Roosevelt Stills Garden Tumult; Grave In Speech.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 31, 1912:
16,000 Men and Women in the Amphitheatre in Frenzied Demonstration Weary Him.
TOO ILL TO STAND IT LONGER
Din of Noises Alternate Unceasingly with Cheers for 45 Minutes Before He Can Say a Word.
NOT A WORKED-UP SCENE
The Colonel Strong in Voice, but with Rigid Right Arm Is Not Quite Like Himself.
RING OF A LAST MESSAGE
Attempts to Explain Nothing Revolutionary Is Meant and Great Changes Come Slowly.
THIS NOTE NOT WELL LIKED
Dixon Wins Favor by Referring to Him as "Our Great President" — Johnson and Straus Extol Him.
    A sick and wounded man, who has been twice President of the United States and is again a candidate for the Presidency, stood up before 16,000 wildly cheering American citizens in Madison Square Garden last night, all of whom know that he had a bullet in his chest, and might not get well, and told them what he meant when he said that he wanted to instal a better conception of social and industrial welfare in this country.
    This man, of course, was Theodore Roosevelt. The 16,000 Americans before him would not let him explain his views of social and industrial welfare, or about the need for giving women and children a better show in life, for forty-five minutes. Col. Roosevelt wanted them to, but they wouldn't. They began with cheering, and from that they went on to inventing strange noises. When the possibilities of strange noises were exhausted they would go back to cheering, and after that they would go back again to strange noises, and so it went on until it seemed as if noisemaking possibilities had been tested to the limit.
    Roosevelt stood looking over this sea of emotional human beings with a gaze that was quite different from that of the ordinary stump speaker. He knew that he had to stand there and take it as long as it lasted, and it lasted three-quarters of an hour, but really it annoyed and disturbed him, great as the tribute was. He felt he was a sick man, and he was particularly anxious to get his message to the American people because he didn't know when he would get another chance. So, one might respectfully say, it jarred him. He walked occasionally to the edge of his desk and pounded his hand down on the American flag that draped it, and there was a commanding sincerity in his manner, which finally stilled the crowd, though as a general rule such crowds imagine that such a gesture is merely an additional incitement to go on.

Quiet and Grave in Speaking.
    After the forty-five minutes were up, and they would have been sixty or seventy minutes but for Roosevelt's perfectly obvious refusal to permit a longer demonstration, the shouting thousands in the Garden — and they were only a fraction of the thousands who couldn't get in, — permitted him to go ahead. The most noticeable thing about his speech was that he did not try to define issues, as he has done in all his speeches through the campaign; it was a sort of farewell manifesto in which he undertook to outline no specific issue, but the general principles for which his party stood. He tried to make it clear that his party was not trying to revolutionise the world in a day, but did mean, by degrees as rapid as possible, to revolutionize it.
    As the Colonel tried to bring this idea before the mind of his immense and intense audience, he did not talk as he used to, with the old violence and the old sarcasm. He had no unkind word to say of his opponents. He referred in unmistakable terms to some of Gov. Wilson's ideas, particularly those concerning State rights, but he never mentioned Wilson's name. He talked in as serious and grave a strain as if it were to be his last speech.
    But all this was unseen by the audience below, which continued roaring and bellowing from the moment the Colonel appeared at 9:15 o'clock until forty-five minutes later, and both the audience and the Colonel were fresh and had plenty of lung power left even then.
    Col. Roosevelt stood looking the crowd over with a satisfied eye, bowing stiffly but with a cordial smile, to all sides, and saluting different parts of the gathering with a wave of his left hand, whenever for a moment the din and uproar seemed even slightly to diminish. That invariably woke a new pandemonium, which in turn brought to the Colonel's eyes and lips a new grin.
    There was an intensity in the Colonel's manner of delivery which has often characterized his speeches but never in this peculiar way. All the bitterness was gone from it. He seemed anxious chiefly to impress on his audience that the campaign in which the Progressive Party was enlisted was one for all time; that it had no hope of reaching the Millenium in a day; but that it did hope to reach it step by step, even if those steps took many years.

The High Note Not Struck.
    This idea struck the Madison Square Audience variously. At first the whole 16,000 seemed to be with the Colonel, to judge by the applause. As he went on developing his idea, more and more of the crowd grew silent, and while he got great cheering for everything he said, that cheering did not come from the whole audience. It seemed as if what he was saying was too strong meat for all of those who had come into the Garden.
    At the same time it cannot be denied that nobody else ever got such a wonderful reception in the Garden. How much of it was due to the sympathy which most people instinctively feel with a brave man who has shown his courage, as Roosevelt did at Milwaukee, and how much was due to sympathy with his principles, cannot be told.
    It is, nevertheless, astounding that 16,000 persons should go so absolutely crazy for forty-five minutes as these 16,000 men and women in the Garden did. A moment before the Colonel appeared in his somber black suit, looking a bit worn and as if the bullet that he had in his chest hurt him, they appeared to be perfectly orderly and respectable persons. But the moment his red face, gray moustache and eyeglasses showed up on the platform they lost all semblance of order. Perfectly respectable gray-haired matrons climbed on chairs with flags and handkerchiefs in their hands and forgot themselves for three-quarters of an hour. After about half an hour persons who in the ordinary course of life may be deacons or assistant bank cashiers were dancing around the floor in a frenzy. Occasionally The band would try to intervene with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or "Onward, Christian Soldiers," but it could not even make a dent in the uproar.
    Col. Roosevelt himself tried to still the noise by coming out frequently and signalling for quiet, and his action was perfectly sincere, for he looked weary and ill. But even his influence had no effect on the shouting throng.

Not Convention Cheers.
    Such demonstrations are commonplace in National conventions, where they are carefully worked up by cheer-leaders and kept going by megaphones and other mechanical moans. This thing, however, was spontaneous. The crowd kept on yelling because it wanted to yell. Roosevelt stood there sometimes trying to still it and sometimes waiting for it to die down, but always with the air of a man who had a message that he wanted to deliver, and felt that his unnecessary racket was delaying him in its delivery.
    Col. Roosevelt wanted to make it plain in his last important speech during this campaign that he was going to take just as many steps toward radicalism as could be safely taken, and that he meant to devote the rest of his life to a fight for that, but that he did not intend to take one single step prematurely. He wanted his speech last night to stand as his final statement of the position which he and the Progressive Party occupy in this campaign.

Voice Clear, Though He Is in Pain.
    The Colonel's voice was as clear as a bell. It was perfectly evident, however, that he was suffering pain. He gesticulated entirely with his left arm, and when involuntarily he forgot himself and raised his right arm he drew it back quickly.
    He gestured, however, vehemently with his left arm, sometimes throwing it across his chest and often darting from one side of the platform to the other.
    When he left Oyster Bay in the morning he had not been well, but he had counted on the inspiration he would get from seeing the crowd to build him up, and evidently, he counted not in vain. People who had never seen him before could have had no idea that there was anything the matter with him. Those who had could see the difference very plainly, but even they were moved to admiration by the way in which the Colonel overcame his physical handicap and talked and acted like a well man.
    Before the Colonel arrived Gov. Johnson, the candidate for Vice President, and Oscar S. Straus had made speeches which were received with nearly as much enthusiasm as that of the Colonel. There had been moving pictures, and at every one of them where the Colonel's picture was displayed there was wild cheering. The Colonel did not arrive there until 9:18 o'clock, but it was 10:03 before he could make himself heard above the uproar that greeted him.
    In spite of the passion with which the Colonel sometimes spoke, the impersonal note of the speech gave it a flavor not usual with his public discussions, and seemed to set it in a class by itself. Men who had heard him many a time and had either admired or disapproved of his speeches, admitted that last night they had heard a new Roosevelt.

MOVING SCENES BEGIN EARLY.
Flags and Red-Bandanas Flashing — Men and Women Parading.
    An hour before the meeting was scheduled to begin more than half the seats in the Garden were filled. As the crowd arrived they found every gallery hung with the Stars and Stripes and the roof covered with four mighty flags which billowed among the girders. In their seats were copies of the Progressive song book and bandana handkerchiefs of the brightest red, and in a few minutes the men had tied the handkerchiefs in all sorts of fashions around their necks and the women had pinned them much more becomingly to their waists.
    The centre of attraction was a big stuffed bull moose near the Fourth Avenue entrance. It stood on a pedestal with a spot light playing upon it, and it was so huge it seemed to dominate the entire end of the Garden. It was posed in a most lifelike fashion, with the head upreared and its ears erect, as though it were about to charge as soon as it had discovered the exact location of its enemy.
    From the roof opposite the speakers' stand was suspended a great banner made of the Bull Moose bandana handkerchiefs. It was the battle flag of the Progressive Party of Poughkeepsie, and was made of bandana handkerchiefs collected from every State and Territory in the Union. While the audience waited for the speakers to arrive the Hudson Progressive Club paraded around the hall. It was headed by an old-fashioned transparency on which was perched a stuffed goat. This, it was announced among the inscriptions which decorated the sides of the transparency, was "Abe Gruber's Goat," and its melancholy position was shown by the plaintive "baas" which from time to time it 'was made to emit.
    A number of women were in the parade, and women formed a considerable proportion of the audience, but the greater part of those present were young men who showed their earnestness by the zeal with which they cheered at every opportunity, and from time to time gave forth curious low noises which were understood to be the typical cry of the bull moose. This enthusiasm was especially aroused by campaign mottoes and pictures displayed on a screen above the speakers' tribunal.

Banners That Evoked Cheers.
    "One of the best arguments for woman suffrage is Jane Addams herself," won a cheer from the suffragists, and a laugh followed as a crude colored picture was displayed of a trust magnate squeezing the "common people" in a vise and the legend:
    C is the Coal Trust who squeezes the people. How long will they stand it?
    A tombstone was displayed, erected to a factory girl who died of overwork, and the Tammany tiger was presented with its head crowned with a Princeton College cap. Homer Davenport's cartoon of Uncle Sam declaring Roosevelt was the man aroused a great round of cheers, and a series of moving pictures of the Colonel's Western campaigns was watched with a great deal of interest. He was shown in every possible kind of town, receiving a welcome from suffragettes at one, calling back sailors to shake their hands in another, and escorted by Mystic Shriners in a third.
    The first regular demonstration was given when Gov. Johnson, candidate for Vice President, and Oscar Straus, candidate for Governor, entered and mounted the platform together. Then the whole hall sprang to its feet with a yell and waved flags and bandana handkerchiefs and cheered itself hoarse, while the band played futilely in the gallery. First Gov. Johnson stood forward and bowed and then Mr. Straus took his share of applause, and then both candidates appeared at the front of the tribunal and waved to the crowd together.
    When the demonstration had continued for five minutes, James B. Carpenter, who led the singing at the Bull Moose Convention at Chicago, marshaled a few musicians at the tribunal and called on the audience to sing "America." They gave it with a will, and continued cheering wildly till William H. Hotchkiss got to the front with an enormous gavel. He pounded steadily for two or three minutes without much effect on the noise, and then hoisted a large megaphone. Through this he shouted that at that meeting of National significance he presented as Chairman Senator Dixon, Chairman of the National Progressive Party, and stood aside as three cheers were given for the Senator from Montana.
    Senator Dixon began by saying that the speakers of the evening would be the next Governor of the State of New York, Mr. Straus; the next Vice President of the United States, Gov. Johnson, and the next "our great President, the greatest living American, Theodore Roosevelt."
    A tremendous burst of applause greeted the first mention of the Progressive leader's name, and it was renewed tenfold as Senator Dixon added:
    "Our great leader, sorely wounded, but still in the ring."
    "The last 120 days." he said, "have seen the greatest political revolution ever witnessed by a self-governing democracy. It has seen the greatest fight waged for humanity itself that, the Republic has ever seen. A hundred days ago the old-time political leaders said, 'You could not realign the voters during one political campaign.' One hundred days have seen that fact accomplished."
    Senator Dixon said that he was certain that such States as Michigan, Indiana, Washington, California, and Oregon would give old-time Roosevelt majorities. His prediction brought forth wild cheers and cries of "What's the matter with old New York?" He went on to say that the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado would follow suit, and that Illinois would give Roosevelt and Johnson a landslide of 100,000.
    He then quoted a poll of 15,000 votes in Pittsburgh, from which he deduced that Taft wouldn't carry even two counties in Pennsylvania, and that Roosevelt would carry Allegheny County by a majority over Wilson and Taft combined.
    "Certainly." he declared, and the applause was ringing, "the great Empire State of New York will take her rightful place at the head of the line, and, of course, New Jersey is with us.
    "One final word; if every soldier in this great army of the Commonwealth does his and her full duty on the 4th of next March we shall hang our banners from the dome of the Capitol at Washington."
    Senator Dixon then introduced Mr. Straus, referring to him as one of the big men of the Nation, as an Ambassador to a foreign nation and as "a member of the greatest Cabinet you have seen in this generation."

Long Cheers for Straus.
    As Mr. Straus stepped forward he was greeted with bursts of cheers and a waving of bandanna handkerchiefs and flags which lasted for nearly two minutes. He said:
    "The difference between Progressivism and the old parties is this: The old parties have degenerated until they are dominated by property interests, while Progressivism is not only dominated but inspired by human interests. "The struggle for social justice is making itself felt in all enlightened lands. It cannot be ignored, nor can it be suppressed. With human foresight and statesmanly wisdom, it can be guided. The disturbing striving of one age, when wisely directed, become the constructive and preservative forces of the age that follows.
    "All reforms and reformers in every age have encountered the reactionaries of privilege and power, who have persuaded themselves that their vested interests, however acquired and however administered, were vested rights. These reactionaries, when not checked and made obedient to the legitimate demands and needs of the many, have produced a strong revolutionary movement at the other end of the social system.
    "In 1906 I was summoned to Washington and I was informed by the President that he had placed me at the head of the newest department of the Government, the Department of Commerce and Labor. He said to me:
    " 'Now, Mr. Secretary, I have placed you at the head of what I regard in many respects the most important department of our Government. It comprises on the one side the commercial questions, the advancement of commerce at home and abroad. On the other side, it has under its administration the human questions, questions affecting labor, immigration, the distribution of immigration, and other human questions. Now,' the President said, 'you will find in this great department both a human side and a commercial side, which compose our modern economic life, and I hope,' he said to me, 'that you will be able to harmonize these two great arteries of human interest, so as to promote the better welfare of both. Then he added: 'You will find at times a conflict between the human side and the commercial side, and when you find this conflict I hope you will lean on the human side.' These were the instructions that were given to me by the 'inspired leader' of the Progressive Party — Theodore Roosevelt.

Struggle for Social Justice.
    "Our country has been peculiarly blessed in the fact that in every important effort of its development, from the beginning, a leader has arisen who was best qualified to carry the Nation through storm and stress to that high plane of righteousness and justice that has builded a Nation which to-day stands foremost of all the Nations in the world in interpreting the spirit of human rights for the highest welfare of all the people.
    "Our first stage was the national constructive period under the Fathers; then the civil rights or preservative period for the abolition of slavery. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln were the leaders of the first two periods.
    "We are now in the third stage of our development — the struggle for social justice — and the leader of this third period of our national life is Theodore Roosevelt. Throughout his administration he gave himself with devotion of an inspired prophet to enlarge the opportunities of the plain people of the land by — to use his own words — 'the application of common sense to common problems for the common good under the guidance of the principles upon which this Republic was based and by virtue of which it exists.'
    "The principles upon which this new party has been founded will be carried to successful fruition throughout the Nation by our great leader, whose training and experience in practical problems of government will assure the Nation that no disturbance will follow any act of his, and in my own humble way I will, if elected Governor of this State, apply practical common sense to the problems that have to be met.
    "I think I need hardly ask the intelligent voters of this State whether they are willing to hand over to Tammany Hall the spending in the next two years in this State of two hundred millions of dollars, besides the special appropriation of fifty millions for roads, in addition to the budget of Greater New York, approximating another two hundred millions of dollars?"
    At the conclusion of Mr. Straus's speech, after warning the audience, that a flashlight picture was to be taken, Senator Dixon said that "what was left of the Republican Party" had rented the Garden for Friday, but had surrendered the contract because, he said, apparently they were afraid they couldn't fill the place. Chairman Hotchkiss, he said, had, thereupon, taken the Garden instead, and a meeting will be held at which Mr. Straus would certainly speak, and if everything was all right, Col. Roosevelt would be the guest of honor.
    He then introduced Gov. Johnson as a man who measured up to Presidential timber, and who as Governor of California had "fought the great fight against special privilege," and had driven out forever from Californian politics "an invisible empire in the shape of the Southern Pacific Railway."
    Gov. Johnson's reception left him nothing to desire in its enthusiasm. Once more the flags and the bandannas were called into play; once more the sound of the band in the gallery was completely drowned. When at length quiet was restored, he said:
    "The victory is won, not alone the Victory marked by the counting of the ballots, but the victory in the broader and higher sense that comes from the crystalization of a great public sentiment founded on a moral conception and forcing its way to fulfillment and achievement.

Shaping for Many Years.
    "The great movement that finally this year has found its expression in the Progressive Party has not been of the growth of a day or of a year. For many weary years it has been striving and struggling in the great shadow of privilege, unorganized, without real direction, unspoken often, but existing long. When a great National and industrial development made possible gigantic combinations of wealth, and these combinations, representing but few human beings, exercised wrongfully for selfish profit their colossal influence and power, the rumbling protest of those compelled to pay the price was first heard.
    "When first the injustice of these enormous combinations fell upon the overburdened weak, then this movement had its genesis, and it continued and grew until there was in this Nation a great unorganized sentiment against subtle injustice, against abstraction and appropriation from those who had little to those who had much; against conditions of inequality and oppression bearing harder and harder on those least able to bear it, and upon those very people who, in the final analysis, make for the prosperity, stability, and real wealth of a nation.
    "But a brief period ago, to have preached our doctrine of minimum wage for women, shorter hours for men, social insurance to provide for old age, accident, and lack of employment, and our programme generally or social and industrial justice, would have subjected us to denunciation publicly as 'destroyers,' 'demagogues,' and 'anarchists.' To-day, while secretly frothing with bitterness at the doctrine, our opponents dare not publicly oppose it.
    "The Progressive Party has contributed to the Nation the programme of political reform that means true popular rule. It has brought back Government to its pristine purpose, the care of human kind. It has presented its programme of justice to which the patriotism of the Nation has subscribed, and it has burst from the shell of shams in National political contests. Its cause is destined to be the cause not only of a great Nation, but of humanity. Progressivism is founded upon a rock, and it will endure."

Roosevelt In: then Bedlam.
    Gov. Johnson was still speaking, when a sound of distant cheering, growing ever louder, began to be heard. He continued until a sudden rush of men filled the entrance beneath the speaker's tribunal, showing that the chief speaker of the evening was about to arrive. Col. Roosevelt's actual entrance into the hall was hardly seen by the audience, as he had only A few steps to go before he reached the tribunal. But the very moment that the well-known figure appeared striding to the front of the platform Bedlam was let loose.
    Unless people had known that he had only recently had such a narrow escape from death they would never have known it from his appearance. Perhaps his ruddy countenance was a shade less healthy; perhaps there was a certain stiffness in his movements. But through a demonstration which lasted for forty-five minutes he stood on the platform without betraying any sign of weakness. One thing, however, was noticeable, as he waved to the audience in his old enthusiastic way, as he caught the eye of a friend and made a gesture toward him, it was always his left arm that he used. His right arm hung motionless by his side.
    Just as Col. Roosevelt reached the platform the inevitable crank appeared. Capt. Fritz Duquesne, in charge of the Colonel's bodyguard, saw a hatless man pushing his way toward the Presidential candidate. Duquesne pushed him back, but not until the intruder had got within a few feet of the Colonel, and then only after the bodyguard had knocked him down. Frank Tyree, a United States Marshal from Virginia, who as a Secret Service man guarded Col. Roosevelt when he was President, seized the crank and hurried him down stairs, where the man was ejected.
    But he was not all smiles by any means. Time and again those seated close to the speakers' stand could see him bring his teeth together with a sharp snap of his lower jaw which left him gazing out over the howling and cheering multitude, grim as a general at eve of battle, but looking also a bit self-conscious and troubled at the great homage all these warm friends were paying him. There was more of smiles and less of sternness in his acceptance of adoration in other days.

Cheers, Stamping, and Singing.
    When the crowd grew tired of cheering it started a thunder of pedal applause that shook the timber flooring of the Garden, and when that raised too much dust, it switched off into singing, under the guidance of the crashing, booming band, "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night," "Everybody's Doing It — He's a bear, he's a bear, he's a bear!" and "Dixie"; switched gradually into the more solemn "Hail to the Chief" and the fervid strains of "Onward Christian Soldiers," until the crowd, now fifteen minutes from the start of bedlam. felt strong enough again to resume its cheering and noise. Then, with hundred-fold repetition, the crowd, shouting gradually as one man, broke into a deafening chorus of "We want Teddy! We want Teddy!" That tickled the Colonel more than all the cheering and hymning theretofore.
    They started "Onward Christian Soldiers" again, but presently that ended up in "Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue," and then the Colonel, too, joined in, the singing. Several times Gov. Johnson, and also Senator Dixon, moved up to the Colonel amid the deafening din, and seemed to ask him whether he was not tired out and weakening. But the Colonel only waved them back to their seats and turned with renewed waving of his left arm and more cordial smiles to the audience.
    It was now 9:53 o'clock, and it was apparent that they were going to keep the uproar alive until forty-five minutes or even an hour had been rounded out. They were all hoarse and streaming with perspiration as they stood there on chairs and in the aisle, men and women alike, mad with enthusiasm, waving their bandanas and flags. The Colonel took a glass of water vicariously for them and drank it, and then, refreshed, they cheered more than ever. The searchlight blazed forth on him now, and that brought more cheers.
    It was only when 10 o'clock had been reached, and the Colonel, his face showing by a slight moisture that he was really feeling the strain, held up his hand solemnly to make them pause, that they finally gave in and became gradually quiet.
    Col. Roosevelt read his speech in a vigorous, powerful voice with all his old-time explosiveness as to B's and P's, and sharp hissing sibilants and clear enunciation. Only, he used few gestures, and then only with the hand that held his manuscript. He nodded his head with short sharp jerks to drive home his points the more vigorously, however.
    At the outset of his speech, there was some noise near the platform as persons who had crowded in late tried to get seats, and officers tried to keep them back. Col. Roosevelt noticed that, and bending forward shouted:
    "Keep those people quiet, please! Officers, be quiet!"
    The noise was hushed almost immediately. Then, in a clear, ringing voice that could be heard as distinctly in the furthest parts of the galleries as near the platform itself, Col. Roosevelt read his speech. One striking fact borne home on many of his listeners was his failure often to use the first personal pronoun singular which he has made so famous, substituting for it almost invariably the words "we Progressives" or the plain and apparently not editorial "we."

ROOSEVELT'S SPEECH.
    Here is Col. Roosevelt's speech in full:
    "Friends, perhaps once in a generation, perhaps not so often, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights. To our fathers the chance came in the mighty days of Abraham Lincoln, of the man who thought and toiled and suffered for the people with a sad, patient, and kindly endeavor. To our forefathers the chance came in the troubled years that stretched from the time when the First Continental Congress gathered to the time when Washington was inaugurated as first President of the Republic. To us in our turn the chance has now come to stand for liberty and righteousness as in their day those dead men stood for liberty and righteousness. Our task is not as great as theirs. Yet it is well-nigh as important. Our task is to profit by the lessons of the past, and to check in time the evils that grow around us, lest our failure to do so may cause dreadful disaster to the people. We must not sit supine and helpless. We must not permit the brutal selfishness of arrogance and the brutal selfishness of envy, each to run unchecked its evil course. If we do so, then some day smoldering hatred will suddenly kindle into a consuming flame, and either we or our children will be called on to face a crisis as grim as any which this Republic has ever seen.
    "It is our business to show that nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time. Woe to our Nation if we let matters drift, if in our industrial and political life we let an unchecked and utterly selfish individualistic materialism riot to its appointed end! That end would be widespread disaster, for it would mean that our people would be sundered by those dreadful lines of division which are drawn when the selfish greed of the haves is set over against the selfish greed of the have-nots. There is but one way to prevent such a division, and that is to forestall it by the kind of a movement in which we are now engaged.

Preaching No New Doctrine.
    "Our movement is one of resolute insistence upon the rights and full acknowledgment of the duties of every man and every woman within this great land of ours. We war against the forces of evil, and the weapons we use are the weapons of right. We do not set greed against greed or hatred against hatred. Our creed is one that bids us to be just to all, to feel sympathy for all, and to strive for an understanding of the needs of all. Our purpose is to smite down wrong. But toward those who have done the wrong we feel only the kindliest charity that is compatible with causing the wrong to cease. We preach hatred to no man, and the spirit in which we work is as far removed from vindictiveness as from weakness. We are resolute to do away with the evil, and we intend to proceed with such wise and cautious sanity as will cause the very minimum of disturbance that is compatible with achieving our purpose.
    "Do not forget, friends, that we are not proposing to substitute law for character. We are merely proposing to buttress character by law. We fully recognize that, as has been true in the past, so it is true now, and ever will be true, the prime factor in each man or woman's success must normally be that man or woman's own character — character, the sum of many qualities, but above all of the qualities of honesty, of courage, and of common sense. Nothing will avail a nation if there is not the right type of character among the average men and women, the plain people, the hard-working, decent-living, right-thinking people, who make up the great bulk of our citizenship. I know my countrymen; I know that they are of this type. But it is in civil life, as it is in war. In war it is the man behind the gun that counts most, and yet he cannot do his work unless he has the right kind of gun. In civil life, in the everyday life of our Nation, it is individual character which counts most; and yet the individual character cannot avail unless in addition thereto there lie ready to hand the social weapons which can be forged only by law and by public opinion operating through and operated upon by law.

Shackling Cunning and Brutal Force.
    "Again, friends, do not forget that we are proposing no new principles. The doctrines we preach reach back to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount They reach back to the Commandments delivered at Sinai. All that we are doing is to apply those doctrines in the shape necessary to make them available for meeting the living issues of our own day. We decline to be bound by the empty little cut-and-dried formulas of bygone philosophies, useful once, perhaps, but useless now. Our purpose is to shackle greedy cunning as we shackle brutal force, and we are not to be diverted from this purpose by the appeal to the dead dogmas of a vanished past. We propose to lift the burdens from the lowly and the weary, from the poor and the oppressed. We propose to stand for the sacred rights of childhood and womanhood. Nay, more, we propose to see that manhood is not crushed out of the men who toil, by excessive hours of labor, by underpayment, by injustice and oppression. When this purpose can only be secured by the collective action of our people through their governmental agencies, we propose so to secure it. We brush aside the arguments of those who seek to bar action by the repetition of some formula about "States' rights" or about "the history of liberty" being "the history of the limitation of governmental power," or about the duty of the courts finally to determine the meaning of the Constitution. We are for human rights and we intend to work for them in efficient fashion. Where they can be best obtained by the application of the doctrines of States' rights, then we are for States' rights. Where, in order to obtain them, it is necessary to invoke the power of the Nation, then we shall invoke to its uttermost limits that mighty power. We are for liberty. But we are for the liberty of the oppressed, and not for the liberty of the oppressor to oppress the weak and to bind burdens on the shoulders of the heavy laden. It is idle to ask us not to exercise the power of the Government when only by the power of the Government can we curb the greed that sits in high places, when only by the exercise of the Government can we exalt the lowly and give heart to the humble and the downtrodden.
    "We care for facts and not for formulas. We care for deeds and not for words. We recognize no sacred right of oppression. We recognize no divine right to work injustice. We stand for the Constitution. We recognize that one of its most useful functions is the protection of property. But we will not consent to make of the Constitution a fetich for the protection of fossilized wrong. We call the attention of those who thus interpret it to the fact that in that great instrument of justice life and liberty are put on a full level with property, indeed, are enumerated ahead of it in the order of their importance. We stand for an upright judiciary. But where the Judges claim the right to make our laws by finally interpreting them, by finally deciding whether or not we have the power to make them, then we claim the right ourselves to exercise that power. We forbid any men, no matter what their official position may be, to usurp the right which is ours, the right which is the people's. We recognize in neither court nor Congress, nor President, any divine right to override the will of the people expressed with due deliberation in orderly fashion and through the forms of law.
    "We Progressives hold that the words of the Declaration of Independence, as given effect to by Washington and as construed and applied by Abraham Lincoln, are to be accepted as real, and not as empty phrases. We believe that in very truth this is a Government by the people themselves, that the Constitution is theirs, that the courts are theirs, that all the governmental agents and agencies are theirs. We believe that all true leaders of the people must fearlessly stand for righteousness and honesty, must fearlessly tell the people what justice and honor demand. But we no less strongly insist that it is for the people themselves finally to decide all questions of public policy and to have their decision made effective.
    "In the platform formulated by the Progressive Party we have set forth clearly and specifically our faith on every vital point at issue before this people.
    "We have declared our position on the trusts and on the tariff, on the machinery for securing genuine popular government, on the method of meeting the needs of the farmer, of the business man and of the man who toils with his hands, in the mine or on the railroad, in the factory or in the shop. There is not a promise we have made which cannot be kept. There is not a promise we have made that will not be kept. Our platform is a covenant with the people of the United States, and if we are given the power we will live up to that covenant in letter and in spirit.

Stand in Spirit of Brotherhood.
    "We know that there are in life injustices which we are powerless to remedy. But we know also that there is much injustice which can be remedied, and this injustice we intend to remedy. We know that the long path leading upward toward the light cannot be traversed at once, or in a day, or in a year. But there are certain stops that can be taken at once. These we intend to take. Then, having taken these first stops, we shall see more clearly how to walk still further with a bolder stride. We do not intend to attempt the impossible. But there is much, very much, that is possible in the way of righting wrong and remedying injustice, and all that is possible we intend to do. We intend to strike down privilege, to equalize opportunity, to wrest justice from the hands that do injustice, to hearten and strengthen men and women for the hard battle of life. We stand shoulder to shoulder in a spirit of real brotherhood. We recognise no differences of class, creed, or birthplace. We recognize no factionalism. Our appeal is made to the Easterner no less than to the Westerner. Our appeal is made to the Southerner no less than to the Northerner. We appeal to the men who wore the gray just as we appeal to the men who wore the blue. We appeal to the sons of the men who followed Lee no less than, to the sons of the men who followed Grant; for the memory of the great deeds of both is now part of the common heritage of honor which belongs to all our people, wherever they dwell.

There Must Be Time for Play.
    "We firmly believe that the American people feel hostility to no man who has honestly won success. We firmly believe that the American people ask only justice, justice each for himself and justice each for all others. They are against wickedness in rich man and poor man alike. They are against lawless and murderous violence exactly as they are against the sordid materialism which seeks, wealth by trickery and cheating whether on a large or a small scale. They wish to deal honestly and in good faith with all men. They recognize that the prime National need is for honesty, honesty in public life and in private life, honesty in business and in politics, honesty in the broadest and deepest significance of the word. We Progressives are trying to represent what we know to be the highest ideals and the deepest and most intimate convictions of the plain men and women, of the good men and women, who work for the home and within the home.
    "Our people work hard and faithfully. They do not wish to shirk their work. They must fee] pride in the work for the work's sake. But there must be bread for the work. There must be a time for play when the men and women are young. When they grow old there must be the certainty of rest under conditions free from the haunting terror of utter poverty. We believe that no life is worth anything unless it is a life of labor and effort and endeavor. We believe in the joy that comes with work, for he who labors best is really happiest. We must shape conditions so that no one can own the spirit of the man who loves his task and gives the best there is in him to that task, and it matters not whether this man reaps and sows and wrests his livelihood from the rugged reluctance of the soil or whether with hand or brain he plays his part in the tremendous industrial activities of our great cities. We are striving to meet the needs of all these men, and to meet them in such fashion that all alike shall feel bound together in the bond of a common brotherhood, when each works hard for himself and for those dearest to him, and yet feels that he must also think of his brother's rights because he is in very truth that brother's keeper.

The Watchword.
    "Seven months ago in this city, almost at the beginning of the present campaign, I spoke as follows:
    " 'The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is spend and be spent. It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years, and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of Men.'
    "Friends, what I said then I say now. Surely there never was a greater opportunity than ours. Surely there never was a fight better worth making than this. I believe we shall win, but win or lose I am glad beyond measure 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."