The Times of Thursday publishes a message from a corre-
spondent who has had a conversation with Mr. Roosevelt at Oyster Bay. Mr. Roosevelt will go to Washington next week, and then the autumn campaign in preparation for the Presi- dential election will virtually begin. The Republican Con- vention will meet next June to choose the party candidate for the election in the following November. Mr. Roosevelt, we are told, is as resolute as ever against standing, but it is impossible not to perceive that there is some hope among Republicans that circumstances may compel him to change his mind. It is just possible that the Con- vention, considering that Mr. Roosevelt is the only man for the present situation, may nominate him against his will. In that case, the correspondent thinks, he might yield to a sense of public duty. But as things stand, Mr. Taft is the most likely Republican candidate. Mr. Taft would, of course, represent the policy which Mr. Roosevelt has so clearly outlined. The American people undoubtedly desire that the Roosevelt campaign against the oppression exercised by great fortunes in the commercial world should be continued. Mr. Roosevelt may think, however wrongly, that another man could inspire that movement as well as himself. But we fancy that if at the last moment he were convinced that he alone could defeat such a Democratic candidate as Mr. Hearst, and all the undesirable influences which cluster round him, he might be persuaded to go back upon the determination to retire which he has so frequently expressed.
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