Opening paragraphs..........................

ROOSEVELT IS COMING HOME, HOORAY!  Exultant headlines in mid-June 1910 trumpeted the daily progress of the Kaiserin, the luxury liner returning the former president, Theodore Roosevelt, to American shores after his year's safari in Africa.
     Despite popularity unrivaled since Abraham Lincoln, Roosevelt, true to his word, had declined to run for a third term after completing seven and a half years in office.  His tenure had stretched from William McKinley's assassination in September 1901 to March 4, 1909, when his own elected term came to an end.  Flush from his November 1904 election triumph, he had stunned the political world with his announcement that he would not run for president again, citing "the wise custom which limits Presidents to two terms."  Later, he reportedly told a friend that he would willingly cut off his hand at the wrist if he could take his pledge back.
-Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit:  Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism