campaign for the nomination quickly developed
two aspects, one of which delighted every Progressive in the Republican
party, the other of which grieved every one of Roosevelt's levelheaded
friends. It became a clean-cut conflict between progress and reaction,
between the interests of the people, both as rulers and as governed,
and the special interests, political and business. But it also became
a bitter conflict of personalities between the erstwhile friends. The
breach between the two men was afterwards healed, but it was several
years after the reek of the battle had drifted away before even formal
relations were restored between them.

A complicating factor in the campaign was the candidacy of Senator La
Follette of Wisconsin. In July, 1911, La Follette had begun, at the
earnest solicitation of many Progressive leaders in Congress and out, an
active campaign for the Republican nomination. Progressive organizations
were perfected in numerous States and "in less than three months," as La
Follette has written in his Autobiography, his candidacy "had taken on
proportions which compelled recognition." Four months later a conference
of some three hundred Progressives from thirty States, meeting in
Chicago, declared that La Follette was, because of his record, the
logical candidate for the Presidency. Following this conference he
continued to campaign with increasing vigor, but concurrently the
enthusiasm of some of his leading supporters began to cool and their
support of his candidacy to weaken. Senator La Follette ascribes this
effect to the surreptitious maneuvering of Roosevelt, whom he credits
with an overwhelming appetite for another Presidential term, kept in
check only by his fear that he could not be nominated or elected. But
there is no evidence of any value whatever that Roosevelt was conducting
underground operations or that he desired to be President again. The
true explanation of the change in those Progressives who had favored the
candidacy of La Follette and yet had gradually ceased to support him,
is to be found in their growing conviction that Taft and the reactionary
forces in the Republican party which he represented could be defeated
only by one man--and that not the Senator from Wisconsin. In any event
the La Follette candidacy rapidly declined until it ceased to be
a serious element in the situation. Although the Senator, with
characteristic consistency and pertinacity, stayed in the fight till the