On his return he found the Republican party threatened with defeat and the adminis tration gravely discredited by Mr. Taft's com plete failure to justify the hopes of those who had secured his nomination and most signally of all, of Roosevelt himself ; he found also a general conviction, which every day strength ened, that only his own acceptance of the Re publican nomination for the Presidency in 1912 could prevent a Democratic victory. Against both his own inclination and his own judg ment he finally yielded to the overwhelming pressure brought upon him, and consented, in his own words, to "cast his hat into the ring." The party primaries gave him an undoubted majority in the convention held at Chicago in June 1912, but the wealthy "interests° which controlled the National Committee, and, through it, the preliminary organization of the conven tion, and the unscrupulous politicians who did their bidding deliberately preferred defeat at the polls to four years more of Roosevelt, and unseated enough of his delegates to ensure the formal renomination of Mr. Taft. An impro vised "Progressive° party, created largely as a protest against the injustice and dishonesty of this nomination, put Roosevelt in the field, and a bitter, three-cornered contest followed; dur ing this a partially demented man, maddened by the violent abuse of Roosevelt's enemies, at tempted to kill him at Milwaukee, inflicting a wound which obliged him to remain two weeks in a hospital. At the election Mr. Taft met prob ably the most humiliating defeat ever experi enced by a candidate for the Presidency, carry ing only two small States and receiving only eight electoral votes; Roosevelt obtained 80, and a popular vote of over 4,000,000, but the division of the Republicans made inevitable the election of the Democratic candidate, Wood row Wilson.
In October 1913, Roosevelt sailed for South America to explore a virtually unknown portion of the Brazilian wilderness. This expedition was attended by great dangers and hardships; his party was for months entirely cut off from civilization and suffered terribly from the tropi cal fevers always lurking in those regions. He was himself so very ill and the party so utterly exhausted that he urged them to leave him to die; but his companions, includ ing his son Kermit, refused to do this, and finally succeeded in reaching a frontier settle ment. Roosevelt returned to his home in May 1914, and thereafter was outwardly as earnest, as active and as interested in public affairs as he had ever been; but the poison of the South American fever remained in his system, under mined his strength and undoubtedly shortened his life.
Roosevelt's return to the United States was very soon followed by the outbreak of the European War. He had entirely disapproved of President Wilson's policy of 'watchful wait ing' and inconclusive intermeddling in Mexi can affairs, and now found himself yet more radically out of sympathy with the latter's ad vocacy of "neutrality in thought' respecting Belgium and the settlement underlying his 'too proud to fight' speech: moreover Roosevelt had naturally and strongly felt as an unseemly re flection on his own official course that a succes sor in the Presidency should negotiate a treaty with Colombia apologizing for the action of the United States at Panama. He became more and more critical of the administration as he re alized more and more clearly the imminent danger to the United States involved in a possi ble German victory, and the unwillingness of President Wilson and of the political party then dominant to adopt any adequate measures of preparation for war, or even to resent with dignity and spirit repeated and insolent out rages on our citizens. To bring about Mr. Wil
son's defeat in 1916, he refused to run as the Progressive candidate for the Presidency (thereby virtually destroying the short-lived Progressive party), when the same interests and, in the main, the same men responsible for Mr. Taft's candidacy four years before again showed that they preferred their party's defeat to Roosevelt's election, by giving the Republican nomination to Justice Charles E. Hughes. Roosevelt earnestly and wholeheartedly sup ported Hughes in the ensuing campaign, but his innumerable friends were less forgiving than himself, and their profound dissatisfac tion, joined to some clumsy and arrogant blunders on the part of the Republican man agers, gave Woodrow Wilson four years more in the White House.
The President's final break with Germany was to Roosevelt a very agreeable surprise He threw himself with all possible ardor into the advocacy of an energetic participation ia the war on our part, and offered to raise a division of volunteers, in which he should him self serve as one of the brigadier-generals. He was instantly overwhelmed with applica tions to serve in the force from all parts of the Union; it is said that more than 250,000 men asked to join it. Congress authorized its or ganization, notwithstanding strenuous oppo sition from the President; but the latter re fused to avail himself of the authority thus conferred; Roosevelt could not be allowed to return home with a military record.
Roosevelt was bitterly disappointed by this refusal; prevented by the President from serv ing his country in the field, he did everything in his power to arouse an imperative demand by public opinion for a prosecution of the war with unflinching vigor up to a decisive vic tory, without regard to the cost and sacrifices involved, and protested with all possible energy against any thought of negotiation or parley with the public enemy; for, with many others, he entertained something more than a suspicion that oeace without victory was the secret aim of President Wilson. All tour of tus sons promptly entered the army and served with distinction; one of the four was killed; two were wounded. When on 25 Oct. 1918, the President appealed to the voters of the Nation to elect a Democratic Congress, as a mark of confidence in himself and approval of his policy, Roosevelt vigorously denounced the President's course, and united with ex-Presi dent Taft in urging that the voters should choose °a Congress which will not register the will of one man, but, fresh from the people, will enact the will of the people.° The ex tremely significant result of the election, which, instead of giving the President the vote of confidence he had asked, changed Democratic majorities of 10 in the Senate and five in the House into Republican majorities of 2 in the Senate and 45 in the House was the last of Roosevelt's many political triumphs; and It proved a solace to the last two months of his life. His health, fatally weakened by the re sults of his South American explorations, had gradually failed during the four busy and ex citing years succeeding his return. About mid night on 5 Jan. 1919, he dictated from his sick bed a communication to the chairman of the Republican National Committee; some four hours afterward, he died quietly in his sleep.