Roosevelt

“ The Roosevelt fought like a gladiator, turning, twisting, straining with all her force, smashing her full weight against the heavy floes whenever we could get room for a rush, and rearing upon them like a steeplechaser taking a fence. ”

“ It is so unselfish and noble a motive in politics, that it has been neglected in the popular estimate of Roosevelt, and therefore many people have regarded him as a pugnacious, impetuous, honest, but eccentric young man, while others have looked upon him as a harum-scarum, "bronco-busting" lover of notoriety, a poser who liked a fight for its own sake, and had no regard for the amenities of political relationship. ”

“ President Roosevelt, that magnificent reverberator of ideas, that gleam of wilful humanity, that fantastic first interruption to the succession of machine-made politicians at the White House, has echoed clearly to this movement and made it an integral part of the general intellectual movement of America. ”

“ Even more generally effective than his humor, and yet allied to it, was the universal knowledge that Roosevelt had no secrets from the American people.
Yet another quality—perhaps the most engaging of all—was his homely, generous humanity which enabled him to speak directly to the primitive instinct of man. ”

“ Roosevelt, himself, with the word Duty on every milepost as he whirled past, with suggestions of things for other people to do buzzing like bees about his head, acquired his tremendous and incredible power with us as a people because, in spite of his violent way of breaking out into a missionary every morning and every evening when he talked, it was not his talking but his singing that made him powerful—his singing, or doing things as if he believed in people, his I wills and I won'ts, his assuming every day, his acting every day, as if American men were men. ”

“ Whatever displeasure political circles may have taken in learning Theodore Roosevelt's determination to exclude political influence from the army, the navy, and the colonies, must resemble the displeasure that political circles have invariably taken at every step in his career at learning that he proposed, so far as lay within the scope of his power, to see that merit, and merit only, was rewarded, and that honesty, and honesty only, was practised. ”

“ Roosevelt brings to this high office an erudition ripened by a practical grapple with life; a political sagacity which has been at daily gymnastic exercise for twenty years in every manner of public contest. He is fit. His public virtue is as certain as his private virtue. He has no double standard of morals. The strong moral purpose which has moved him at all times, which has strengthened him in other crises, now dominates his life. ”

“ Roosevelt is that he may be reckoned to stand for the finest expression and exemplar of the American people. A nation that can manufacture such a President must be possessed of national characteristics altogether out of the common. He is the absolute personification of the United States. ”

“ There are no doubt many good citizens who think of voting for Roosevelt, having the legendary Roosevelt in mind; but they will do well to consider that, if elected, the real Roosevelt will be President. The legendary Roosevelt was he who not only abhorred and denounced immoral practices in the public concerns, but would never condone them or compromise with them; who from the bottom of his heart hated and despised spoils-politics and spoils politicians, party machines and party bosses ”

“ Roosevelt says: 'Our nation is that one among all the nations of the earth, which holds in its hand the fate of the coming years.' Oh, men, for sixty-two years we have sought from you our right to stand by your side in helping to make our country the greatest, the best governed in the world. ”

“ Roosevelt is so unreasonable in itself, so adventurous, fraught with such arbitrary assumptions of power, with so many complications and with responsibilities so incalculable, that the statesmanship which proposes it may well be thought capable of any eccentricity ever so extravagant. ”

“ A tall, gaunt, grizzled and homely man, with a fund of anecdote from the prairies and with rugged bluntness of phrase, he gives the impression of possessing character and resolution. At this luncheon, being one of those who appreciate his public life and services, I had a personal and, in a sense, a confidential chat with him. He made it plain to me that he thought Roosevelt, in his disturbance of all existing interests and conditions and his use of the power of the presidency to advance his friends and control the succession, had done much harm. ”

“ Roosevelt's name, than any of the above mentioned “accomplishments” of his first administration, not excepting the incalculably important Panama incident. Both steps were, at bottom, outcomes of the same vigilance; Mr. Roosevelt is more avowedly and keenly alive than any other patriot in public life to the sinister menace to the stability of our government which lies in combinations, whether they be combinations of “labor” or of “capital.” ”

“ Roosevelt had this [43] same arresting, fascinating quality. Whether in the legislature at Albany, the Civil Service omission at Washington, or the police commission in New York, whether in the Spanish War or on the plains among the cowboys, he was always vivid, at times startling, never to be overlooked. Nor did this power stop here. He not only without effort or intention drew the eager attention of the people to himself, he could also engage and fix their thoughts upon anything which happened to interest him. ”

“ Roosevelt is Imperialist and he sighs for an America mistress of the world. Between ourselves, he is planning the Empire of Augustus. He has unfortunately perused Livy. The conquests of the Romans banish sleep from him. Have you read his speeches? They breathe a bellicose spirit. 'Fight, my friends,' says Mr. Roosevelt, 'and fight hard. There is nothing like blows. We are upon earth only to exterminate one another. Those who tell you the contrary are men without morality. Mistrust men who think. ”

“ Roosevelt's second term, significant chiefly in the number of them which provide for arbitration and in the fact that they are so numerous because our points of contact with the rest of the world have increased so rapidly since the Spanish War of 1898 — apart from these, Mr. Roosevelt's second term is marked strongly by three main trends of policy:
He did not wish corporations and financiers to be hobbled, but to be properly harnessed.
He did not wish the laboring man to be a pampered pet, but to be treated as a human being by those who employed him. ”

“ Roosevelt is that of entire respect, but these gentlemen have been so intimately associated with the powers that have been determining the policy of this government for almost a generation, that they cannot look at the affairs of the country with the view of a new age and of a changed set of circumstances. They sympathize with the people; their hearts no doubt go out to the great masses of unknown men in this country ”

“ The elder Roosevelt was a merchant, a man courageous and gentle, fond of horses and country life. He worked hard at his business, for the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, and for the poor and unfortunate of his own city, so hard that he wore himself out and died at forty-six. ”

“ Roosevelt enjoyed a singularly direct nature and honest intent, but he lived naturally in restless agitation that would have worn out most tempers in a month, and his first year of Presidency showed chronic excitement that made a friend tremble. ”

“ An infinitesimally small number of Americans of the next century, historians, and advanced students of the period of American development from 1870 to 1899 would have a look at Roosevelt's "Winning of the West," "American Ideals," "With the Rough Riders in Cuba," and in so much as the style of these writings reveals the man, they would know him as a frank-spoken, sturdy fellow, a hater of shams, and a friend of every one who gets things done and over with. ”

“ He is on the threshold of his life work, so full of the high faith that if his feet stumble, as human feet are prone to do, no man may gainsay the purpose that guided them. During the three sad, dumb minutes following Roosevelt's repeated oath to the Presidential office, youth, which he has clung to so fondly, left him, and maturity came. ”

“ Roosevelt was a most energetic roundsman and a fair one to boot. It was that quality which speedily won him the affection of the force. He hunted high and low before he gave up his man, giving him every chance. We had been over one man's beat three times, searching every nook and cranny of it, and were reluctantly compelled to own that he was not there, when the "boss" of an all-night restaurant on Third Avenue came out with a club as we passed and gave the regulation signal raps on the sidewalk. ”

“ Roosevelt found himself a national figure, and also the center of popular enthusiasm in his own state. It was not possible for his political enemies to stand up against the fervor which the name of Roosevelt instantly aroused upon any occasion; and, little to the relish of these politicians, they were obliged to accept him as the candidate of the republican party for governor of New York. In the fall of 1898, at the age of thirty-nine, Theodore Roosevelt was chosen to this office. It is singular to contemplate his two kinds of enemies. ”

“ Mr. Roosevelt added twenty thousand places to the scope of the reform law, and so admirable was his work altogether that President Harrison has said of it: “If he had no other record than his service as an employee of the civil service commission, he would be deserving of the nation's gratitude and confidence.” Mr. Cleveland, upon succeeding Mr. Harrison as president, retained Roosevelt, and thus his work continued for two years more, until May 1, 1895, when he resigned to become president of the Police board of New York city. ”

“ Roosevelt, who thus spent six years in the Commission. When he retired he had made a good many enemies among the crooked politicians, and some friends and admirers among well-informed men who watch the progress of good government. He was still unknown to the great body of citizens throughout the country, although he had been fighting their fight for six years. ”

“ For President Roosevelt on account of his grand traits of character, of mentality and of heart and the spirit of humanity, justice and rectitude which make of him the chief magistrate most conspicuous, most respected, most popular and most cherished of the present day; and for the American people on account of their intelligence, their enterprising disposition and their unceasing labors for progress, which have gained for them so pre-eminent a place among all the nations of the earth as one of the grandest, most nourishing and most powerful. ”

“ In his present office, where opportunity to talk is closed, his enemies—and he has many lusty ones—may resign themselves to meet the energy which Roosevelt once spent in effervescent and exhilarating language, now saved and turned to iron deeds. ”

“ Roosevelt enlarged, and by his messages and speeches, he brought before the country in an impressive and enduring manner the urgent necessity of abandoning the old policy of drift and of withholding from the clutches of grasping corporations the meager domain still left to the people. ”

“ Roosevelt was intensely human and rarely tried to conceal his feelings. He was to address the New York State Fair at Syracuse. The management invited me as a United States Senator from New York to be present. There were at least twenty thousand on the fair ground, and Mr. Roosevelt read his speech, which he had elaborately prepared, detailing his scheme for harmonizing the relations between labor and capital. The speech was long and very able and intended for publication all over the country. But his audience, who were farmers, were not much interested in the subject. ”

“ It behooves us as American citizens, before performing the solemn duty of giving the republic a new President, to evolve from such conflicting evidence, most of which is given by Mr. Roosevelt himself, a calm and conscientious judgment. In expressing my own opinion, I am sure I do so with a sincere desire not to be unjust to a man possessing so many estimable and attractive qualities, but with the equally sincere desire to serve the best interests of the country. ”

“ During the following seven years President Roosevelt not only occupied but filled the stage of public affairs in the United States. Even now, two years or more after his death, with the exception of President Wilson, Roosevelt is the best known American in the world. It is difficult to predict the future because of the idealization which sometimes though rarely occurs in regard to public men, but Colonel Roosevelt is rapidly taking a position as third, with Washington and Lincoln as the other two. ”

“ Mr. Roosevelt arose from his desk, shook hands very cordially, said "How do you do?" sat down again and at the moment said nothing further. It was up to us to swing the conversation. So my friend launched out: We had nothing to do with affairs of state, had no design to interview him as to naval matters, simply were curious to see if we should find him eating an apple and wearing white sox, or what. With hearty good nature, Mr. Roosevelt replied that he was not eating an apple because he did not have one to eat, and that he had only once worn white sox, woolen ones, when a boy at school. ”

“ Very few men make an effective State reputation in their first year in the lower branch of the State legislature. I never happened to hear of one who made a national reputation in such a body. Roosevelt did both. When he left the assembly after three years' service he was a national figure, well known, and of real importance, and also a delegate at large from the great State of New York to the Republican national convention of 1884, where he played a leading part. Energy, ability, and the most entire courage were the secret of his extraordinary success. ”