caused more agony than has ever been suffered since the world began. I thank God that I have lived to see the victory which places the United States in the forefront of the free peoples of the world and which means universal democracy with its liberty, happiness, thrift and love to the millions of the oppressed children of earth, which will hasten the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ in the world, with its universal peace, righteousness, and love." I know that Theodore Roosevelt took the Bible as the standard of individual character and national virtue, for he told me so, and I believe that God was in him and back of him in his miraculously great personality and service for his country and the world. CHAPTER XV INTERVIEWED PRESIDENT ON GOVERNOR HUGHES' RENOMINATION I WAS informed by one who knew that influential leaders of the Republican party intended to fight the renomination of Charles E. Hughes for the governorship of New York. The convention was to be held in the near future, and I felt that the situation was serious and that some extra effort should be put forth to defeat such plans. I knew that Governor Hughes' savage attack upon race-track gambling had stirred the bitter hostility of the sporting gentry and both Democratic and Republican politicians who were in sympathy with them. I knew also that some of Colonel Roosevelt's friends who were candidates when Mr. Hughes was nominated had renewed their plans for the nomination of somebody else. Fearing that there might be a hitch in renominating Governor Hughes, I instinctively turned toward Theodore Roosevelt, to whom I had always gone for so many years when a moral issue was at stake, with my concern and alarm for the decision of the Convention. And so I fired a long telegram to President Roosevelt, at Oyster Bay, saying that it would not do to nominate any one else but Hughes; that he represented, in personal character and public administration, the highest ability and the strongest virtue; that the church people were, as a body, behind him, and that they would resent his defeat at the conven tion with anger and rebellion. I said in my message that such a failure would defeat Taft by more than one hundred thousand votes, when he ought easily to carry New York, and that it would be in the interest of righteousness for him to use his utmost influence in securing the nomination of Mr. Hughes. I knew how he loved the best things, and I knew also how anxious he was that Taft should have the solid church vote for the presidency. I received on the same day a telegram from the President, asking me to come out to Oyster Bay on the first train in the morning, indicating the time of the train. On reaching Oyster Bay station, a chauffeur came up to me and asked me if I were Dr. Iglehart, and said the President had sent his car down to bring me out to Sagamore Hill. And in a few minutes we were at his home. There were perhaps a dozen persons in the reception-room, and Mr. Roosevelt came to me and said: "I have men here from half-a-dozen States with important interests, but I consider that matter about which you wired me yesterday of supreme importance." He said, "Come back with me, and we will sit on the porch and have a talk and nice visit together." He pulled two large cane armchairs close together, and we rocked and talked and laughed and visited; and then he said, "Now, tell me just exactly how you feel about the renomination of Hughes, and the reason why it ought to be done." "Governor Hughes, I believe, is one of the ablest men, intellectually, in this country," I said. "His mind is clear, keen and discriminating; his will is all-daring, and his conscientious convictions are as deep as his life. Primarily, there is no use trying to look for an abler man if he were in sight, and he is not." Mr. Roosevelt said, "You are right in your |