ary had not
yet introduced the disturbing thought that the voters and not the
office-holders and party leaders ought to select their candidates.

It was a docile, submissive convention, not because it was ruled by a
strong group of men who knew what they wanted and proposed to compel
their followers to give it to them, but because it was composed of
politicians great and small to whom party regularity was the breath of
their nostrils. They were ready to do the regular thing; but the only
two things in sight were confoundedly irregular.

Two drafts were ready for their drinking and they dreaded both. They
could nominate one of two men, and to nominate either of them was to
fling open the gates of the citadel of party regularity and conformity
and let the enemy in. Was it to be Roosevelt or Hughes? Roosevelt they
would not have. Hughes they would give their eye teeth not to take. No
wonder they were subdued and inarticulate. No wonder they suffered and
were unhappy. So they droned along through their stereotyped routine,
hoping dully against fate.

The hot-heads in the Progressive Convention wanted no delay, no
compromise. They would have nominated Theodore Roosevelt out of hand
with a whoop, and let the Republican Convention take him or leave him.
But the cooler leaders realized the importance of union between the two
parties and knew, or accurately guessed, what the attitude of Roosevelt
would be. With firm hand they kept the Convention from hasty and
irrevocable action. They proposed that overtures be made to the
Republican Convention with a view to harmonious agreement. A conference
was held between committees of the two conventions to see if common
ground could be discovered. At the first session of the joint committee
it appeared that there was sincere desire on both sides to get together,
but that the Progressives would have no one but Roosevelt, while the
Republicans would not have him but were united on no one else. When the
balloting began in the Republican Convention, the only candidate who
received even a respectable block of votes was Hughes, but his total
was hardly more than half of the necessary majority. For several ballots
there was no considerable gain for any of the numerous candidates,
and when the Convention adjourned late Friday night the outcome was as
uncertain as ever. But by Saturday morning the Republican leaders and
delegates had resigned themselves to the inevitable, and the nomination
of