For two years afterwards he devoted himself to writing, not only articles as contributing editor of the Outlook, but books of his own, and addresses and speeches which he was constantly called upon to make. No man in private life probably ever had such an audience as he addressed, whether with tongue or pen, upon the questions of the day, with a constant refrain as to the qualities necessary to make men both good citizens and good Americans. In the spring of 1912 he decided to become a candidate for the Republican nomination for the residency and a very heated struggle followed between himself and President Taft for delegations to the convention. The convention when it assembled in Chicago was the stormiest ever known in our history President Taft was renominated, most of the Roosevelt delegates refusing to vote, and a large body of Republicans thereupon formed a new party called the "Progressive" and nominated Mr. Roosevelt as their candidate. This division into two nearly equal parts of the Republican Party, which had elected Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft in succession by the largest majorities ever known, made the victory of the Democratic candidate absolutely certain. Colonel Roosevelt, however, stood second in the poll, receiving 4,119,507 votes, carrying six States and winning eighty-eight electoral votes. There never has been in political history, when all conditions are considered, such an exhibition of extraordinary personal strength. To have secured eighty-eight electoral votes when his own party was hopelessly divided, with no great historic party name and tradition behind him, with an organization which had to be hastily brought together in a few weeks, seems almost incredible, and in all his career there is no display of the strength of his hold upon the people equal to this. In the following year he yielded again to the longing for adventure and exploration. Going to South America, he made his way up through Paraguay and western Brazil, and then across a trackless wilderness of jungle and down an unknown river into the Valley of the Amazon. It was a remarkable expedition and carried him through what is probably the most deadly climate in the world. He suffered severely from the fever, the poison of which never left him and which finally shortened his life.