dent Roosevelt "for such future use" of it as he might see fit to make a privilege of which he availed himself by publishing it in connection with an interview given out by him in 1908, for the purpose of supporting and illustrating the "fearless independence and righteous unselfishness" of Mr. Taft, as shown by the statement in his letter that, because of the principle involved, he would not accept an endorsement as Ohio's candidate for the Presidency if that endorsement must be coupled, as some one had proposed, with an endorsement of me as Ohio's Republican candidate for re-election to the Senate, not because of opposition to me personally, but because of my course with respect to the Rate bill and the Brownsville matter.

When, in accordance with this "fearlessly independent and righteously unselfish" letter, the committee endorsed him and refused to endorse me, I challenged the authority of the committee to take such action in a public letter to the Honorable C. B. McCoy of Coshocton, calling attention to the fact that the Dayton Convention, composed of between eight and nine hundred duly chosen delegates, representing collectively and in detail all the counties of the State, desired to express themselves on the subject, but had desisted therefrom at my request because not chosen with reference to that question, and because, therefore, such action would be beyond their authority and jurisdiction, and insisting that if that was true as to the convention, as all at the time agreed it was, much more was it true of a committee of only twenty-one members not one of whom had been chosen with reference to his Presidential preference. My letter to Mr. McCoy was well received, and a decided resentment of the committee's action was manifested all over the State.

The result of this was that later, November 20, 1907, after I had returned to Washington, the Advisory and Executive Committees of the Ohio Republican League, together with their general officers, numbering in all about one hundred members, and representing every county in the State, assembled in Columbus and adopted the following resolutions, which