nting big game. He went with a warm feeling of
friendship and admiration for the man whom he had done so much to make
President. He had high confidence that Taft would be successful in his
great office. He had no reason to believe that any change would come in
the friendship between them, which had been peculiarly intimate. From
the steamer on which he sailed for Africa, he sent a long telegram of
cordial and hearty good wishes to his successor in Washington.

The next year Roosevelt came back to the United States, after a
triumphal tour of the capitals of Europe, to find his party disrupted
and the progressive movement in danger of shipwreck. He had no intention
of entering politics again. But he had no intention, either, of ceasing
to champion the things in which he believed. This he made obvious,
in his first speech after his return, to the cheering thousands who
welcomed him at the Battery. He said:

"I have thoroughly enjoyed myself; and now I am more glad than I can say
to get home, to be back in my own country, back among people I love. And
I am ready and eager to do my part so far as I am able, in helping solve
problems which must be solved, if we of this, the greatest democratic
republic upon which the sun has ever shone, are to see its destinies
rise to the high level of our hopes and its opportunities. This is the
duty of every citizen, but is peculiarly my duty; for any man who
has ever been honored by being made President of the United States is
thereby forever rendered the debtor of the American people and is bound
throughout his life to remember this, his prime obligation."

The welcome over, Roosevelt tried to take up the life of a private
citizen. He had become Contributing Editor of The Outlook and had
planned to give his energies largely to writing. But he was not to be
let alone. The people who loved him demanded that they be permitted to
see and to hear him. Those who were in the thick of the political fight
on behalf of progress and righteousness called loudly to him for aid.
Only a few days after Roosevelt had landed from Europe, Governor Hughes
of New York met him at the Commencement exercises at Harvard and urged
him to help in the fight which the Governor was then making for a direct
primary law. Roosevelt did not wish to enter the lists again until he
had had more time for orientation; but he always found it difficult to
refuse a plea for help on behalf of a good cause. He therefore sent a
v