Theodore Roosevelt left the Presidency in March, 1909, and a month later sailed for East Africa. There for a year he hunted big game-lion and elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, ostrich and hippopotamus, meeting strange peoples and perilous adventures. He emerged from the jungle at Khartoum in April, 1910, to be greeted by a cheer of welcome that echoed around the world. His journey down the Nile and through Europe was a triumphal progress extraordinary in its evidence of admiration and wonder. He made formal addresses before half a dozen learned bodies, stirring up a hornet's nest in Cairo by his denunciation of a recent political assassination, another in Rome by refusing to allow his freedom of action to be circumscribed by the papal authorities, a third in London by criticizing England's government of Egypt. Christiania he received the Nobel Prize, awarded to him the year previous for his efforts in bringing about the Peace of Portsmouth; in Berlin he reviewed, at the Kaiser's side, the crack troops of the Empire. Altogether, it was a memorable journey.

At

He returned to the United States to find the Party, which he had left united and vigorous after its recent victory, disrupted by bitter factional strife, and slipping rapidly toward disaster. In the struggle be

tween the progressive and the reactionary elements he could not stand to one side in dignified neutrality. He espoused the progressive cause and in the campaign of 1910 fought with all the energy that was in him for the overthrow of boss-rule in New York State. He was decisively beaten after a contest that was bitter in the extreme. His enemies shouted that he was politically dead. He withdrew to Sagamore Hill and his editorial work on the staff of the Outlook, and, for the moment, let his foes rejoice.

Defeat in no wise embittered him. "I have never been happier than for the last four months," he wrote to a friend in March, 1911. "I have revelled in staying quietly in my own home, with those for whom I care most in the world, and with my own books, and the things with which I have associations."

But the struggle into which he had thrown, with such seeming recklessness, the stake of his great reputation, had been scarcely checked by the mid-term defeat. He was urged to be a candidate for President on the Republican ticket against President Taft, who was backed by the party machine and the so-called "stand-patters". He did not want to make the race, and it was against his own best judgment that he was persuaded at last to enter the contest. Once in, however, he fought with his whole being. One state after another, in the primary campaign, pledged its

delegates to him. But the party machine was in the hands of his enemies, and in the convention, held in Chicago in June, they used it relentlessly to effect his defeat. The progressives, refusing to vote, marched out of the convention hall, leaving a disgruntled majority to carry through the program of the conservative leaders. A new Progressive Party sprang into being overnight and in August, amid scenes of the wildest enthusiasm, mingled with a devotion to a high cause absent hitherto from political conventions, nominated Theodore Roosevelt for President.

He

The ensuing campaign was fierce and rancorous. At the height of it Roosevelt was shot by a fanatic in Milwaukee as he was entering an automobile on his way to a mass-meeting he was about to address. insisted on making his speech, went to the hospital, and after two weeks was again on his feet, campaigning. In the three-cornered election in November he polled over four million votes, but was defeated by Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate. Once more his enemies rejoiced and said that he was "done for." He took his defeat with the same good grace and humor with which he had taken victory in the past, returned to his editorial work, wrote his Autobiography, and accepted the popular verdict that he was out of politics.

In the autumn of 1913 he went to South America to address numerous learned bodies there and to make an exploring expedition into the jungles of Brazil, to which he had long looked forward. His journey from capital to capital in South America was a repetition of his triumphal progress through Europe. His plunge into the Brazilian wilderness, on the other hand, was infinitely more hazardous than the African trip. For months he and his expedition were completely out of touch with the outside world. He discovered a hitherto unknown river, vaguely indicated on existing maps as the River of Doubt, and at imminent risk of disaster explored the nine hundred miles of its course. The trip was indescribably arduous and full of peril; his life was constantly in danger in the treacherous rapids and along the fever-infested banks; savage Indians shot their poisonous arrows unseen out of the dark tangle. One after another his canoes were crushed in the rapids; one after another his men sickened. Finally he himself was laid low with fever, and for forty-eight hours was deadly ill. He pleaded with his son Kermit, who was with him, and with the other members of his party to leave him behind and push on, in order that the whole expedition might not suffer the catastrophe which was always imminent of death by starvation. His companions refused to leave him. By a great effort

of will he raised himself from his sick-bed and plunged on with them from rapids to rapids, until at last, when disaster seemed inevitable, a post on the river bank with the carved initials of some rubber trader indicated that they were on the outskirts of civilization once more. For weeks thereafter Roosevelt lay tossing with fever on the bottom of the canoe as they drifted down the placid reaches of the river. The Brazilian government, in honor of his exploit, christened the river he had found the Rio Teodoro.

VI

He returned to his own country in May, 1914. Three months later the World War broke out. Roosevelt saw at once that America could not remain untouched by it. He pleaded for preparedness; he pleaded for an international tribunal backed by force to execute its decrees. His pleas were met with a tumult of abuse. He did not let it swerve him from his course. When the Lusitania was sunk, he pleaded for instant action-not a declaration of war, but a trade embargo against Germany and open ports for the ships of the Allies. At the outbreak of the brief and inglorious war with Mexico he offered to raise a division of troops. His offer was refused. Meanwhile his demand for national preparedness began to stir the country to a sense of the gravity of its position.