Among his fellow-workers in his district could be counted a Columbia professor, a former Columbia oarsman, an Irish quarryman, a master-carpenter, the proprietor of a small store, a rich young merchant, the editor of a little German newspaper, two officeholders, a member of a Jewish synagogue, the son of a noted Presbyterian clergyman, and a young Catholic lawyer. By such a true American union of citizens under Mr. Roosevelt's leadership his organization controlled the district for years. It enabled him to defeat "Jake" Hess in 1884 and to go as a delegate to the state convention. men like him, though greatly outnumbered, beat the old-timers in politics by a shrewd and daring movement and ran the convention. He was elected a Delegate-at-Large to the National Convention over a gray-haired United States Senator, and his fellow-delegates made him their chairman. There he and a few Thus it happened, to the surprise of the entire country, that this young man of twenty-five entered the famous Chicago Convention at the head of the delegation from the Empire State. Theodore Roosevelt had become one of the central figures on the national stage. At the very opening session he was drawn into the contest over the selection of the temporary chairman of the convention. The national committee, whose duty it was to call the convention, had proposed a man to preside over it. Mr. Roosevelt joined with those who rebelled against this choice and who wished to confer the honor on a negro delegate from Mississippi. In support of this motion, he made a stirring speech before the great assemblage in the convention hall, saying in conclusion, "It is now, Mr. Chairman, less than a quarter of a century since, in this city, the great Republican party, for the first time organized for victory, nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, who broke the fetters of the slave and rent them asunder forever. It is fitting for us to choose to preside over this convention one of that race, whose right to sit within these walls is due to the blood and treasure so lavishly spent by the founders of the Republican party." The negro candidate was chosen, but Mr. Roosevelt lost the great battle of the convention when it nominated James G. Blaine for President. It was indeed a hard choice for him. He and his associates had opposed Mr. Blaine with so much earnestness and on such grounds that it was impossible for them to support him in the campaign with any enthusiasm. Most of them left the Republican party rather than vote for its new standard bearer, and, in the language of the time, became Mugwumps. Grover Cleveland had been nominated by the Democrats, and the Mugwumps supported him loyally. None of them knew Mr. Cleveland better or perhaps more favorably than Mr. Roosevelt. But he believed that the future of the country, within his generation at least, would be in the keeping of the Republican party and he had no faith in Mr. Cleveland's party. After much anxious thought, he announced that he would vote the Republican ticket, although he did not attempt to take any active part in the campaign for Mr. Blaine. The Republicans were defeated in the election and Mr. Cleveland was elected, the first Democrat to be chosen President in twenty-four years. Mr. Roosevelt's Mugwump friends were jubilant. He retired from politics, not, however, to nurse his disappointment, but to open an entirely new chapter in his life. IN THE WILD WEST While a member of the Legislature, he responds to the call of the wilderness and goes buffalo hunting on the Plains.-A tenderfoot who amazes the plainsmen by his hardihood. He sees the Wild West in the golden age of its romance. A vast empire of fenceless pastures. The cowboy, the picturesque child of the great cattle country. A typical cow town. - The young New Yorker falls in love with the desert and buys a ranch. NATURE ever has been the favorite teacher of Theodore Roosevelt. Although he is a university graduate, although books always have been his constant companions, he has learned the greatest lessons of life, as Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and most of the leaders of the nation learned them, from his contact with men and with the world in the rude school of experience. "One impulse from a vernal wood He had learned to know the birds and trees and flowers of Long Island in his boyhood and he had |