Excerpt from Roosevelt Night, Middlesex Club, Boston, October 27, 1920: Addresses

His pathway to the presidency was unlike that which had ever before been trodden. A service in the legislature which he thought was to be only for one year extended to three. Then he broke Off all connection with politics and devoted himself largely to litera ture and to his ranch. Then he had a place upon the National Civil Service Commission and upon the Police Commission Of the City Of New York, neither one Of which carried with it the slightest hope of political preferment. Then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, from which post he resigned to become a soldier. Then Governor of New York; then against his express will, Vice President Of the United States; and finally made President by the hand Of an assassin. Certainly up to this time there is lacking every element that usually makes for political advancement.

He became a national figure at the age Of tw'enty-six when he went to the Chicago Convention as one Of the delegates at large from the State Of New York. He made the Civil Service Com mission respected and the Police Commission of New York City feared. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy he made adequatepreparation for the war with Spain, and then resigned that Office, against the advice of his best friends, to lead his regiment upon the field Of battle. When he returned, he was drafted as the Republican candidate for Governor Of New York and was elected. He filled that great Office with distinction. He left it unwillingly to become the vice-president Of the United States and then be came President. In that great office he quickened the conscience of the American people. He built the Panama Canal and held the scales Of justice even between capital and labor. He compelled a reluctant Congress to pass beneficent legislation, curbing the greed Of the powerful and in the interest Of the weak and helpless, and when he finished his term Of Office the American people would willingly have conferred upon him the unprecedented honor Of another election. It was not a question Of his being nominated by the Republican party; it was merely Of his willingness to accept the nomination. His closest personal and political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge, happily here present at this table this evening, was chairman Of that convention Of 1908 to effect two purposes, to make the nomination of Roosevelt impossible and to make the nomination Of Taft certain.

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