nt to two terms regards the substance and
not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or
accept another nomination." From this determination, which in his mind
related to a third consecutive term, and to nothing else, he never
wavered. Four years later, in spite of a widespread demand that he
should be a candidate to succeed himself, he used the great influence
and prestige of his position as President and leader of his party to
bring about the nomination of his friend and close associate, William
Howard Taft. The choice received general approval from the Republican
party and from the country at large, although up to the very moment of
the nomination in the convention at Chicago there was no certainty that
a successful effort to stampede the convention for Roosevelt would not
be made by his more irreconcilable supporters.

Taft was elected by a huge popular plurality. His opponent was William
Jennings Bryan, who was then making his third unsuccessful campaign for
the Presidency. Taft's election, like his nomination, was assured by
the unreserved and dynamic support accorded him by President Roosevelt.
Taft, of course, was already an experienced statesman, high in the
esteem of the nation for his public record as Federal judge, as the
first civil Governor of the Philippines, and as Secretary of War in
the Roosevelt Cabinet. There was every reason to predict for him a
successful and effective Administration. His occupancy of the White
House began under smiling skies. He had behind him a united party and a
satisfied public opinion. Even his political opponents conceded that
the country would be safe in his hands. It was expected that he would
be conservatively progressive and progressively conservative. Everybody
believed in him. Yet within a year of the day of his inauguration the
President's popularity was sharply on the wane. Two years after his
election the voters repudiated the party which he led. By the end of his
Presidential term the career which had begun with such happy auguries
had become a political tragedy. There were then those who recalled the
words of the Roman historian, "All would have believed him capable of
governing if only he had not come to govern."

It was not that the Taft Administration was barren of achievement.
On the contrary, its record of accomplishment was substantial. Of two
amendments to the Federal Constitution proposed by Congress, one was
ratified by the requisit