On finding, however, that Platt and the Bosses,
exasperated by him as Governor, wished to get rid of him by
making him Vice-President, and knowing that in the normal course
of events a Vice-President never became President, he tried to
refuse nomination to the lower office. And only when he perceived
that the masses of the people, the country over, and not merely
the Bosses, insisted on nominating him, did he accept. This brief
summary of his political progress assuredly does not bear out the
charge that he was the victim of uncontrollable ambition.
Roosevelt's Ananias Club caught the imagination of the country,
but not always favorably. Those whom he elected into it, for
instance, did not relish the notoriety. Others thought that it
betokened irritation in him, and that a man in his high position
ought not to punish persons who were presumably trustworthy by
branding them so conspicuously. In fact, I suppose, he sometimes
applied the brand too hastily, under the spur of sudden
resentment.
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