The Days of a Man 1912 



attempts to bring the two together on a definite 

 stand resulted in failure. Moreover, an episode with 

 which I was in a slight degree connected seemed to 

 render his candidacy impracticable, so that his back- 

 An honor ers found themselves obliged to look elsewhere. It 

 declinfd happened that I had been invited by Melville E. 

 Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, to 

 deliver the annual address before the Press Association 

 in convention at Philadelphia, an honor I felt obliged 

 to decline for lack of time. La Follette was then 

 selected for the occasion. Being in a state of nervous 

 fatigue, he lost control of himself and spoke far too 

 long, besides using the opportunity to tell the Ameri- 

 can press what he thought of it! His strictures may 

 have been justified, but they did not advance his 

 political fortunes at least not along the line his 

 friends had contemplated. 



Roosevelt's Roosevelt now rushed into the breach, and many 

 candidacy of La Follette's ardent followers felt it to be their 

 duty to fall in behind. Among these were Gifford and 

 Amos Pinchot, Congressmen Irvine L. Lenroot and 

 William Kent, besides Gilson Gardner and other 

 newspaper men. Charles R. Crane, who zealously 

 backed and endorsed La Follette, shifted his alle- 

 giance, however, to Mr. Wilson, and many other 

 La Follette supporters did the same. 



During the campaign which followed, Roosevelt 

 lost ground so far as the West was concerned, 

 largely through certain ill-considered attacks on 

 Taft, for while people may have shared his views, 

 the general verdict was that the role of common 

 scold did not befit an ex-President. His statement 

 that Taft had "bitten the hand that fed him" laid 

 undue emphasis on the well-known fact that he had 



C 420 ] 



