XVI “DO IT NOW” Sad America Dreamed in the distance as a charmed thing Till Roosevelt, like Roland, blew his horn. --John Jay Chapman. One who rang true when traitor thoughts were rife, One who led straight through all the years of strife. --From _Horace Mann School Record_. I went to Sagamore Hill the very moment that I returned from Chicago after that exciting convention. In fact, I took the first train possible to Oyster Bay. My heart was aflame, for it seemed to me then, as it has seemed to me frequently in such contests (nor does this refer solely to contests in which my brother took part), that the will of the people had been frustrated. My brother was seated in the library when I arrived at Sagamore Hill, and when I burst out, “Theodore--the people wanted you. It seems terrible to me that they could not have you,” he answered, with a smile that had a subtle meaning in it: “Do not say that; if they had wanted me _hard_ enough, they could have had me.” By which he meant that after all, if enough citizens in our great country would take seriously the duties of citizenship, the delegates to our conventions would have to do their will. From that moment, putting himself entirely aside, his whole thought, his whole effort were given to the achievement of what he considered the vital need for his country; namely, the election of the Republican candidate. Waiting until Mr. Hughes had definitely stated his policy, Colonel Roosevelt, upon that statement, immediately sent to the Progressive Convention, which met within a few weeks, a letter stating his position as follows: “_Gentlemen_: In accordance with the message I sent to the National Progressive Convention as soon as I had received the notification that it had nominated me for President, I now communicate to you my reasons for declining the honor which I so deeply appreciate.... Before speaking of anything else, I wish to express my heartiest and most unstinted admiration for the character and services of the men and women who made up the National Progressive Convention in 1916.... They represent the spirit which moved Abraham Lincoln and his political associates during the decade preceding the close of the Civil War. The platform put forth in 1912 was much the most important public document promulgated in this country since the death of Abraham Lincoln. It represented the first effort, on a large scale, to translate abstract formulas of economic and social justice into concrete American nationalism....