I happened to spend the evening of February 25, 1912, with him at the house of Judge Robert Grant in Boston. Judge Grant and I were not politicians, and I, at least, had never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate. But both of us were very old personal friends of the Colonel, and for five hours we three talked with the utmost frankness. He knew that he could trust us, and, I think, he planned to get the views of non-partisan friends before announcing his final decision. Three days earlier, at Columbus, Ohio, he gave a great speech, in which he proclaimed a new charter for Democracy and vigorously advocated the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. We discussed these from every side; he got the Outlook in which his speech was printed and read to us passages which he thought corrected popular misunderstanding of it. When I objected to the platform in general, because it would tend to destroy representative government and substitute therefor the whims of the populace at the moment, he replied that we had no representative government. "I can name forty-six Senators," he said, "who secured their seats and hold them by the favor of a Wall Street magnate and his associates, in all parts of the country. Do you call that popular, representative government?" he asked. The evening wore on, and in similar fashion he parried all our criticism. We urged him not to be a candidate, because, we said, we thought that the public ought to be reined in and disciplined, instead of being encouraged to be more lawless and self-willed. I defended our judiciary system and said that the American people needed most of all to be taught respect for the Courts. He explained that his Recall of Judicial Decisions did not mean, as the Opposition alleged, the Recall of Judges. Then we urged him, for the sake of his own future, not to engage in a factional strife which might end his usefulness to the country, but he brushed aside every argument based on his selfish advantage. "I wish," he said to me, "to draw into one dominant stream all the intelligent and patriotic elements, in order to prepare against the social upheaval which will other wise overwhelm us." "A great Central Party, such as Cavour founded for the liberation of Italy?" said I. "Exactly," said he.