for in all days: that he may tire out the good, convince them that the game is n't worth the candle. And right here is the immense value of the man whom you cannot tire out, who will stand like a rock for the homely virtues, for the Ten Commandments, in good and evil report, and refuse to budge. For, though men sneer at him and call him a grand-stand player, as they will, the time will come when he will convince them that there is something more important than winning to-day or to-morrow, where a principle is at stake; that the function of the Republic, of government of the people, shall, please God, yet be to make high principle the soul and hope of the practical everyday world, even if it takes time to do it; and that it is worth losing all our lives long, with the lives thrown in, if that be necessary, to have it come true in the end. The man who will do that, who will take that stand and keep it, is beyond price. That is Theodore Roosevelt from the ground up. And now you know why I have written of him as I have.

There was never a day that called so loudly for such as he, as does this of ours. Not that it is worse than other days; I know it is better. [399]

*

I find proof of it in the very fact that it is as if the age-long fight between good and evil had suddenly come to a head, as if all the questions of right, of justice, of the brotherhood, which we had seen in glimpses before, and dimly, had all at once come out in the open, craving solution one and all. A battle royal, truly! A battle for the man of clean hands and clean mind, who can think straight and act square; the man who will stand for the right "because it is right "; who can say, and mean it, that "it is hard to fail, but worse never to have tried to succeed." A battle for him who strives for " that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to him who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph." I am but quoting his own words, and never, I think, did I hear finer than those he spoke of Governor Taft when he had put by his own preferences and gone to his hard and toilsome task in the Philippines; for the whole royal, fighting soul of the man was in them.

"But he undertook it gladly," he said, " and

he is to be considered thrice fortunate; for in this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity coupled with the capacity to do well and worthily a piece of work the doing of which is of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.”

There is his measure. Let now the understrappers sputter. With that for our young men to grow up to, we need have no fear for the morrow. Let it ask what questions it will of the Republic, it shall answer them, for we shall have men at the oars.

This afternoon the newspaper that came to my desk contained a cable despatch which gave me a glow at the heart such as I have not felt for a while. Just three lines; but they told that a nation's conscience was struggling victoriously through hate and foul play and treason: Captain Dreyfus was to get a fair trial. Justice was to be done at last to a once despised Jew whose wrongs had held the civilized world upon the rack; and the world was made happy. Say now it does not move! It does, where there are men to move it,—I said it before: men who believe in the right and are willing to fight for it. When the children of poverty and

want came to Mulberry Street for justice, and I knew they came because Roosevelt had been there, I saw in that what the resolute, courageous, unyielding determination of one man to see right done in his own time could accomplish. I have watched him since in the Navy Department, in camp, as Governor, in the White House, and more and more I have made out his message as being to the young men of our day, himself the youngest of our Presidents. I know it is so, for when I speak to the young about him, I see their eyes kindle, and their hand-shake tells me that they want to be like him, and are going to try. And then I feel that I, too, have done something worth doing for my people. For, whether for good or for evil, we all leave our mark upon our day, and his is that of a clean, strong man who fights for the right and wins.

Now, then, a word to these young men who, all over our broad land, are striving up toward the standard he sets, for he is their hero by right, as he is mine. Do not be afraid to own it. The struggle to which you are born, and in which you are bound to take a hand if you would be men in more than name, is the strug

i

gle between the ideal and the husk; for life without ideals is like the world without the hope of heaven, an empty meaningless husk. It is your business to read its meaning into it by making the ideals real. The material things of life are good in their day, but they pass away; the moral remain to bear witness that the high hopes of youth are not mere phantasms. Theodore Roosevelt lives his ideals; therefore you can trust them. Here they are in working shape: "Face the facts as you find them; strive steadily for the best." "Be never content with less than the possible best, and never throw away that possible best because it is not the ideal best." Maxims, those, for the young man who wants to make the most of himself and his time. Happily for the world, the young man who does not is rare.

Perhaps I can put what is in my mind in no better shape than by giving you his life-rules, to which I have seen him live up all these years, though I have not often heard him express them in so many words. Here is one:

'

It is better to be faithful than famous."

Look back now upon his career as I have sketched it, and see how in being steadfastly