The
American people, how ever, felt a void without Roosevelt. Whether
they always agreed with him or not, they found him perpetually
interesting, and during the ten or eleven weeks when he went into
the Brazilian silence and they did not know whether he was alive
or dead, they learned how much his presence and his ready speech
had meant to them. And so they rejoiced to know that he was safe
and at home again at Sagamore Hill.
Roosevelt insisted, imprudently, on accompanying his son Kermit
to Madrid, where he was to marry the daughter of the American
Minister. He made the trip to Spain and back, as quickly as
possible, and then he turned to politics. That year, Congress men
and several Governors were to be elected, and Roosevelt allowed
himself to be drawn into the campaign. As I have said, he was
like the consummate actor who, in spite of his protestations, can
never bid farewell to the stage. And now a peculiar obligation
moved him. He must help the friends who had followed him eagerly
into the conflict of 1912, and, in helping them, he must save the
Progressive principles and drive them home with still greater
cogency.
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