knew that his words at that dinner were uttered without the slightest suspicion of the consul's being present. But the speech must have made many of the guests extremely uneasy. So the work on the canal went forward steadily, although amid very grave obstacles in that mosquito-ridden, fever-smitten tropical region. The President always gave most hearty praise to the skill and patience of Colonel Goethals, the efficient engineer and director of the work. And when Congress insisted upon putting the direction of the work under a commission, Roosevelt, who felt that he ought to make some show of compliance with their stupid demand, appointed Colonel Goethals chairman of that body and gave him such full power that he remained practically the controlling spirit. Thus through days of work, and controversy, and self-control, and high devotion, Roosevelt went forward across the lofty plateau of the Presidency. Puzzling thickets there were on that broad expanse, and many barriers and unexpected gullies. But joyously the untiring traveler went on his way, the wonder, the hope, the trust of the people. In the midst of the plateau, halfway across the broad plain, came the pause, the inn, the semblance of brief respite. Then forward, across the beckoning expanse, which men called his Second Term. CHAPTER XIII ELECTED PRESIDENT Who is the Happy Warrior? ""Tis he whose law is reason, who depends He labors good on good to fix, and owes . Who, if he rise to station of command, And in himself possess his own desire; It may seem a self-contradictory question to ask "Can anything be higher than the highest?" But, in Roosevelt's case, at this point in his career, the question might be answered forcefully in the affirmative. "There can be a higher than the highest." He had been President, to all intents and purposes, for more than three years. He had borne all the presidential responsibilities and exercised all the presidential prerogatives. But his position and power had come as an accident. None knew this better than himself. His wise, firm administration through the three years had added to his prestige. And now, as the presidential election of 1904 drew near, there was hardly a question in the mind of any intelligent citizen as to his continuance - now by election in the presidential office. He himself was perfectly well aware that he had met the wishes of a very large majority of the voters of the country. Yet his experience had taught him, as experience had taught sadly many of us, that the people as a whole might desire a man for President and yet not get him, because that man was not acceptable to the party managers,-sometimes called "The Old Guard", or again, "The Gang." Roosevelt said openly, frankly, with that ingenuous, childlike quality in him, that he "would be glad to be elected, really elected, this time, to the high presidential office, in his own right, because he had served his country well." Indeed he had, and incidentally he had enjoyed the work immensely. Several times, in public as in private, he had declared - protecting his idealism with a plain garment of homespun humor- that he "liked his job." "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" did not apply to this man. His love of action was so great that the gratification of that love offset all accompanying cares and anxieties and pangs of failures. He felt the cares and disappointments keenly, but his resilient nature threw them off: he reacted immediately against them, and with that reaction came instantly a state of joy. In fact, following this lead, I venture to repeat that he did not much enjoy -as do most normal persons the theater, the lecture, the concert, the opera, and the picture gallery. The reason for it is this, as I interpret his nature. The pleasure from all these high arts is a pleasure that assumes passivity in the listener or observer. And Roosevelt got but little joy from passive mental states. Further, in the case of the theater, I think that its simulations, artistic though they might be, were distrusted by him. He was fiercely eager for what is genuine, without any pretence. And he could not, or would not, enough subordinate this craving for reality and sincerity to allow him to enjoy the simulations of the stage. In the revealing Trevelyan letters, Roosevelt's unofficial personal life is laid before us with unreserve. It is the inner man, the reader, scholar, observer of life, that is shown us. And, in a letter written in Africa in 1909, he frees his mind about Carlyle in a way which greatly pleases me. Unreality, whether in a stage drama or on a page of history or biography, is equally abhorrent to him. He says, writing intimately, "The more I read Carlyle the more I feel contempt for his shrieking deification of shams. I can't stand his hypocrisy, his everlasting praise of veracity joined with his mendacity in giving a false color to history and a false twist to ethics. With sanctimonious piety he condemns as wrong-doing in the French that which he imputes to Frederick the Great for righteousness. With Carlyle morality is used as a synonym for ruthless efficiency." Directly following a full, long page of this kind of fierce indictment comes, like a commonplace cold compress on one's heated brow, the lines, "The porters are just bringing into camp the skin and tusks of a bull elephant which I killed, three days ago; and Kermit got another, yesterday. Between us, we have killed seventeen lions." Two points about that letter. First, the rapidity with which very diverse moods followed one another in Roosevelt's mobile mind, and, second, it occurs to me that in denouncing Carlyle's insincerity he is condemning a man who almost worshiped the Roosevelt type of man. And I wonder what the Sage of Chelsea- to me largely a brilliant poseur would have said and written about Theodore Roosevelt, a phenomenon of initiative, self-reliance, and power, had he lived after Roosevelt, instead of before him. Roosevelt "liked his job." He was indeed, as Acting President, "The Happy Warrior." He |