36 EXPOS fNG GRAFT IN NEW YORK STATE 



campfire, he read in a newspaper sent him from New York that a con- 

 vention of independent citizens had chosen him as their nominee for 

 Mayor of that city. That night he hung up his rifle, packed his trunk, 

 and bade good-bye to his hfe on the plains, starting East to plunge 

 once more into the troubled pool of politics. 



There were two other candidates for the office, Abram S. 

 Hewitt, the choice of Tammany, and Henry George, the single-tax 

 advocate, the nominee of the United Labor party. The citizens who 

 nominated Roosevelt did so because they wanted a hard fighter and 

 knew they would have one in him. His fight was vigorous, but the 

 opposing forces were too strong, and Hewitt was chosen with a 

 plurality vote of about 22,000. He had "ruined himself" politically, 

 some said, as others had said he had "ruined himself" in his fight with 

 the Organization in the Assembly. He was one who did not stay 

 "ruined." In the early eighties Andrew D. White, President of Cornell 

 University, said to his class : 



"Young gentlemen, some of you will enter public life. I call your 

 attention to Theodore Roosevelt, now in our Legislature. He is on the 

 right road to success. It is dangerous to predict a future for a young 

 man, but let me tell you that if any man of his age was ever pointed 

 straight for the Presidency, that man is Theodore Roosevelt." 



Hazardous as Mr. White deemed the prophecy, it proved a true 

 one. 



