d social
life in that Island, to teach the people after four centuries of
misrule that there were such things as governmental righteousness and
honesty and fair play for all men on their merits as men."

[Footnote: _Harvard Graduates' Magazine_.]

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{157}

THE STATESMAN

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{159}

VII

THE STATESMAN

Meantime, while Wood was carrying on his work in Cuba, events of
importance to him and to his country were taking place in the United
States. The popularity of his war record had made Roosevelt Governor
of New York, and when the time came for him to run for a second term
the Republican organization of the state forced him to take the
nomination for Vice-President of the United States in order to keep
him out of the gubernatorial field. He objected strongly and tried to
remain in the state fight, but at the convention in Philadelphia upon
a certain momentous occasion Thomas Platt, then head, of the state and
national Republican organization, is said to have remarked to him:

"Mr. Roosevelt, if you do not desire the vice-presidential nomination,
there is always the alternative of retirement to private life."

In other words party machinery was too strong {160} for him and
much against his will he was forced to run as second on the
McKinley-Roosevelt presidential ticket.

The Republicans were successful and Roosevelt, knowing that there was
little for him to do in Washington, was planning an extended trip
through the Southern states to make an exhaustive study of the negro
question. He had indeed begun to accumulate material on this subject
when on September 6, 1901, McKinley was shot at Buffalo. A few days
later he died; and Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United
States.

For Wood this meant much in the future--much of good and something of
trouble. Roosevelt was his devoted friend and supporter, and upon his
return to the United States in early 1902 he found this devoted friend
the head of the nation, himself a Brigadier-General of the regular
army scheduled to go into regular army work and to live on an army
officer's pay. In this country there is no other procedure possible.
In England such a man would have been given a title and a large sum of
money to make it possible for him to keep up the position which a man
of his abilities and {161} attainments should keep up. Here the case
is different.

He had the alternative of going on, or retiring and entering
commercial pursuits. Off