After a brief examination the surgeons stated that he had better be removed to the Mercy Hospital in Chicago. They put him on his special car and by an incredible negligence they sent him off to make the night journey without any surgical attendant. On reaching the Mercy Hospital, Dr. Ryan made a further examination and reported that there seemed to be no immediate danger, although he could not be sure whether the Colonel would live or not. Roosevelt, who was advertised to make a great speech in Louisville, Kentucky, that evening, summoned Senator Beveridge and sent him off with the manuscript of the address to take his place. Mrs. Roosevelt reached Chicago by the first train possible, and stayed with him while he underwent, impatiently, nearly a fortnight's convalescence. Then, much sooner than the surgeons thought wise, although his wound had healed with remarkable speed, he returned to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th he closed his campaign by addressing sixteen thousand persons in the Madison Square Garden. He spoke with unwonted calm and judicial poise; and so earnestly that the conviction which he felt carried conviction to many who heard him. "I am glad beyond measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to fight, while life lasts, the great fight for righteousness and for brotherhood and for the welfare of mankind." President Taft and the members of his Cabinet took little or no active part in the campaign. Indeed, the Republicans seemed unable to arouse enthusiasm. They relied upon their past victories and the robust campaign fund, which the Interests gladly furnished. The Democratic candidate was Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, who had been professor at Princeton University, and then its president. As Governor, he had commended himself by fighting the Machine, and by advocating radical measures. As candidate, he asserted his independence by declaring that "a party platform is not a program." He spoke effectively, and both he and his party had the self-complacency that comes to persons who believe that they are sure to win. And how could their victory be in doubt since the united Democrats had for opponents the divided Republicans? When Colonel Roosevelt was shot, Governor Wilson magnanimously announced that he would make no more speeches. Roosevelt objected to this, believing that a chance accident to him, personally, ought not to stop any one from criticising him politically. "What ever could with truth and propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was shot, can," he urged, "with equal truth and equal propriety, be said against me now, and it should so be said; and the things that cannot be said now are merely the things that ought not to have been said before. This is not a contest about any man; it is a contest concerning principles."