necessary to secure the concession for the construction of the
canal. The difficulties to be overcome in both Houses seemed
insurmountable, and would have been so except for the marvellous
resourcefulness and power of the president.

When the Republican convention met in 1908, I was again delegate
at large. It was a Roosevelt convention and crazy to have him
renominated. It believed that he could overcome the popular
feeling against a third term. Roosevelt did not think so. He
believed that in order to make a third term palatable there must
be an interval of another and different administration. When
the convention found that his decision was unalterably not to
accept the nomination himself, it was prepared to accept any one
he might advise. He selected his secretary of war and most
intimate friend, William Howard Taft. Taft had a delightful
personality, and won distinction upon the bench, and had proved
an admirable administrator as governor of the Philippine Islands.
After Mr. Taft's election the president, in order that the new
president and his administration might not be embarrassed by his
presence and prestige, went on a two years' trip abroad.

During that trip he was more in the popular mind at home and
abroad than almost any one in the world. If he reviewed the German
army with the Kaiser, the press was full of the common characteristics
and differences between the two men and of the unprecedented
event of the guest giving advice to the Kaiser.

When he visited England he told in a public speech of his experience
in Egypt, and recommended to the English Government that, if they
expected to continue to govern Egypt, to begin to govern it.