men everywhere, from the men with ideals, it was a genuine shout for the leader who spoke with their tongue, to their hearts. Senator Wolcott spoke their mind when he brought him the nomination: "You, everywhere and at all times, stood for that which was clean and uplifting, and against everything that was sordid and base. You have shown the people of this country that a political career and good citizenship could go forward hand in hand. . . . There is not a young man in these United States who has not found in your life and influence an incentive to better things and higher ideals." Against such a force traditions went for nothing; it was strong enough to break more stubborn ones than that which made of the Vice-Presidency a political grave. In 1904 it was to be Roosevelt for President.

Roosevelt yielded. His friends were in despair; his enemies triumphed. At last they had him where they wanted him.

Man proposes, but God disposes. Now in joy, and again in tears and sorrow, do we register the decree. One brief year, and the nation wept at the bier of William McKinley. Of his successor the President of Columbia Col

lege wrote: " He was not nominated to satisfy or placate, but to succeed. The unspeakably cruel and cowardly assassin has anticipated the slow and orderly processes of law."

He himself, standing within the shadow of the great sorrow-though, light of heart, we knew it not-spoke these brave words to his people: "We gird up our loins as a nation with the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate triumph; and therefore we turn scornfully aside from the paths of mere ease and idleness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of endeavor, smiting down the wrong and battling for the right, as Greatheart smote and battled in Bunyan's immortal story." 1

The campaign of that year none of us has forgotten. An incident of it lives in my memory as typical of the spirit in which the people took his candidacy, and also with a sense of abiding satisfaction that one thing was done right, and at the right moment, in my sight. I was coming up from Chatham Square one night in the closing days of the canvass, when

1 The concluding words of Vice-President Roosevelt's speech at the Minnesota State Fair, Minneapolis, Sept. 2, 1902.

a torch and a crowd attracted me to a truck at the lower end of the Bowery, from which a man was holding forth on the issues involved in the national election. He was not an effective speaker, and the place needed that, if any place did. The block was "the panhandlers' beat," one of the wickedest spots in the world, I believe. I stood and listened awhile, and the desire to say a word grew in me until I climbed on the wagon and, telling them I was a Roosevelt man, asked for a chance. They were willing enough, and, dropping tariff and the "honest dollar " that had very little to do with that spot, I plunged at once into Roosevelt's career as Governor and Police Commissioner. I thought with grim satisfaction, as I went on, that we were fairly within sight of "Mike Callahan's saloon, where the fight over the excise law was fought out by Policeman Bourke, who dragged the proprietor, kicking and struggling all the way, to the Elizabeth Street station. He had boasted that he had thrown the keys of the saloon away, and that no one could make him close on Sunday. Bourke was made a sergeant, and Roosevelt and the law

won.

0

But of that I made no boast then. I told the people what Roosevelt had done and had tried to do for them; how we had traveled together by night through all that neighborhood, trying to enter into the life of the people and their needs. As the new note rose, I saw the tenement blocks on the east of the Bowery give up their tenants to swell the crowd, and was glad. Descrying a policeman's uniform on its outskirts, I reminded my hearers of how my candidate had stood for an even show, for fair play to the man without a pull, and for an honest police. I had got to that point when the drunken rounder who by right should have appeared long before, caromed through the crowd and shook an inebriated fist at me.

"T-tin s-soldier!" he hiccoughed. "Teddy Ro-senfeld he never went to Cu-u-ba, no more 'n, no more 'n-'

Who else it was that had never been to Cuba fate had decreed that none of us should know. There came, unheralded, forth from the crowd a vast and horny hand that smote the fellow flat on the mouth with a sound as of a huge soul-satisfying, kiss. He went down, out of sight, without a word. The crowd closed in

over him; not a head was turned to see what became of him. I do not know. Who struck the blow I did not see. He was gone, that was enough. It was enough, and just right.

Which reminds me of another and very different occasion, when I addressed a Sundayevening audience in the Cooper Institute at the other end of the Bowery upon my favorite theme. The Cooper Institute is a great place, a worthy monument to its truly great founder. But its Sunday-evening meetings, when questions are in order, have the faculty of attracting almost as many cranks as did Elijah the Restorer to Madison Square Garden. I had hardly finished when a man arose in the hall and, pointing a menacing finger at me, squeaked out:

"You say Theodore Roosevelt is a brave man. How about his shooting a Spaniard in the back?"

I had been rather slow and dull up till then, in spite of my theme; but the fellow woke me right up. My wife, who had come over with me and sat in the audience, said afterward that she never saw a man bristle so suddenly in her life.