CHAPTER II AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS Republican crisis of 1884-First break with the Independents— A party man still-Running for Governor-Why a program failed-Second break with the Independents-A hitherto unpublished letter. IN the summer of 1884 a man not yet twentysix years old was faced with a problem the solution of which might affect the whole current of his life. Though still a mere youth, he had acquired a reputation as wide as the country by his record as a reform legislator in his native State, New York. He had risen to the leadership of the Republican side in the Assembly at Albany. His ability, his pluck, and, above all, his honest independence, had not only fixed the eyes of his fellow countrymen upon him, but forced his recognition by the party managers, so that he had been sent to the Republican national convention at Chicago as the head of the State delegation to take his first active part in the task of President-making. In PARTING OF THE WAYS the convention he had fought hard for his candidate, George F. Edmunds, then regarded as the special champion of the independent element in Republican politics, and had been defeated; James G. Blaine, the candidate against whom the whole weight of the reformers had been hurled, had been nominated. Not a few of Mr. Blaine's other opponents had declared in advance that in no event would they support him for President-they would sooner go out of their party. The convention had accepted their challenge; the crucial hour had come, and they must now retreat or make good their threats. Already the press was bulging with manifestoes and open letters and interviews, put forth by lifelong Republicans who were abandoning the ticket to its fate. The young man was Theodore Roosevelt, and he was at the parting of the ways. On one side he saw George William Curtis, Carl Schurz-in short, nearly all the prominent men on whose support he had most steadfastly counted-taking the road that led toward the Democratic party, at least for the time. Behind him lay the fruits of two years' work in the New York Legislature-hard work, sincere work, which had told its story for good gov ernment. It had been done not by the sole power of his own speech and vote, but by the combinations he had been able to form with others who thought and felt as he did, or who, lacking both logic and sentiment, were ready to follow him for discipline's sake or motives of expediency. Although individual initiative, direction, force, were essential to such undertakings, and the successful combination was after all only a group of individual factors, yet he realized that his personal efforts could not have accomplished anything of themselves. Should he now turn his back upon the past, step out of the ranks of the political army in which he had been trained, and become an unattached sharpshooter? He could not go over to the enemy; in principles and spirit they had practically nothing in common; there was no bond of sympathy between them except objection to one candidate. It was a serious dilemma. Though accustomed to act on instinct in most emergencies, he hesitated just a little in the presence of this one. There were Republican dogmas which he had not yet digested. One of these which would probably figure largely in the campaign was the dogma of high protection, while his WEIGHING THE REASONS Harvard schooling had been all in the direction of free trade. He was fully conscious that an administration brought into power by Republican votes had carried the Union safely through the civil war, and molded a group of sovereign States into a solid unit, yet he was far from accepting the extreme views of a large element in the Republican party as to the continued penance which should be demanded of the South for the sin of secession. Nevertheless, the general tendencies of the party, its national aspirations, its disposition to test new measures in statecraft instead of rejecting them because they were new, appealed strongly to him on both his temperamental and his practical sides. It was the only party in which he felt at home, and with which, in spite of some differences in detail, he could work out his projects for the public advantage. Should he go out of the party and stay till the present storm had blown over, and then come back again? A good many men could have figured out such a program and deliberately entered upon it; with him it would have been impossible. The only question he had to decide was: Stay in, or stay out? He had pledged himself to no course; he had raised not a hand, uttered not a word, to prevent any of his colleagues from following their own consciences. When an old friend and fellow Republican said, "I can not remain in the party and vote for Blaine; if the Democrats nominate such a man as Grover Cleveland I must vote for him," Mr. Roosevelt, he tells me, not only made no effort to restrain him, but answered: "Cleveland would be the best man the Democrats could name; still, if I felt as you do, I should support any proper Democratic nomination." All this was apart from the question of what he should ultimately do himself; he felt very sure what that would be, but he wished to think it over before making an irrevocable decision. The agitated atmosphere surrounding him was not conducive to calm judgment. Away, therefore, he hastened for a brief interval of quiet, and on his Dakota ranch reviewed the whole situation in his mind; then he made an authoritative statement: "I intend to vote the Republican presidential ticket. A man can not act both without and within the party; he can do either, but he can not possibly do both. Each course has its advantages and each has its disadvantages, and one can not take the advantages or the disad |