my heart in real and thoroughgoing democracy, and I wished to make this democracy industrial as well as political, although I had only partially formulated the methods I believed we should follow.  I believed in the people’s rights, and therefore in National rights and States’ rights just exactly to the degree in which they severally secured popular rights.  I believed in invoking the National power with absolute freedom for every National need; and I believed that the Constitution should be treated as the greatest document ever devised by the wit of man to aid a people in exercising every power necessary for its own betterment, and not as a straitjacket cunningly fashioned to strangle growth.  As for the particular methods of realizing these various beliefs, I was content to wait and see what method might be necessary in each given case as it arose; and I was certain that the cases would arise fast enough.

As the time for the Presidential nomination of 1904 drew near, it became evident that I was strong with the rank and file of the party, but that there was much opposition to me among many of the big political leaders, and especially among many of the Wall Street men.  A group of these men met in conference to organize this opposition.  It was to be done with complete secrecy.  But such secrets are very hard to keep.  I speedily knew all about it, and took my measures accordingly.  The big men in question, who possessed much power so long as they could work under cover, or so long as they were merely throwing their weight one way or the other between forces fairly evenly balanced, were quite helpless when fighting in the open by themselves.  I never found out that anything practical was even attempted by most of the men who took part in the conference.  Three or four of them, however, did attempt something.  The head of one big business corporation attempted to start an effort to control the delegations from New Jersey, North Carolina, and certain Gulf States against me.  The head of a great railway system made preparations for a more ambitious effort looking towards the control of the delegations from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and California against me.  He was a very powerful man financially, but his power politically was much more limited, and he did not really understand his own limitations or the situation itself, whereas I did.  He could not have secured a delegate against me from Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas.  In Colorado and California he could have made a fight, but even there I think he would have been completely beaten.  However, long before the time for the Convention came around, it was recognized that it was hopeless to make any opposition to my nomination.  The effort was abandoned, and I was nominated unanimously.  Judge Parker was nominated by the Democrats against me.  Practically all the metropolitan newspapers of largest circulation were against me; in New York City fifteen out of every sixteen copies of papers issued were hostile to me.  I won by a popular majority of about two million and a half, and in the electoral college carried 330 votes against 136.  It was by far the largest popular majority ever hitherto given any Presidential candidate.