In spite of his “mind steeled for any outcome,” the one great ambition of Theodore Roosevelt’s life was to be chosen President on his own merits by the people of the United States. He longed for the seal of approval on the devoted service which he had rendered to his country, and one of my clearest memories is my conversation with him on Election day, 1904, when on his way back from voting at Oyster Bay, I met him at Newark, N. J., and went with him as far as Philadelphia. In his private drawing-room on the car, he opened his heart to me, and told me that he had never wanted anything in his life quite as much as the outward and visible sign of his country’s approval of what he had done during the last three and a half years. I frankly do not feel that this wish was because of any overweening ambition on his part, but to the nature of Theodore Roosevelt it had always been especially difficult to have come into the great position which he held through a calamity to another rather than as the personal choice of the people of the United States. His temperament was such that he wished no favor which he had not himself won. Therefore, it seemed to him a crucial moment in his life when, on his own merit, he was to be judged as fit or unfit to be his own successor. Not only for those reasons did he wish to be elected in his own right, but because, as was the case in former days when he wished to be renominated governor of New York State, he had again initiated many reforms, and had made many appointments, and he wished to carry those reforms into effect and to back up those appointments with his own helpfulness and prestige.