268   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

turned after that thrilling speech to my house, and we sat a long while talking over the serious step he had taken and the possibilities the future held for him, and I felt that there was a sense of dedication about him such as I believe the martyrs of old must have felt.

In spite of the storm that broke around him after this declaration, in spite of the manifold activities into which he immediately cast himself, he takes the time to write to me, March 5, 1912, when my infant grandchild, born the month before, had died of whooping-cough: "My darling Sister: You have indeed been through the waters of bitterness. The little baby ! I love little babies so, and I think of my own little granddaughter, and I mourn with you and Douglas. Now, I think only with a pang of our lovely day last Sunday. [We had spent that Sunday with him at Oyster Bay.] If I could have come up to Albany I would have done so. Ever your devoted brother."

The great convention of 1912 took place, and through the ruling of the chairman certain delegates pledged to Theodore Roosevelt were deprived of their seats, a ruling which meant his defeat as Republican candidate. I was ill at the time and could not be present on that epoch-making occasion. I only know that its result after the above ruling was considered by my brother absolutely inevitable, and that he never regarded that result, as did so many people, as the most unfortunate circumstance of his life. Writing a year and a half later for the Century Magazine, in October, 1913, he says: "Fundamentally the reason for the existence of the Progressive Party was found in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between the old parties which correspond to those parties; and, second, the determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use the party organizations and their control of the Government, for the purpose of dealing with the problems really vital to our people. . . . A party which alternately nominated Mr. Bryan and Mr. Parker for President, and a party wherein Messrs. Penrose, LaFollette, and Smoot, stand as the three brothers of

The Great Denial   269

leadership, can by no possibility supply the need of this country for efficient and coherent governmental action as regards the really vital questions of the day." In the same article he proceeds to analyze the reasons for the formation of the Progressive Party, and continues:

"The problems connected with the trusts, the problems connected with child labor, and all similar matters can be solved only by affirmative national action. No party is progressive which does not set the authority of the National Government as supreme in these matters. No party is progressive which does not give to the people the right to determine for themselves, after due opportunity for deliberation, but without endless difficulty and delay, what the standards of social and industrial justice shall be; and, furthermore, the right to insist upon the servants of the people, legislative and judicial alike, paying heed to the wishes of the people as to what the law of the land shall be. The Progressive party believes with Thomas Jefferson, with Andrew Jackson, with Abraham Lincoln, that this is a government of the people, to be used for the people, so as to better the condition of the average man and average woman of the nation in the intimate and homely concerns of their daily lives; and thus to use the government means that it must be used after the manner of Hamilton and Lincoln to serve the purposes of Jefferson and Lincoln.

"We are for the people's rights. Where these rights can best be obtained by exercise of the powers of the State, there we are for States' rights. Where they can best be obtained by the exercise of the powers of the National Government, there we are for National rights. We are not interested in this as an abstract doctrine; we are interested in it concretely. . . . We believe in the principle of a living wage. We hold that it is ruinous for all our people, if some of our people are forced to subsist on a wage such that body and soul alike are stunted."

Referring to the Industrial and Social justice plank of the platform of the Progressive party, he continues: