Security for Roosevelt and his fame lay in his retirement to his home acres as a kind of national sage; but at the request of the governor of New York, Charles Evans Hughes, he plunged into a factional fight within the Republican Party in the State (19i 0) and was sharply defeated. In numerous addresses in many parts of the country, however, and in the columns of the Outlook,a weekly periodical of which he was "contributing editor," Roosevelt carried forward his fight for what he called the new nationalism; a struggle for "social justice and popular rule," the control by the people of their political instruments and their government for the purpose of providing a condition approxi mating equality of opportunity. "The new nationalism" was de nounced as revolutionary; it was, in fact, essentially conserva tive, seeking, as it did, merely a reinvigoration of established Amer ican institutions. Certain mildly radical expedients which it pro posed were : the recall of elective officers by popular vote, the ref erendum, intended to make the legislatures more directly respon sive to the popular will, and the direct primary. The recall of ju dicial decisions, advocated by Roosevelt as a check on the reac tionary tendency of the judiciary in its function as the interpreter of the constitution, frightened the conservatives. As the struggle between the two factions in the Republican Party became in creasingly bitter, pressure was brought to bear upon Roosevelt to declare himself a candidate for the presidency; and on Feb. 25, 1912, to use his own phrase, he "threw his hat in the ring." It was not in Roosevelt's nature, once he had entered a struggle of any sort, to strike with cushioned gloves. The quarrel between Roosevelt and Taft, brought into the open by the contest for delegates, proved distressing alike to the friends of the protago nists and to the general public. In the 13 States where presi dential primaries were held, the result, however, gave evidence that the majority of the Republican voters wanted him as their candidate; for of 362 delegates thus selected, 278 favoured Roose velt and 48 Taft. The President's strength, in fact, came largely from States which cast a very small Republican vote and in which the control of the political machinery was in the hands of the office-holders. In many cases, the progressive voters named protesting delegations who appeared before the Republican Na tional Committee in Chicago before the convention met (June 22, 1912) to claim the seats which they declared had been fraudu lently assigned to their rivals. By a margin of 15 votes—which were offered to Roosevelt, but on terms which he felt he could not accept—the convention was organized by his opponents.
In the stirring events of the convention—though not in the hall itself—Roosevelt played the dominant part. He was ready to agree on a compromise candidate, but only on condition that the rolls of the convention be purged of those delegates who, he insisted, had been fraudulently seated. The convention nomi nated Taft, and the defeated elements, under the leadership of Roosevelt, formed the Progressive Party. Its first convention, held in Chicago early in August, proved unique in American political history in the fact that women were admitted as delegates. Roose velt announced the principles of his party, demanding what he had fought for throughout his presidency—the control of the government and the resources of the United States by the people rather than by the professional politicians and financiers; asking, in effect, for a return to fundamental principles. On Aug. 7, the convention nominated Roosevelt for president and Hiram Johnson of California, for vice-president. The Democrats, mean while, meeting in Baltimore, had nominated Woodrow Wilson for president. During the campaign, both Wilson and Taft concen trated their artillery on Roosevelt. At the height of the campaign, on Oct. 14, Roosevelt was shot by a maniac in Milwaukee as he was getting into the automobile which was to take him to the hall where he was to speak; he insisted, however, on making his address and it was an hour and a half before he consented to be taken to a hospital. In the election, Wilson received 435 electoral
votes, Roosevelt 38 and Taft 8. The popular vote was 6,293,097 for Wilson; 4,119,507 for Roosevelt ; 3,484,956 for Taft, and 901,873 for the Socialist candidate, Eugene V. Debs.
Roosevelt had expected defeat and it brought no bitterness. He returned to his editorial work on the Outlook, wrote his Auto biography and only interrupted the life of a country gentleman to move upon a little town in Michigan with a score of "char acter witnesses" in May, 1913, to confound the editor of a magazine called Iron Ore who had rashly put in print a charge widely current, that the ex-president was occasionally or, in fact, frequently, drunk. The defendant admitted that he had combed the country in vain for witnesses to substantiate his charge, ac knowledged his error and paid the six cents in damages which was all Roosevelt would accept.
In the autumn of 1913, Roosevelt went to South America to address numerous learned bodies and to secure specimens in the jungles of Brazil for the American Museum of Natural History. His journey from capital to capital—a repetition of his triumphal progress through Europe—belied the theory that his action as President regarding Panama had angered the South American peo ples. At the suggestion of the Brazilian government and accom panied by a gallant Brazilian explorer, Col. Candido Rondon, he set out to determine the course of a hitherto unknown river, vaguely indicated on existing maps as the River of Doubt. The journey of goo m. through primeval wilderness was arduous and full of peril, with death by starvation awaiting the expedition if it went too slow; and death in the rapids waiting if it went too fast. Canoes were crushed in the treacherous waters; supplies were lost ; fever made sharp inroads. Finally Roosevelt himself was taken desperately ill, but he struggled forward, until at last, when disaster seemed inevitable, the party reached civilization at the confluence of the river they had charted with the Madeira, a tribu tary of the Amazon. In honour of the exploit the Brazilian gov ernment christened the stream the Rio Roosevelt.