His political associates in New York hated him, accused him of
being "for nothing but Hughes," when he quit them in the fight "to
hand the government back to the people" and went, on the invitation
of President Taft, upon the Supreme Bench. But it was his only way
out. If he had gone on working with them, he would still be
"handing the government back to the people" along with,--but who
were the great figures of 1910? He knows an expiring issue and its
embarrassments by an unerring instinct. He finds a new one, such as
"our national interests," with as sure a sense.

It is worth while casting a glance at him "smoking his pipe," when
other real and false opportunities presented themselves to him; one
finds discrimination. He refuses a Republican nomination for Mayor
of New York City when there is not a chance of electing a
Republican Mayor of New York City. He accepts a Republican
nomination for Governor of New York State, when the putting up of
Hearst as the Democratic candidate makes the election of a
Republican as Governor of New York State morally certain. He
refuses the Republican nomination for President, in 1912, when
another, viewing himself and his party less objectively, through
vanity perhaps, might have believed that his own nomination was the
one thing needed to prevent that year's Republican cataclysm. Four
years later he accepts the Republican nomination for President,
when as the result showed, there is at least a reasonable chance to
win. He takes the post of Secretary of State when neglected
opportunities lie ready to his hand and when the force of world
events requires little more than his intelligent acquiescence to
bring him diplomatic success.

His discovery of "interests" was no accident. It sprang from that