No one believed more sincerely than Roosevelt did, in
fealty to party. In 1884 he would not bolt, because he hoped that
the good which the Republican principles would accomplish would
more than offset the harm which the nomination of Blaine would
inflict. But in 1912, the Republicans cynically rejected his
cause which he had tried to make the Republican cause, and then,
as in 1884, he held that the cause was more important than the
individual, and he followed this idea loyally, lead where it
might.
In trying thus to state Roosevelt's position fairly, I do not
mean to imply that I should agree with his conclusions in regard
to the Recall of the Judicial Decisions; and the experiments
which have already been made with the Referendum and Initiative
and Direct Primaries are so unsatisfactory that Roosevelt himself
would probably have recognized that the doubts, which many of us
felt when he first proposed those measures, have been justified.
But I wish to emphasize my admiration for the large consistency
of his career, and my conviction that, with out his crowning
action in 1912, he would have failed to be the moral force which
he was.
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