Many of his critics could
account for his leaving the Republican Party and heading another,
only on the theory that he was moved by a desire for revenge. If
he could not rule he would ruin. The old allegation that he must
be crazy was of course revived.
After the election, the Republican Regulars, who had stubbornly
refused, to read the handwriting on the wall during the previous
four years, heaped new abuse upon him. They said that he had
betrayed the Party. They said that he had shown himself an
ingrate towards Taft, whose achievements in the Presidency awoke
his envy. And more recently, many persons who have loathed the
Administration of President Wilson, blame Roosevelt for having
brought down this curse upon the country.
These various opinions and charges seem to me to be mistaken; and
in the foregoing chapters, if I have truly divined Theodore
Roosevelt's character, every reader should see that his action in
entering the field for the Republican nomination in 1912, and
then in founding the Progressive Party, was the perfectly natural
culmination of his career.
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