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be far more useful in New York. And Root said

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with his frank and murderous smile- 'Of course not you're not fit for it.' So he went back to New York, quite eased in mind, but considerably bruised in his amour propre.”

That free-hand letter-written quite in ignorance and somewhat out of sympathy was a literary enunciation from the mind of the author of "Little Breeches" rather than a judicial opinion from the Honorable John Hay, efficient Secretary of State. Roosevelt had scented a real danger afar off and was struggling blindly to meet it. On his return to New York he made his wishes known very plainly to Senator Platt. He even declared vehemently that if he could not go before the voters of the State as gubernatorial candidate, on his record, for another term, he would rather retire to private life. Platt, the wily fox, affected to acquiesce in this decision. But his plans had been laid and he did not intend to relinquish them. He had suffered too severely at Roosevelt's hands to allow that ardent young man any open door, or half-open door, for a return into the field of State politics, now that he was moving out of it by the completion of his term of service.

The Republican National Convention, for nomination of candidates, was now close at hand. And Platt, somewhat nervous, intimated that if Roose

velt would not accept the Vice-presidential nomination, he, Platt, would block him in his campaign for another term as Governor of New York. That was a mistaken move on the senator's part. Roosevelt took up the threat and declared to his astute foe that if the New York delegation were not instructed to vote for Woodruff as Vice-president, he, Roosevelt, would lay bare Platt's threat before the voters of New York.

But "the best laid schemes o' mice and men" went wrong, as often before. When the Convention got "under weigh", and Roosevelt delivered the nomination speech for McKinley, the delegates made their wishes known by applause, cheers, and demands that "Teddy" stand as candidate for the Vice-presidency. Roosevelt protested, pled with them, and did all he could to push back the overwhelming wave of enthusiasm which surged up toward him. But his efforts were only Partingtonian in their ineffective results. Almost to a man that assembly rose and thundered its lavish admiration and its insistent demands. Speeches followed and the demands became even more inexorable. One man summed up the need. "We want a ticket made up of McKinley a Western man with Eastern sympathies - and Roosevelt an Eastern man with Western sympathies." One of the delegates expressed the popular emotional

demand when he declared, "We want a candidate we can yell for." It went unsaid that nobody expected to "yell" for McKinley, even though he might vote for that genial gentleman.

So Roosevelt yielded and accepted. What else could he do? And he was "shelved", as he and Platt thought, although not so directly by Platt's agency as that old plotter had anticipated. But "shelved" he felt himself to be. And he was disappointed and depressed. As he said grimly to a friend, "I see no attractive outlook. I shall probably end my life as a professor in some small college." That was the cloud-shadowed future to which this eager young knight-errant looked. But, like a Sybilline prophecy, stand the words of one of my classmates on record to this day, words uttered by him soon after the Philadelphia Convention in 1900, "I would not like to stand in McKinley's shoes. He has a man of destiny behind him."

Historic facts justified the implications of this forecast. Four times in national history had vicepresidents been conducted to the presidential chair by that grim usher, Death. Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur had been thus advanced, as their nominating conventions had not anticipated. The last two of these changes had come through

the acts of assassins. And on this point history was to repeat itself.

Roosevelt, when once fairly embarked upon the national campaign, threw himself into it with all his wonted energy. He traveled through twentyfour States and made about seven hundred speeches. He wrote to a friend, "The National Committee have worked me nearly to death." Yet, exhausted as he was, he enjoyed it. We are sure of that. And what a transformation had come to the timid, embarrassed young man of college days -gasping after words, inaudible in his articulation

now standing before vast audiences and driving home his clear ideas and lofty ideals with freedom and force! His mental equipment had developed through the years; and his exceptional moral and emotional qualities needed no augmentation. His voice, however, remained throughout his life, as it was in his youth, comparatively weak and ineffective. In this campaign of 1900 he was accompanied by Curtis Guild, later honored Governor of the Old Bay State. He of the generous heart and diapason voice went as an understudy for Roosevelt, who often quite wore his fragile voice to a hoarse thread and was compelled to stop speaking.

There was power in Roosevelt's manner as a public speaker, to command and hold attention, even when his weak voice and the great size of the

crowd made him inaudible. A classmate has told me that he once stood in a crowd in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and saw Roosevelt in the open air, with wagons and trolley cars rattling and clanging, hold the attention of fully five thousand people, during an address of an hour.

If they could hear his words, any audience would sit or stand spellbound. And even when conditions prevented their hearing him clearly, there was such fascination and suggestion of power in his face and gestures that people stayed and stayed, hoping to catch something of the brilliant yet rational appeals he was making for some upright man or just and humane cause.

In this tour through the country with Curtis Guild, men and women everywhere were eager to look upon and listen to the "Rough Rider" and "Reform Governor of New York." His picturesque past and his fearless spirit were well known in every section of the country. When people first heard him, they were often disappointed during the opening sentences. But they soon forgot their disappointment in their growing interest in the ideas he was urging. He had but few of the physical assets and rhetorical arts of the orators. Like another great man, Phillips Brooks, he broke most of the rules of elocution; it was his earnestness and sincerity, his courage and also his humor

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