those who criticized him for seeking a third term when he had previously announced that he would not accept another nomination, he explained that he had meant three consecutive terms.

It was while he was conducting a whirlwind campaign for election that he was shot by a crank.  The shooting occurred in Milwaukee.  Roosevelt was entering the automobile that was to drive him to the meeting place when the fanatic fired at him.  The bullet lodged in his shoulder.  With characteristic dauntlessness, Roosevelt insisted on going on the platform, where he told the waiting multitude that he had been shot, and then went on to deliver a rousing speech that lasted over an hour.

When Woodrow Wilson heard of the assault upon Roosevelt, he chivalrously offered to discontinue his own campaign, but the Colonel refused this concession.  After a few days spent in recuperation he resumed his speaking tour with undiminished vigor.  In the Presidential election which followed he received eighty eight electoral votes.  He had divided the Republican party in all states.  In twenty eight of the states he received a majority over Taft.  Through this division in the Republican ranks, Woodrow Wilson became President.

WORLD PEACE

While Roosevelt and Wilson were for the most part in opposition to each other, some have wrongly said, with regard to the proposal for a league of nations, that Roosevelt was backward and reactionary in his attitude.  This is directly confuted by the prophetic speech he delivered at Christiania, Norway, May 5, 1910, while on his world tour.  His utterance there shows that fundamentally President Wilson and he were thinking alike on this subject:

"Something should be done as soon as possible to check the growth of armaments, especially naval armaments, by international agreement.  No one power could or should act by itself; for it is eminently undesirable, from the standpoint of peace and righteousness, that a power which really does believe in peace should place itself at the mercy of some rival which may at bottom have no such belief and no intention of acting on it.

"But, granted sincerity of purpose, the great powers of the world should find no insurmountable difficulty in reaching an agreement which would put an end to the present costly and growing extravagances of expenditures on naval armaments.  An agreement merely to limit the size of ships would have been very useful a few years ago, and would still be of use; but the agreement should go much further.

"Finally, it would be a master stroke if those great powers honestly bent on peace would form a league of peace, not only to keep peace among themselves, but to prevent by force if necessary, its being broken by others.

"The supreme difficulty in connection with developing the peace work of The Hague arises from the lack of any executive power, of any police power to enforce the decrees of the court.  In any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon actual or potential force; on the existence of a police, or on the knowledge that the able bodied men of the country are both ready and willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are put into effect.

"In new and wild communities where there is violence, an honest man must protect himself, and until other means of securing his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him to surrender his arms while the men who are dangerous to the community remain there.  He should not renounce the right to protect himself by his own efforts until the community is so organized that it can effectively relieve the individual of the duty of putting down violence.

"So it is with nations.  Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations.  As things are now, such powers to command peace throughout the world could best be assured by some combination between those great nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves of committing aggressions.  The combination might at first be only to secure peace within certain definite limits and certain definite conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a combination would have earned his place in history for all time and his title to the gratitude of all mankind."