CHAPTER III.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR

VICE-PRESIDENT

Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City October 27, 1858. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1880. The year after graduation he was elected a member of the New York Assembly and was reelected three times. In 1886 he was nominated by the Republicans of New York City for mayor. In 1889 President Harrison appointed him a member of the United States Civil Service Commission, an office which he continued to hold until 1895, when he was appointed by Mayor Strong of New York President of the Police Board of New York City. While still at the head of the Police Board he was selected by President McKinley to be assistant Secretary of the Navy and be occupied that office when the war with Spain broke out. At the beginning of the war with Spain he organized the First Regiment United States Volunteer Cavalry, known as the "Rough Riders," and was appointed its lieutenant colonel. He was placed in command of the regiment on the promotion of Colonel Wood to a brigadier generaley and led his regiment at the battle of San Juan Hill. Soon after his return to the United States at the close of the war with Spain he was nominated for governor by the Republicans of New York and he was elected governor November 6, 1898. This office he still holds.

No briefer or more concise statement of the record of the Republican candidate for Vice-President can be made than this. Although only forty-two years of age his life has been one of achievement far in excess of most men of his time. From the day he arrived at manhood until now he has been engaged almost continuously in the public service; but no adequate idea of the work he has done can be gained from a mere recital of the public offices he has held. He has never known what it meant to have an idle moment. Every place he has occupied has been a place for duty and endeavor and when he has not been engaged in the public service he has labored with equal earnestness and singleness of purpose for ends which he believed to be of moment. In all this time there has hardly been a year that has not seen the publication of a book

from his pen, while the articles in current periodicals which he has written on timely topics have been almost without number. He has written of the United States navy, of the winning of the west, of critical moments in American history, of the lives of American statesmen, of political and social problems of almost every topic which touches the life of an active American public man. His literary work alone has given him a reputation and a place with which almost any other man would be satisfied to rest. A mere recital of the books he has published is in itself a monument to his industry and ability. His works include "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," "The Wilderness Hunter," "The Winning of the West," "The Naval War of 1812," "Life of Thomas H. Benton," "Life of Gouverneur Morris," "Life and Times of Oliver Cromwell," "Essays on Practical Politics," "History of the City of New York," "American Political Ideals," and "The Rough Riders." He collaborated with Captain A. T. Mahan in writing "The Imperial History of the British Navy," and he is the joint author with Henry Cabot Lodge of "Hero Tales from American History."

Roosevelt has cut out for himself four distinct careers, each successful: One as a literary man, another as a ranchman and hunter, the third as a soldier, and finally as a leader in politics which embraces all the rest. It is with his political career that this sketch has to do.

In politics Theodore Roosevelt has become the idol of the young men of America. "There is not a young man in these United States who has not found in your life and influence an incentive to better things," was Senator Wolcott's expression in notifying him of his nomination for Vice-President. And it is this more than anything else that gives Roosevelt his amazing hold upon the imagination and affection of the Republican masses everywhere.

With all his achievements in politics he has been indifferent to his own personal political advancement. He has never sought the "blue ribbon" of public office; has never looked for title or for ornamental position. He has done whatever came in the way to do and done it with a zeal, an honesty, a fearlessness and a desire for the public good that even his political opponents and critics have been forced to acknowledge and respect. He has never held a public office in which his greatest successes were not won in the face of warnings and predictions by his disinterested friends that he was surely destroying all prospects of political advancement, but he has never permitted himself to be influenced by

Not

considerations of this kind and has never wavered in his course. many years ago when he was a member of the Civil Service Commission in Washington striking blows which fell sometimes with crushing force upon those to whom he would naturally have looked for political advancement, he wrote to a personal friend a letter which is perhaps as accurate an expression of the principles by which his public career has been guided as can be found. It is an unconscious revelation of the character of the man and is worth giving here. He wrote:

"If a man has political foresight who lives in a district where the people think as he does and where he has a great hold over them, then he can seriously go in for a continuous public career, and I suppose in such a case it is all right for him to shape his public course more or less with a view to his own continuance in office. I am a little inclined to envy a man who can look forward to a long and steady course of public service; but in my own case such a career is out of the question; and personally it seems to me that a man's comfort and usefulness in public life are greatly impaired the moment he begins to get worrying about how his votes and actions will affect his own future. When I was in the legislature I soon found that for my own happiness as well as for the sake of doing good work I had to cast aside all thoughts of my own future; and as soon as I had made up my mind to this and voted simply as I thought right not only disregarding politicians but even disregarding people themselves, if I honestly thought them all wrong on a matter of principle, not of mere expediency, then I began thoroughly to enjoy myself and to feel that I was doing good. It is just the same way with my present work as Civil Service Commissioner. I believe in it with all my heart and am absolutely certain that I could not possibly be engaged in any other work at the present moment more vitally important to the public welfare; and I literally do not care a rap what politicians say of me, in or out of Congress, save in so far as my actions may help or hurt the cause for which I am working. My hands are fortunately perfectly free, for I have not the slightest concern about my political future. My career is that of a literary man, and as soon as I am out of my present position I shall go back to my books. I may not ever be called to take another public position, or I may be; in any event, I shall try to do decent work while I am in office. I shall probably enjoy the life greatly while I am taking part in it, and I shall certainly be ready at any time to go out of it with a perfectly light heart."

It is the zeal of combat that appeals to Roosevelt and not always the joy of success. While he was penning this letter a new field of duty was already opening up before him upon which he was to be confronted with even more unpropitious conditions and with the necessity for performing acts which must have seemed to him at the time to be utterly destructive of any hope he may have entertained for a political future. As Civil Service Commissioner he had devoted himself to the work of enforcing rigorously and honestly a law which was not over popular with the public men with whom he was thrown daily in contact. It was a continual fight for years and he succeeded in establishing for the Commission of which he was the most aggressive member a position and a respect which it had never had before. But the work to which he was then called by Mayor Strong as president of the Police Commission of the City of New York was an even higher test of his quality of honest courage. No man ever undertook a more unpopular task and no man ever carried a difficult work through to completion with less regard for expediency or for his own comfort. He was attacked and vilified, his motives were misconstrued, his wisdom was questioned, but he never flinched. He was there to enforce the law, and he enforced it to the best of his ability. The police force of the City of New York when he retired from his office was better organized, better disciplined, more effective and more deserving of the confidence of the public for the protection of which it was created, than ever before or since. But it would have been hard to find any man at all familiar with politics who did not believe that Roosevelt's political career was at an end, and few men could have been found whose chances for election to public office seemed worse than his. But this was only the beginning of higher things.

One of the earliest acts of President McKinley was to make Theodore Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Roosevelt took this place because from boyhood he had been deeply interested in naval affairs a. d because he saw here an opportunity to participate in the creation of the new navy which is becoming more and more an object of American pride. It was a subordinate position, but from the time he first entered politics Roosevelt has never shrunk from subordinate place. He has accepted cheerfully and earnestly such responsibilities as have come to him without regard to whether he was to have the chief place of honor or not. It happened that his appointment as Assistant Secre