He was ready at that time to take back his speech advocating the
government ownership of railroads, a gesture against "the
interests," made at the bidding of Hearst, at the beck of whose
agents he is prone to bestir himself.
It must be an irksome livery, that of Hearst, for he hates all
service and overshadowing. Equally irksome is his service to
regularity under the rod of the Republican party. But he bows to
it, and supports Harding whom he hates. He bobs up like a Jack-in-
the-box and makes his laudatory speech whenever the name of
Roosevelt comes up, though in his heart he must reverence none too
deeply that overshadowing personality.
He has no roots except in the mob and no hope except in its aroused
resentment against inequality. Not being interested in individuals
he has not that personal organization possessed by Roosevelt, with
his army of correspondents, friends and idolators, in every hamlet.
And of course he has little hope of ever controlling his party
organization. He is curiously alone.
"There are only three men in the world whom I trust," he once said
to a friend. There is no reason to regard this as an exaggeration.
His attitude toward his associates in the Senate is this: "If I
were crossing a desert with any one of them and there was only one
water bottle, I should insist upon carrying that bottle.
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