the places against the claims of the party leaders' choice for the same positions. Efforts to secure the passage of a bill to improve the civil service in the state and to change the police system in New York City were fathered by Governor Roosevelt and pushed by Senator Platt, but failed of passage through dereliction of Republican Senators.

After a year of remarkable success in governing the State of New York Colonel Roosevelt went to Las Vegas, New Mexico, to attend the first reunion of his regiment.

The opening day was given over to the joy of reunion, to elaborate receptions and fireworks. The second was the anniversary of the battle of Las Guasimas and a service was held in memory of the dead. It was very impressive.

New Mexico has never seen a greater day than the one on which cowboys, in every kind of garb, guardsmen of the New Mexico National Guard, Rough Riders, Indians, Mexican women and children from the adobes, and ranchmen in their picturesque attire welcomed the men they "loved next to idolatry."

Parson Uzzell preached a strong and characteristic sermon, closing it with a recitation of Kipling's Recessional.

In the afternoon all the interest centered about the presentation of a medal to Colonel Roosevelt and a sword to the gallant Major Brodie, given by the Rough Riders and the citizens of New Mexico.

Hon. Frank Springer presented the medal to the colonel and made a ringing speech which caused every Rough Rider to thrill and tingle with pride in his birthright as an American citizen.

A few hours afterward the regiment dispersed for the second time. But its soldiers carried to the four corners of the country the inspiration of that meeting. However far they may be separated in place and thought, the name of Roosevelt will bridge the distance, and the words. of Kipling's mighty war song will be to them as a password into that strange and wonderful experience of war and battle which they shared together.

ROOSEVELT AS VICE PRESIDENT.

Theodore Roosevelt, as governor of New York, continued to keep in the public eye, as he had always done in every other position he had held from the day of his election to the legislature of his native state. In the spring of 1900, on the approach of the Republican national convention, his name was the most often spoken of in connection with the second place on the national ticket. The convention met June 19 in Philadelphia, and it was made known that Cornelius N. Bliss of New York, who had been a member of the cabinet of President McKinley,

was the choice of Chairman Hanna and the members of the Republican national committee. The renomination of President McKinley for his high office was admittedly a foregone conclusion.

Almost all the men who have stepped from the vice-presidency into the higher office to fill out terms for which other men were selected have taken up the administration under a handicap. They received the nomination for the lesser place with a distinct impression on the part of the public that they were not, and never would be, of heavy enough caliber for the presidency. Honorable and able gentlemen as some of them proved to be, they could not have the full confidence of the public nor could they regard themselves as other than stopgaps used by bitter necessity to fill the presidential succession. It has been the practice in nominating conventions-a practice which from now on should be abandoned absolutely-to select the man for second place on considerations of party expediency, geographical location or the desirability of appeasing some of the dissatisfied ones in the party ranks, but with little regard for personal fitness.

Mr. Roosevelt began his administration with none of these embarrassments. Previous to the Philadelphia convention he was regarded as belonging to the available "presidential timber," and his nomination for the presidency in 1904 was seen to be most probable in any event. Almost immediately after the death of President McKinley he announced his determination to continue the policy of his illustrious predecessor and invited the McKinley cabinet to retain their portfolios. This produced a splendid effect upon the country at large. Few Presidents have ever entered upon the discharge of their high duties under more promising auspices than did Theodore Roosevelt, who took the oath of office at Buffalo, where the cabinet was assembled, on September 14, 1901.

ROOSEVELT'S MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN.

In 1881 Mr. Roosevelt and Miss Alice Lee of Boston married. Two years later he lost his wife and his mother. In 1886 Mr. Roosevelt married a second time, Miss Edith Kermit Carow becoming his wife. The domestic life of Mr. Roosevelt is ideal. Whether ensconced in winter quarters at New York or Washington, or at the famous summer home at Oyster Bay, on Long Island, the indulgent father is always ready to romp with his children, and he enters into the sport with as much zest as the youngest of the six. In many ways the children reflect the paternal characteristics. Alice, who is seventeen years old, is Mr. Roosevelt's daughter by his first marriage. She is tall, dark and serious-looking, and rides her father's military charger fearlessly and gracefully.

The next is Theodore, Jr., or "young Teddy," the idol of his father's heart, and a genuine "chip of the old block" in the estimation of those who know him. Young Teddy owns a shotgun and hopes some day to kill more and bigger game than his father ever slew. He also rides a pony of his own. He is fourteen years old. The other children are: Kermit, aged twelve; Ethel, aged ten; Archibald, aged seven, and Quentin, aged four.

These children were all born in New York. There is a significance about their given names, which were not chosen for them at a venture or culled out of the pages of popular novels. Theodore explains itself -the third Roosevelt of that name in direct succession, beginning with Theodore, the merchant and importer of glassware, father of the new President. Kermit one might suppose to be some ancient Dutch name, taken from the remote history of the Roosevelts; remote its origin may be, but it is Manx, not Dutch-Celtic, not Teutonic-commemorating its bearer's descent from an ancestor in that quaint isle, and starting him in life with one presumably unique possession.

Of the rest, Archibald's first and second names both connect him. with the Scottish ancestry, the Bulloch family, which settled in the Southern States and is still as well known in Dixie as it was in the days of the confederacy, when one of its members fired the last gun on board Semmes' Alabama. The fiery Huguenot strain is duly honored in the baby, Quentin. Kermit received his name from the mother's side of the house, Mrs. Roosevelt having been born Edith Kermit Carow. Alice was named for her mother, the President's first wife, and Ethel for a relative.

ROOSEVELT AS AUTHOR.

Mr. Roosevelt has been a great student and quite a voluminous writer. The Saturday Review of the New York Times gives an able estimate of his writings, as follows:

He has published a half dozen serious works in history and in biography, three original works on hunting and ranch life, and a considerable number of essays, some of them of an extremely careful and permanently valuable character. Had he done nothing but write his fascinating hunting books-and lived through the experiences they relate in so simple and winning style-he would probably be more widely known in other lands than any other American save one or two. Had he not obscured his reputation as a historian by his industry in making history he would have a distinct place in the circle of American writers in that field. It remains true, however, that if his life had been less full and active, his literary work would in all probability have had less value, and the value would have been less peculiar.

The little volume of essays he published in 1897, immediately after his retirement from the Police Board of New York, has most of the traits of his entire literary product. They range in date over a dozen years. Four of them are in effect autobiographic, discussing the legislature of New York, the police of New York, civil service reform and machine politics in New York. These are models in their kind, and their kind is an extremely difficult and risky one. They are direct in narrative, clear and succinct in description, well weighed and convincing in their judgments, moderate in temper and simply indispensable to the reader who wishes to study the subjects with which they deal. They reveal directly, as the histories and biographies reveal indirectly, the mind and character of the writer. They are almost entirely free from the extreme criticism and sweeping theorizing which for this hater of mere critics and theorists seem to have a fascination that he can resist only when his mind is engaged on facts with which he himself has dealt. Of his defects and temptations there are also examples in the essays, especially in those that suggest lay sermons, in which the preaching is strikingly inferior to the author's practice.

If Mr. Roosevelt's vigorous personality constitutes a limitation on the scope and excellence of his literary work, it also gives to the best of it both charm and value. If that part of the work in which the personality is not enlisted does not compel attention, the rest demands and repays study. The ideals of the writer and of the citizen are the same, and they are high. No one who has fairly made himself familiar with both can deny that. From the point of view of the critic it is extremely interesting to note that when the best qualities of the man are most completely called into play the best work of the writer is done.

It may be said of Mr. Roosevelt's writing that it is at its best when it approaches most nearly to action, and this, we are confident, would be the judgment which he would be most content to deserve. His hunting books are a striking instance of this quality. They are models of straightforward and convincing narrative and description. The personal element is, of course, prevalent in them, but it is not at all obtrusive or out of perspective. There is no assumption of modesty in them, no affectation of indifference to the writer's own share in the experiences and observations recorded. He is quite frankly and inevitably a chief actor in the tale, but not at all the hero. He takes his part with zest, and his personality lends a natural and constant charm to every adventure. But he is intensely interested in the game he pursues, in the country he hunts over, in his companions, in everything that presents itself to the eager and vigorous mind, to his keen and alert vision. The present writer speaks only as a general reader, quite uninitiated in the mysteries of the