RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
responsibility for any error must ultimately come upon me, and therefore I cannot shirk the responsibility or in the last resort yield to any one else's decision if my judgment is against it. After the most careful thought : alter the most earnest effort as to what you desired and thought best, I have come, irrevocably, to the decision that I shall appoint you to the Supreme Court in the vacancy caused by Judge Shims' resignation.…I am very sorry if what I am doing displeases you, but as I said, old man, this is one of the cases where the President, if he is fit for his position, must take the responsibility and put the men on whom he most relies in the particular positions in which he himself thinks they can render the greatest public good. I shall therefore about February first nominate you as I have suggested.
With affectionate regard,
Ever yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.
This seemed final enough as to be quite unanswerable, so I heaved a sigh of resignation and made some remark about the not unpleasing prospect of our all getting home alive at any rate. General Wright was to succeed to the Governorship, which was a great consolation to my husband, and we began at once to outline a programme of obedience to the President. Mr. Taft announced his impending departure and really considered that further argument was useless, but conditions were such that he could not resist the temptation to hazard one more protest. He cabled to Mr. Roosevelt:
The President, Washington, Recognise soldier's duty to obey orders. Before orders irrevocable by action however I presume on our personal friendship even in the face of your letter to make one more appeal, in which I lay aside wholly my strong personal disinclination to leave work of intense interest half done. No man is indispensable; my death would little interfere with programme, but my withdrawal more serious. Circumstances last three years have convinced these people, controlled largely by personal feeling, that I am their friend and stand for a policy of confidence in them and belief in their future and for extension of self-government as they show themselves worthy. Visit to Rome and proposals urged there assure them of my sympathy in regard to friars in respect to whose far-reaching influence they are mor-
266
