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Show H SECRETS OF THE CONVENTION. J9H Koosevelt is in the fight to the end and here is hoping he will suc- 9 ceed. In a statement made yesterday he said he purposed to base tt . his appeal upon the assertion that the big, sinister influences have determined to eliminate him from public life because he is the one man whom they really fear. To accomplish this purpose, he believes, , they are willing to take up any man whom they think can win. the - presidency over him. Having defeated him at the Chicago conven- L i tion, he sajs they hope to control tho Democratic convention to the gfi same end. B "They know me and I know them," he said. "It is anything to uw beat me. l am iigntmg a lone nana and 1 am going to iignt it out to the end." H The former President made this remark after a long conference H with William A. Prendergast, comptroller of the city of New York. B Mr. Prendergast went to Oyster Bay to induce Colonel Roosevelt to 9 say definitely that under no circumstances would he wjthdraw from Hi the fight jfl. "Has any suggestion been made." was asked of Mr. Prender- B dergast, "that any man other than Colonel Roosevelt should lead the m fight for the new party ? " lH "I will answer that question for Mr. Prendergast," said the col- B onel. "In the statement which I made in Chicago on Monday I said D I would stay in the fight to the end. Since then I have received B hundreds of letters and telegrams urging me to go on with it, and Si not one of them has suggested that I get out of it. In every case my I V reply is just what I said in Chicago." , j m ' The comptroller said the reason he was anxious to make it clear jR that Colonel Roosevelt would make the fight was that the "interests" H which defeated him at Chicago would do anything in their power Br to keen him out of the White House and for that mimosa would p3 gladly accept any other progressive. In Chicago, he continued, some I M of the Taft leaders asked him to go to Colonel Roosevelt with the M offer to give the nomination to Governor Hadley or any other man M ie might name. They had already offered, he said, to put the Roose- velt delegates from Texas and Washington back on the list if he M would consent to this. i Colonel Roosevelt corroborated thi3 statement and added that W p the same interests were hard at work at the Baltimore convention. M Comptroller Prendergast said in a statement that he pointed out to H Colonel Roosevelt that the overshadowing issue was "whether the H nomination for the presidency can be stolen, and the people not given 9 an opportunity to pass judgment on the theft." II v "The object for which this fraud was perpetrated," he said, jjl "was the defeat of Mr. Roosevelt; not the nomination of anybody Jj else. This conspiracy will be successful if any other man is elected Ijl to the presidency. The object of every honest man should therefore Jrl be to elect him. Should either Mr. Taft or a Democrat be elected, the Jj success of the conspiracy will be complete. If the presidency, or a Mm nomination for it, can be stolen and the thieves escape unpunished, mm what security can there be for property or order?" I I Roosevelt on Monday virtually made the same statement, as to ! concessions from the Standpatters, if Roosevelt would yield. When the Hadley demonstration was on the Standard correctly interpreted the move as one to break up the solidarity of the Roosevelt Roose-velt vote by inspiring a hope in the breast of each prominent Pro- '! gres3ve that he mgllt te raade a compromise candidate. Hadley, , 1 or some other Progressive would have been named instead of Taft, r1 m had Roosevelt not made plain that, regardless of what the convention J jf did, he would be an independent candidate. j We agree with Comptroller Prendergast, that one 'of the great iBsuea in this campaign is whether the nomination for the 'presi- V dency can be stolen without public resentment, and, furthermore, . K whether the predatory interests are to be encouraged to continue in 1 their work of marking leaders of the people for slaughter. |