and unsought, he would accept it.
They concluded their request with this paragraph:

"In submitting this request we are not considering your personal
interests. We do not regard it as proper to consider either the
interest or the preference of any man as regards the nomination for the
Presidency. We are expressing our sincere belief and best judgment as to
what is demanded of you in the interests of the people as a whole. And
we feel that you would be unresponsive to a plain public duty if
you should decline to accept the nomination, coming as the voluntary
expression of the wishes of a majority of the Republican voters of
the United States, through the action of their delegates in the next
National Convention."

The sincerity and whole-heartedness of the convictions here expressed
are in no wise vitiated by the fact that the letter was not written
until the seven Governors were assured what the answer to it would be.
For the very beginning of our drama, then, we must go back a little
farther to that day in late January of 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt
himself came face to face with a momentous decision. On that day he
definitely determined that his duty to the things in which he profoundly
believed--and no less to the friends and associates who shared his
beliefs--constrained him once more to enter the arena of political
conflict and lead the fight.

Roosevelt had come to this conclusion with extreme reluctance. He had no
illusions as to the probable effect upon his personal fortunes. Twice
he had been President once by the hand of fate, once by a great popular
vote. To be President again could add nothing to his prestige or fame;
it could only subject him for four years to the dangerous vagaries
of the unstable popular mood. He had nothing to gain for himself by
entering the ring of political conflict again; the chances for personal
loss were great. His enemies, his critics, and his political adversaries
would have it that he was eaten up with ambition, that he came back from
his African and European trip eager to thrust himself again into the
limelight of national political life and to demand for himself again a
great political prize. But his friends, his associates, and those who,
knowing him at close range, understood him, realized that this was no
picture of the truth. He accepted what hundreds of Progressive leaders
and followers throughout the country--for the man in the ranks had as
ready access to him as th