Hughes was assured. When the Progressive Convention met that morning,
the conference committee reported that the Republican members of the
committee had proposed unanimously the selection of Hughes as the
candidate of both parties.

Thus began the final scene in the Progressive drama, and a more
thrilling and intense occasion it would be difficult to imagine. It was
apparent that the Progressive delegates would have none of it. They were
there to nominate their own beloved leader and they intended to do it.
A telegram was received from Oyster Bay proposing Senator Lodge as the
compromise candidate, and the restive delegates in the Auditorium could
with the greatest difficulty be held back until the telegram could be
received and read at the Coliseum. A direct telephone wire from
the Coliseum to a receiver on the stage of the Auditorium kept the
Progressive body in instant touch with events in the other Convention.
In the Auditorium the atmosphere was electric. The delegates bubbled
with excitement. They wanted to nominate Roosevelt and be done with it.
The fear that the other Convention would steal a march on them and make
its nomination first set them crazy with impatience. The hall rumbled
and sputtered and fizzed and detonated. The floor looked like a giant
corn popper with the kernels jumping and exploding like mad.

The delegates wanted action; the leaders wanted to be sure that they had
kept faith with Roosevelt and with the general situation by giving the
Republican delegates a chance to hear his last proposal. Bainbridge
Colby, of New York, put Roosevelt in nomination with brevity and vigor;
Hiram Johnson seconded the nomination with his accustomed fire. Then,
as the word came over the wire that balloting had been resumed in the
Coliseum, the question was put at thirty-one minutes past twelve, and
every delegate and every alternate in the Convention leaped to his feet
with upstretched arm and shouted "Aye."

Doubtless more thrilling moments may come to some men at some time,
somewhere, but you will hardly find a delegate of that Progressive
Convention to believe it. Then the Convention adjourned, to meet again
at three to hear what the man they had nominated would say.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, after a couple of hours of impatient
and anxious marking time with routine matters, the Progressive delegates
received the reply from their leader. It read thus:

"I am very grateful for the honor you confer