morning into the sunsets on the tropical seas, and "our flag is still there" in "the dawn's early light," and "the twilight's last gleaming," with purple and gold-and the lands and seas where it waves, are free.

American citizens who visited Cuba before the Spanish War-the real citizens of the United States, not the Key West product, the purpose of whom was to be protected by the United States in hostility to Spain-were in the time of Weyler impressed with the magnetic attractive influence of the great Northern Republic. The most important Cubans, not personally engaged in the guerrilla skirmishing, and the cane mill burning, hoped to be "somehow taken under the wing of the United States." We refer to the business men, not to the politicians, whose desire was to succeed the Spaniards as the ruling class of the island. The prevalent business idea was that there was liberty and safety with certainty only under the flag of the United States. The gigantic mass of the "Northern Republic" could be felt across the narrow dividing waters. No one felt it more strongly than the Spaniards, and the mad men who blew up the Maine, and were themselves blown across the seas. Then happened the event that the Americans had often seen in their dreams-the stars and stripes floated from the scarred and stained tower of the Morro Castle; and Cuba has become one of the problems.

At the head of the volunteers of our army of invasion of Cuba, was Theodore Roosevelt, supposed, according to professional standards, to know nothing about war, but as turned out "a very apt scholar," and he knew not only how to get there, but how and when to get away; and he saved more in retreating from the Yellow Fever, than in the advance under the visible death sleet of the smokeless rifles of the Spaniards. The probability is that if Roosevelt had been in the War Department instead of that of the Navy, our Regulars would have landed in Cuba with smokeless powder cartridges for our magazine rifles; but in that case Dewey would have had but a short supply of ammunition, and the men behind the guns would not all have been trained marksmen.

There are traditions in our country, represented to excess in Congress, that the Executive Power in our form of Government should be reduced rather than expanded, and the duty of limitation that the country shall be equipped chiefly with flint lock smooth bores, is one a considerable class of Congressmen feel they have sworn to take upon themselves. Very often we are told a President of the United States should not be eligible to re-election. However, when the people want it, they can limit Presidential terms to one, as they have to two terms. The real beauty and strength of our Government is that when the people have a want they know it and can find the way, and the Constitution glows the stronger for the unwritten articles. The Constitution will hardly ever be so amended, that a President succeeding a President dying in office,

shall be made ineligible.

We give our Presidents vast powers because they

are ours to give, and the givers can take away.

James G. Blaine thought if there was any amendment respecting Presidential terms, that the term of office should be the same as that of a Congressman, and that if we were called upon to elect a President every two years, there would be a reduction of the volume of excitement, and the incentives of disturbance. Within a few weeks of Theodore Roosevelt's accession to the great office, there were reports that have not been contradicted, to the effect that he stated without hesitation or reserve which was his way if he stated it, that he would consider it a great honor to be elected President of the United States. Whether the President said it or not, it was a true and proper thing to say. It would be an unprecedented honor if Theodore Roosevelt should be elected President in 1904-one hundred years from the re-election of Thomas Jefferson.

Already it is clear if Roosevelt is a Presidential candidate, his ways are his own, and it is himself who is in the field, just as he was when Governor of New York and is now. If the people give him another term, it will be as plain to them for whom and what they are voting, as when the majority re-elected Andrew Jackson. That which Theodore Roosevelt says is precisely as intelligible as what he does. Whatever is his following, his leadership is his own. He is a man of principles, but he does not follow fashions, if fashion is imitation. If he had been a common Presidential candidate, he would have been at pains to dull the edge of the Civil Service Reform reaping hooks, and to cultivate the politicians accustomed to a peculiar deference of the States that do not by any chance cast Republican electoral votes; but are on hand with full force when National Conventions meet and know where the corn cribs are. If he had been playing to the galleries, he would not have invited a black man to luncheon, or have been cordial in the reception of royal German courtesies. His civilities to the German Emperor and the British King, would have been perfunctory, and not with the "By George, I am glad to see you," that has the Montana breeze in it. If he had been seeking the Clan-na-Gael dynamite influence, he would have had an unparalleled opportunity to insult the descendant of the Georges, in repelling the invitation to an American deputation to attend the coronation of Edward VII.; and wild horses could not have drawn from him permission for his daughter to christen the Kaiser's yacht, and to go with her aunt to witness the pageantry of putting a glittering "bauble” on a king's head. If the President had been going "into the swim" as a candidate for President, he knew exactly the feeling of the people of the United States, of all parties and sections, that Admiral Schley was and is the hero of the Santiago naval battle; and that Sampson, brilliant officer as he was, and invalid as he became, was as innocent of the destruction of Cervera's fleet as the King of England was of the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, because Wellington served under

him. The President could have had a stormy ovation of approbation, music in the ears of a candidate for the great office, by simply agreeing with the Presiding Officer of the Naval Court, dissenting from the opinion; but the President consents to nothing more than in his own conviction is mere justice, and he has all along a grim way of staying with his friends, as Grant did when his friends were "under fire," as he called it.

'After all, we must love a man who likes the fire when his friends are in it. Two years from the Spring of 1902, the believers in the Great Republic, the World Power-the friends of Expansion, Protection, Reciprocity, Fair Play, readiness for war as a peace measure, the honor, glory and splendor of the Army and Navy, with power added by the discipline, equipment and instruction of the troops and the construction of war ships to assert our sea power, for an Isthmian canal as a highway for our Navy and spread of our commerce; for the redemption of the heart of the continent from a cancer; for the discipline of the Civil Service; for the justice of wisdom and the victories of peace in the work shops, and the equal rights of men of labor and men of capital, and for the equalities in taxation, the elevation of work and the preservation of property— the ceaseless labors of energetic manhood-those to whom high qualities and many accomplishments are attractive, and good works well done are a recommendation; if the embodiment of independence and of Americanism has filled the great place with the success that attended him and the growth he has shown, has been a distinction in his career has continued; if a candidacy that has appealed to deeds courageous and noble, instead of the weaknesses and complacencies and subserviences that cause our public life to represent the facile and uncertain, the evasive, faltering elements, and the country cares for the progressive continuance of great things-why, we may, with confidence, forecast another unanimous nomination of President, and an election that will be a triumph of majorities in all the sections of the country, a continuance of our prosperities, and the assurance of statesmanship worthy that of which our National magnificence is the matchless expression.