good government was within the reach of the people if only they really desired it, and had the courage and honesty and ability to proceed to fight for it.

It was prophesied of him that he could not be reëlected at the expiration of his first term; but he had little difficulty going back-even for the third term. And it is likely he could have remained in the assembly much longer if he had so desired. But there was other work for him, and to this he turned when his task there was accomplished.

CHAPTER V.

IN NATIONAL AND CITY POLITICS.

RECOGNIZED AS A FACTOR IN NATIONAL AFFAIRS-A LEADER OF MEN, LOYAL TO THE BEST TRADITIONS OF HIS PARTY, BUT INTENSELY AN AMERICAN-MAINTAINING A SPLENDID INDEPENDENCE-THE FORLORN HOPE IN THE RACE FOR ELECTION AS MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY.

So far from his aggressive methods and independent principles proving the causes of Mr. Roosevelt's retirement from political life, as his enemies had predicted, these were the very qualities which won for him the strong endorsement of all that was good in his party organization, and among the better classes of that party's following. He had marked out for himself a very definite course, and his watchword was reform. When he retired from the legislature, he had already become a character of national interest; and so far from being consigned to private life, he was chosen as a delegate at large to the National Republican convention in 1884, and sent uninstructed to the councils of his party.

It has been humorously said of that period that it "was a time of reform, with a capital R." There was a feeling among a number of men, for whom George William Curtis, editor of Harper's Weekly, was a sort of spokesman, that civil service deserved more consideration than had so far been accorded it. By that term, always inaccurate, was meant a betterment of the public service by relieving it of the incubus of the spoils system. It would have been more in accordance with the end aimed at to have employed the term "merit system." For it was a known fact that most of the offices were portioned out to party followers on the basis of their party services, and wholly without regard to fitness for place. It was desired that selection and tenure might depend upon the degree of merit men possessed. With or without reason, Mr. Blaine was regarded generally as unfriendly to the cult advocated by Mr. Curtis, Mr. Andrew D. White and Mr. Roosevelt.

But Mr. Blaine was a candidate for the nomination to the presidency, and there was no sort of doubt he had marshalled an immense strength. He had been called "the magnetic statesman"; and he certainly did draw to his support a host

of politicians of most remarkable enthusiasm and energy. Because it was not believed there was much hope for the merit system in the event of Mr. Blaine's election-possibly for other reasons-his aspirations were frowned upon by Mr. Curtis and his friends-a very large and very respectable company. So that, in sending representatives to the convention, the Republicans of New York felt that no greater good could be achieved than in the defeat of Mr. Blaine. To that end, no specific directions bound the delegates. They were at liberty to use their influence in the convention in such manner as would best subserve the interests of reform in general, and to aid in the nomination of any man who stood for the aims toward which it seemed the party and the nation so certainly tended.

That meant a certain conflict with what had been regarded as fealty to party, for active managers throughout the nation were unquestionably in favor of the nomination of Mr. Blaine. But Mr. Roosevelt had long before written in his political creed: "I do not number party allegiance among the Ten Commandments."

In the face of a question of right and wrong, he recognized no loyalty to party; and he felt

the matter of right was involved in the nomination of a candidate for the presidency, because at the hour that nomination meant the approval or the condemnation of the very reform for which good men were striving.

"There are times," he had said, "' when it may be the duty of a man to break with his party; and there are other times when it may be his duty to stand by his party, even when on some points he thinks that party is wrong. If we had not party allegiance our politics would become mere windy anarchy, and under present conditions our Government would hardly continue at all. If we had no independence, we should always be running the risk of the most degraded kind of despotism-the despotism of the party boss and the party machine."

Having decided that the best interests of his party and the nation demanded the defeat of Mr. Blaine in the convention, Mr. Roosevelt and his friends made a coalition with the Edmunds forces, and labored through the days preceding the assembling of delegates, to win for the Vermont statesman a sufficient number to insure a nomination. The convention met in the old Exposition building, at Chicago; and there was