t was
hopeless to make any opposition to my nomination. The effort was
abandoned, and I was nominated unanimously. Judge Parker was nominated
by the Democrats against me. Practically all the metropolitan newspapers
of largest circulation were against me; in New York City fifteen out
of every sixteen copies of papers issued were hostile to me. I won by a
popular majority of about two million and a half, and in the electoral
college carried 330 votes against 136. It was by far the largest popular
majority ever hitherto given any Presidential candidate.

My opponents during the campaign had laid much stress upon my supposed
personal ambition and intention to use the office of President to
perpetuate myself in power. I did not say anything on the subject
prior to the election, as I did not wish to say anything that could be
construed into a promise offered as a consideration in order to secure
votes. But on election night, after the returns were in I issued the
following statement: "The wise custom which limits the President to two
terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances
will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination."

The reason for my choice of the exact phraseology used was twofold. In
the first place, many of my supporters were insisting that, as I had
served only three and a half years of my first term, coming in from the
Vice-Presidency when President McKinley was killed, I had really had
only one elective term, so that the third term custom did not apply to
me; and I wished to repudiate this suggestion. I believed then (and I
believe now) the third term custom or tradition to be wholesome, and,
therefore, I was determined to regard its substance, refusing to quibble
over the words usually employed to express it. On the other hand, I did
not wish simply and specifically to say that I would not be a candidate
for the nomination in 1908, because if I had specified the year when I
would not be a candidate, it would have been widely accepted as meaning
that I intended to be a candidate some other year; and I had no such
intention, and had no idea that I would ever be a candidate again.
Certain newspaper men did ask me if I intended to apply my prohibition
to 1912, and I answered that I was not thinking of 1912, nor of 1920,
nor of 1940, and that I must decline to say anything whatever except
what appeared in my statement.

The Presidency is a great office, and the power of the P