Have you noticed that nice point of constitutional law, dug up by a newspaper reporter, which renders Knox ineligible as Secretary of State? He voted for an increase in the salary of the Secretary of State three years ago. They will try to avoid the effect of the constitutional inhibition by repealing the act increasing the salary. Technically this won't do Knox any good, altho' it will probably be upheld by the Courts, if the matter is ever taken into the Courts. Roosevelt is very nervous these days but as he said to me the other day, "They know that I am President right up to March fourth." I took Ned and Nancy to see him and he treated them most beautifully. Gave Ned a pair of boar tusks from the Philippines and told him a story about the boar ripping up a man's leg just before he was shot, and to them both he gave a personal card. F. K. L. With this letter he sent a copy of a verse written by his daughter, not yet seven. "On through the night as the willows go weeping The daffodils sigh, As the wind sweeps by Right through the sky." TO CHARLES K. MCCLATCHY SACRAMENTO BEE Washington, March 20, 1909 My Dear McClatchy,--I am just in receipt of your letter of March 15th, with reference to my running for Governor next year. There is nothing in this rumor whatever. I have been approached by a good many people on this matter, and perhaps I have not said as definitely as I should that I had no expectation of re-entering California politics. When I was last in California some of my friends pointed out to me the great opening there would be for me if I would become a Republican and lead the Lincoln-Roosevelt people. There does not seem to be any line of demarcation between a Democrat and a Republican these days, so that such a change would not in itself be an act of suicide. My own personal belief is that the organization in California on the Republican side could be rather easily beaten, and we could do with California what La Follette did with Wisconsin. But I am trying not to think of politics, and I told those people who came to me that I thought my line of work for the next few years was fixed.