If ambition, if envy, if a selfish desire to rule, had
been the motives which guided him, he would have lain low in
1912; for all his friends and the managers of the Republican
Party assured him that if he would stand aside then, he would be
unanimously nominated by the Republicans in 1916. But he could
not be tempted.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL
"They will be throwing rotten apples at me soon," Theodore had
said to his sister, on the day when New York went frantic in
placing him among the gods. His treatment, after he championed
Progressivism, showed him to be clairvoyant. Not only did his
political opponents belabor him--that was quite natural--but his
friends, having failed to persuade him not to take the fatal
leap, let him see plainly that, while he still had their
affection, they had lost their respect for his judgment. He
himself bore the defeat of 1912 with the same valiant
cheerfulness with which he took every disappointment and
thwarting. But he was not stolid, much less indifferent.
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