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

estimate of him; I consider him one of the most brilliant men, intellectually, in the United States. It would be hard to match him anywhere, and I believe that his moral uprighteousness is as strongly marked as is his intellectuality." Then I said to him, "He has fairly earned a renomination by his wise and fearless administration, and especially for the relentless warfare he has made on race-track gambling and on other evils. It would be nothing short of a calamity to let a man be turned down as the penalty of his moral heroism, and I cannot think of anything that would so deeply offend and enrage the best people of our State, irrespective of political opinion. I have named as the first reason for his renomination, his great ability and peculiar fitness for the office; the second, the valuable service of his honest and fearless administration; the third reason I would give is one of political expediency. I have always loved you, and supported you, because you put moral principle ahead of everything else and always appealed to the moral convictions of the people to support you. They have always responded to your appeal because they were loyal to the right. And thus you have demonstrated that which the nation had never before learned that the wisest political expediency is in the espousel of the highest moral principle, that right is the most popular thing that can be injected into a political campaign.

"If Governor Hughes should be turned down at that convention, because he fought moral evil so valiantly, the good people of the State would bolt the Republican ticket in droves and would take great pleasure in defeating the party that, with its eyes wide open, chose the wrong side of a moral question. Your friend Taft, whom you are championing for the

presidency, would be buried in New York State by an avalanche of votes." Mr. Roosevelt said to me: "Everything you have said of Governor Hughes' ability, character and service is true; I consider that he is incorruptible in his character, and that the public interests would be safe in his hand. While in most states I have kept my hands off the local contests and factional differences, and while I have not felt like obtruding myself upon the differences of our political leaders in this State, if I can see clearly that the action you urge will be for the best interest of the people and of the highest public morals, I will break the rule which I have usually kept and see if I can bring about his nomination.” He said, "We will begin

just now."

He did not at that time call in any stenographer nor make any notes, nor did I take any. He said, "You may report to the public what the President says." He went on for some little time. I remembered every word that he said to me. With a warm, hearty handshake and a heartier "God bless you" from him I went back in the car to the depot. Just as the car approached the depot I saw a train move out of it. As I got out of the motor I was met by a half-dozen or more reporters of the New York City papers, who gathered about me and said: "The train is gone, and there is no other one until an hour from now; you are marooned, and you may just as well surrender;" and they continued, "Well, what did he say about it?" "About what?" I answered. They said, "Oh, come off; don't seem so innocent. What did the President say about Governor Hughes's nomination?" I answered, "Who said I talked with President Roosevelt on that subject?" And they said, “A little bird told us.'