Nonfiction > Jacob A. Riis > Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen >
X. The Summons on Mount Marcy X. The Summons on Mount Marcy ON
that summer day, three years ago, when the Republican party
nominated Theodore Roosevelt for Vice-President, I was lying on
my back, stricken down by sudden severe illness. My wife had
telegraphed to him that I longed to see him; but in the turmoil
of the convention the message did not get to him till the
morning after the nominations were made. He came at once from
Philadelphia, and it was then that I, out of pain and peril,
heard from his own lips the story of his acceptance of the new
dignity his countrymen had thrust upon him. “Thrust upon” is
right. I knew how stoutly he had opposed the offer, how he had
met delegation after delegation with the frank avowal that he
could serve the party and the country better as Governor of New
York, and I knew that that was his ambition; for his work at
Albany was but half finished. It was his desire that the people
should give him another term i