He mentioned that he had had an invitation to give a lecture at Oxford University upon his return, which he felt like accepting because it was a course in which some of the most prominent men of the past, including Gladstone, had lectured, and it appealed to him to speak at this ancient university. I encouraged him to do so. He said he did not intend, however, to accept invitations to other European countries, because he did not wish to be fêted. This lecture would be more in line with his work.
At the request of Roosevelt and the urgent solicitation of Taft, I took an active part in the campaign, making scores of speeches in the leading cities of the East and Middle West. I made the first on September 26th, the day after the first Cabinet meeting of the season, under the auspices of the Interstate Republican League, in Washington. It was one of the largest political meetings ever held there. I addressed myself to a recent speech by ex-Secretary of State Olney, in which he had endorsed Bryan. I pointed out how much more had been done under the Roosevelt Administration than by the Democratic Administration with which Mr. Olney was connected, in bringing suits against the trusts under the Sherman law; that in Mr. Olney's time nearly all such suits were brought against labor combinations, while in Roosevelt's time they were brought against the offending corporations.
I had been in close touch with Roosevelt during his own campaign four years before, but I must say he threw himself with greater energy into Taft's campaign, watching every phase of it with great care and circumspection to counteract every unfavorable tendency and to push promptly every tactical advantage. On Sunday afternoon, September 27th, I received a telephone message to come to the White House. When I arrived I found present Secretaries Cortelyou and Meyer, Lawrence F. Abbott, of "The Outlook," and William Loeb. Roosevelt was dictating a letter to Bryan, in answer to the latter's attack upon the Administration's policies, and invited each of us to make suggestions. Those that seemed good he immediately incorporated. I had brought with me some facts and figures that I prepared for campaign use, and all of this material he embodied. When the dictation was finished, he asked us to return at nine o'clock in the evening to go over the finished product, as it was important that the letter be given to the press for next morning's papers.
When we arrived in the evening, the President was already at his desk correcting the typewritten pages, of which there were about twenty. The duplicates were handed to us, and we passed them from one to another for reading and suggestions. At one point I suggested changing an expression to a more dignified form, which the President vetoed with the characteristic remark: "You must remember this letter is not an etching, but a poster." That was an apt illustration of his purpose, namely, to attract and fix popular attention; and I withdrew my suggestion.
The published letter occupied three and a half newspaper columns. It was powerful and effective and nailed some of the main fallacies that Bryan had been expounding. This was the third such letter by Roosevelt, and some people were inclined to criticize them as having the appearance of overshadowing Taft and other campaign orators. This might have been true to an extent, but it was of little consequence in comparison with the tremendous effect of the letters in enlightening the people with regard to the greater national principles for which Taft stood.
The following week I started on a campaign tour. I made speeches at Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago. In accepting the pressing invitation of the National Republican Committee to make a series of speeches, I made one condition, which was that I would not speak at any meeting gotten up on sectarian or hyphenated political lines. It was, and I regret to say still is, customary, in political campaigns, especially among local managers in smaller cities with large foreign-born populations, to appeal to their former national sympathies. I regarded this method as un-American and inimical to the solidarity of our Americanism. My letter to the chairman of the speakers' bureau, Senator Joseph M. Dixon, was by him given to the press and widely published. It had a very good effect, and through that campaign at least put an end to advertising and meetings based on race or creed appeal. Upon my return to New York I spoke at a number of meetings in Brooklyn and New York with Mr. Taft, the last and largest of these being the one at Madison Square Garden, at which General Horace Porter presided. Charles E. Hughes, who was candidate for Governor, also spoke on that occasion.
The President and Mrs. Roosevelt invited Mrs. Straus and me to return to Washington with them in their private car on election day, after we had voted in our respective districts. En route the President again mentioned the arrangements for his African trip and told me he had also accepted an invitation to speak at the Sorbonne, Paris. He was already preparing his Oxford address, the draft of which when ready he wanted me to read. It is generally believed that Roosevelt did things hurriedly and impulsively. But those of us who were acquainted with his methods knew the contrary to be true. Preparedness was one of his outstanding characteristics. He was a most industrious worker, and as soon as he made up his mind to do something, whether it was to deliver an address or to bring forward some reform, he set to work at once making preparations, so as not to leave it until the time for the event was at hand. In the case of his Oxford and Sorbonne addresses, for instance, he prepared them long in advance and gave himself plenty of time to correct and polish them. He told me he pursued this method because it freed his mind and enabled him to be ready for the next thing to come before him. That is certainly not the way an impulsive man works.