III
As the presidential campaign of 1912 developed, there were frequent exchanges of views. In May Colonel Roosevelt wrote that he was confident of victory in the Republican Convention in spite of all that was being done against him by the men in control of the party. Only those who were in the thick of the Republican Convention in Chicago in June realize how the fighting blood of the men on the progressive side, from the leader down, was aroused. Mr. Nelson was at Chicago during the Republican Convention. Colonel Roosevelt sought his advice throughout. The course which was ultimately followed had Mr. Nelson’s full approval. In a telegram to Colonel Roosevelt after the break from the Republican Party, Mr. Nelson said: “I am with you tooth and nail, to the limit and to the finish.”
Following those vivid days and nights of the Republican Convention—a period no active participant can ever erase from his memory—came the Orchestra Hall meeting, the first definite step to organize the Progressive Party, the National Progressive Party Convention in August, and then the memorable three-party campaign.
In the midst of the campaign Mr. Nelson and the Colonel had the time and inclination to carry on a correspondence on things not directly touching the issues on which the fight was made. In a letter from his summer home at Magnolia, Massachusetts, Mr. Nelson dropped into a discussion of what he called his two hobbies—to drive money out of the voting booth and out of the courthouse. His idea was that all legitimate expenses of candidates for office should be paid by the State, and that there should be a reform of the voting system which would avoid the necessity of party organization to get out the vote. Having the vote taken by letter carriers was one way that appealed to him. He would make justice free, “not for sale as it is to-day when the rich man gets the best lawyers.” Lawyers should be officers of the court in fact as well as in theory, and should be compensated for their work by the State, not by the litigants.
Replying to this letter late in July, Colonel Roosevelt said:
I am with you in principle on both the points you raise. I am with you on the question of the State paying the election expenses right away now. I have always stood for that course as the only one to give the poor man a fair chance in politics.
Your other idea is new, but I have long been feeling my way to the same conclusion. A lawyer is not like a doctor. No real good for the community comes from the development of legalism, from the development of that kind of ability shown by the great corporation lawyers who lead our bar; whereas good does come from medical development. The high-priced lawyer means, when reduced to his simplest expression, that justice tends to go to the man with the longest purse. But the proposal is such a radical one that I do not know how it would be greeted, and it is something we will have to fight for later.
Theodore Roosevelt
Late in September, during a campaign tour of the West, Colonel Roosevelt spent a Sunday evening at Oak Hall. The subject of campaign contributions came up, and the candidate became reminiscent, recounting his first experience as governor of New York with campaign contributions. It was an incident, he said, that might readily be misconstrued and so he had not discussed it publicly.
Soon after he was elected governor of New York, he had discovered that the street railways were paying almost no taxes. Accordingly he took steps to introduce a franchise tax bill into the legislature. Mr. Odell at once came to him and told him that he was following in the footsteps of Bryan and “Potato” Pingree, which was the most severe condemnation at that time. That warning having no effect, Mr. Platt came to him and said, “Governor, you can’t do this. Don’t you know that the Whitney-Ryan combination was one of the heaviest contributors to your campaign fund?”
“The deuce they were,” said Roosevelt; “I supposed they made their contributions to Tammany.”
“Of course,” Platt returned, “they contributed to Tammany, but they gave us just half as much as they did Tammany. If they hadn’t expected fair treatment from us they would have given it all to Tammany.”
“I told Platt they would get fair treatment from us,” Roosevelt said, in telling the story, “but if they expected immunity from taxation they were going to be left.”
At that time the Whitney-Ryan combination owned the New York street railways and so were going to be hard hit by the franchise tax. Mr. Roosevelt added that the franchise tax bill went through and created quite a scandal in high finance at that time. “Everybody was talking about it,” he said, “and all the big financiers knew about it. So I never could have any sympathy with the view that Harriman or the Standard Oil people—if they really contributed to my campaign fund—or any other interest of that sort gave any money for campaign purposes under a misapprehension. They knew from my deeds as well as my words that they could not buy immunity from me, and that the best they could expect was a square deal. I said one time to Bacon, ‘Bob, why is it that Morgan and all his crowd are against me? Don’t they know that they would get justice from me?’ Bacon smiled, hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes, I suppose they do.’”
In the Progressive campaign Mr. Nelson violated a personal rule of many years’ standing which forbade his personal participation in politics. Into this campaign he went with his whole soul. Then past seventy years of age, he was abundantly able to direct but not to give of his physical strength. He assumed responsibility for organizing the party in Missouri and lent his newspaper organization to that end. He thought day and night for the party’s candidate and the party’s principles, and at the end of the campaign he had left undone nothing which he could have done for the candidate who had his absolute and unqualified confidence. After the election Colonel Roosevelt wrote Mr. Nelson:
I can never overstate how much I appreciate all that you have done and been throughout this fight. My dear Sir, I am very grateful and I know that the only way I can show my gratitude is so to bear myself that you will feel no cause for regret at having stood by me.
After the campaign of 1912, which showed the remarkable strength of Colonel Roosevelt with the people and demonstrated that he was still a factor in American public life to be reckoned with, the tormenting by his political enemies continued. From many quarters darts had been hurled at “the old lion.” In July, 1914, after a libel suit for fifty thousand dollars had been started, Mr. Nelson telegraphed the Colonel at Oyster Bay:
Too bad so much of the burden should fall on you. Would gladly share it with you.
In a few days the message brought this letter:
When a man is under constant fire and begins to feel, now and then, as if he did not have very many friends, and as if the forces against him were perfectly overwhelming, then, even though he is prepared to battle alone absolutely to the end, he is profoundly appreciative of the support of those whose support is best worth having. Your telegram not only gave me real comfort, but touched and moved me profoundly.
Theodore Roosevelt
That was the end of the recorded correspondence between Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Nelson. The former came West on a speaking tour in the fall of 1914 and during his stay in Kansas City was a guest again at Oak Hall. Mr. Nelson accompanied him to a campaign meeting in a skating rink packed with people in Kansas City, Kansas, where he spoke in a sweltering atmosphere for more than an hour preaching with all his old vigor and enthusiasm the doctrines of the Progressive Party.
There was the same display from great crowds of people, along the streets around the hall and everywhere he went, of the keen interest and personal admiration which Colonel Roosevelt’s presence in Kansas City territory always brought out. Kansas City and its vicinity had been Roosevelt ground since Kansas and Western Missouri became acquainted with him; indeed, any appearance by him was sufficient to fill Convention Hall in Kansas City to its capacity of fifteen thousand people.
Following Mr. Nelson’s death in April, 1915, there came from Colonel Roosevelt a sincere appreciation of his sorrow, ending, “We have lost literally one of the foremost citizens of the United States, one of the men whom our Republic could least afford to spare.”