His ancestors set him an example of public service. A great-uncle of Roosevelt, Nicholas J., shared with Fulton the honor of developing the steamboat. Two ancestors were aldermen in the New York Dutch Village of early days and legislated to open the street which bears their name. Another, Isaac Roosevelt, sat in the constitutional convention with Alexander Hamilton. A Roosevelt started one of the first banks in New York and was its president.

From his mother's side he had Welsh, Irish, and German blood. Her forebears came to Pennsylvania with William Penn, though she herself was born in Georgia.

Mr. Roosevelt himself testifies to the remarkable influence of his Christian father when he tells us that very early the children were taught that girls and boys must have the "same standard of clean living," for what was wrong for a woman was equally culpable for a man. In his Pacific Theological Lectures he says: "If the man preaches and practices a different code of morality for himself than that which he demands his wife shall practice . . he is fundamentally a bad citizen."

In writing to Edward S. Martin on November 20, 1920, Mr. Roosevelt emphasized the masculinity of his father, together with the tenderness and purity of his nature. He recalled the fact that while his father recognized him to be a sickly and timid boy, he did not coddle him but trained him to hold his own with older boys and to be ready to do some of the rough work of the world. His father insisted that if he were "decent" and manly at the same time,

the respect for his manliness would keep others from ridiculing his decency. The teaching and character of his father created such a love and respect that he says, "I would have hated and dreaded beyond measure to have him know that I had been guilty of a lie, or of cruelty, or of bullying or of uncleanness or of cowardice."

Mr. Roosevelt's father had a character which commanded a righteous respect. He administered corporal punishment only once to Theodore, who had bitten his sister Anna's arm. He hid first in the yard and then under the kitchen table, hoping thus to avoid the punishment he knew was merited. His father followed him on all fours under the table. The culprit rushed out, flung at his father a handful of dough which he grabbed off the table, and ran for the stairs. But here he was intercepted and received a punishment which he "remembered."

Mr. Roosevelt summed up his whole estimate of his father in the words, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew." His father had a remarkable influence on him. Some of Theodore's firm traits and activities are, therefore, understood when one reviews the father's life.

The Rev. Dr. James M. Ludlow, who was the senior Roosevelt's pastor for several years, told me:

Mr. Roosevelt, Sr., was a very companionable man. Не was naturally aristocratic but never snobbish. Mrs. Roosevelt was dignified and retiring, but a very sweet woman who always won her way. The sister, Miss Gracey, was much like her. Mr. Roosevelt was always very active in movements for reform. He was passionate in his attacks on evil. He exhibited an easy control except when some

notable wrong was called to his attention. He then became a bundle of wrath. He was a prophet of righteousness, and he would not mince matters in going after sinners high or low. His son constantly reminded me of him in this respect.

Mr. Roosevelt was very loyal to the memory of his father. His uncle, R. B. Roosevelt, was nominated as a Presidential elector by the Democrats, to which party he belonged, but he declined to serve, out of regard for his nephew, who was at that time the Republican candidate. Later he was President Roosevelt's guest at his inaugural, and on his return he received a letter from the President, expressing personal gratification that the uncle had attended the inauguration, both for his own sake and also because he so vividly reminded him of his own father. He showed that the presence of his father was never forgotten, for he wrote, "How I wish father could have lived to see it too!"

Theodore, Sr., was normally a Republican, but he could not stand the rule of the bosses who collected from the corporations and refused to walk uprightly, and he arraigned them vigorously. President Hayes admired his independence and nominated him for collector of the Port of New York, but the bosses, unwilling to see the highest Federal office in the gift of the state held by a man they could not control, kept the Senate from confirming him, and so he never filled the office.

His father did not enter the Civil War as an actual fighter, though he was a Lincoln Republican and heartily backed the Union. He had married a woman

heartily in sympathy with the Confederacy and was therefore compelled to exercise rare powers of conciliation and charity. This situation also providentially prepared the son to merge the North and South together. He nevertheless rendered priceless aid to the Union cause, so that in spite of a divided home concerning the war, Theodore grew up in a "loyal" household.

His activities were so eminently "social" that their influence is recognized in the son's ideals. Mr. Roosevelt, Sr., proposed and carried to success State and national legislation to enable the soldiers to allot part of their salaries to their families so that it would be paid directly to them. He traveled and talked and finally lived for three months in Washington to get the bill passed. Congressmen in those days could not understand how any man should desire legislation without a selfish purpose, and for a time they watched him suspiciously. But his high standing finally removed that suspicion. He was appointed one of the New York State Commissioners and visited the various camps in the State, riding six or eight hours a day on horseback to do so. He then stood in the snow and slush pleading with the soldiers to sign over some of their pay to their starving families. He often found the soldiers hardened into utter listlessness concerning home folk, but he urged in mass meeting and by individual appeal until he secured their signatures. The sutlers, who wanted to get the soldiers' money for rum, opposed him persistently. Theodore, Junior, imbibed an intense patriotism, for his father worked with the

"Loyal Publication Society," which scattered information about the causes of the war and the righteousness of the Union's side. It was badly needed in New York, not always loyal in those days. He was one of the first members of the Union League Club, which club aided in raising and equipping the first Negro regiment.

War charity, as usual, led to vast waste; he initiated methods to systematize the expenditures and reduce the waste. He called conferences of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, and finally succeeded in organizing a city and then a State Board of Charities and became its first president.

He was also an active worker on the Advisory Board of the Woman's Central Association of Relief, formed in Cooper Union the latter part of April, 1861, to furnish supplies and nurses to weak, sick, and injured soldiers. This grew into the Sanitary Commission and ultimately into the American Red Cross.

Then too he did much to aid the unemployed and unprotected soldiers in their attempt to get started in civilian life.

Thousands of soldiers had drifted into New York city and could find no way to support themselves. He organized in his own home the "Soldiers' Employment Bureau." This bureau also aided crippled soldiers to find fitting vocations. Many of these soldiers had not received their salaries from the government, and grafting agents were buying their claims and exacting heavy fees. For their protection he helped form the "Protective War Claims Asso