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There was a tenement-house law, which had been as much ignored as the Sunday law. This statute authorized the destruction of unfit tenements, "infant slaughter houses," as they had been rightly termed. Many of them had been duly condemned, but they were still standing when Mr. Roosevelt came into office. As President of the Police Board he had a seat on the Board of Health, and he promptly seized fully one hundred wretched and crowded hives of the helpless poor. The effect of his measures was shown in the lower death rate. In one neighborhood it fell from thirty-nine in a thousand to sixteen, which was less than the general rate of mortality for the whole city.

One more lesson in the "square deal" was taught by Mr. Roosevelt, when a notorious foreign agitator came to New York. This person, who was widely known as a "Jew baiter," or as one who went about stirring up hatred and strife against the Jewish race, was to open a campaign in the United States. His first speech was to be delivered in New York, and his friends came to Mr. Roosevelt with an appeal for police protection. "He shall have all the police protection he wants," the Commissioner assured the delegation.

Then he sent for a police inspector and said: "Select thirty good, trusty, intelligent Jewish members of the force, men whose faces most clearly show their race, and order them to report to me in a body." When the thirty chosen representatives of the chosen people stood before him a broad smile of satisfaction spread over his face, for he had never seen a more Hebraic assemblage in his life.

"Now," he said to these policemen, "I am going to assign you men to the most honorable service you have ever done, the protection of an enemy, and the defence of religious liberty and free speech in the chief city of the United States. You all know who and what Dr. Ahlwart is. I am going to put you in charge of the hall where he lectures and hold you responsible for perfect order throughout the evening. I have no more sympathy with Jew baiting than you have. But this is a country where your people are free to think and speak as they choose in religious matters, as long as they do not interfere with the peace and comfort of their neighbors, and Dr. Ahlwart is entitled to the same privilege. It should be your pride to see that he is protected in it; that will be the finest way of showing your appreciation

of the liberty you yourselves enjoy under the American flag." The thirty saluted and marched silently off on their novel duty.

When the Jew baiters came to the hall, looking for a mob of Jews, they could hardly believe their eyes, for they saw the place guarded at every approach and the interior lined by those uniformed Jewish protectors. The agitator and his followers walked between rows of stern, solemn Jewish policemen, standing mute and stiff as statues. The Jews, moreover, who came bent on disturbing the meeting, were restrained by the mere presence of their brethren, who stood before them charged with the duty of keeping the peace. When one did let his angry passion rise above control, a Jewish policeman quietly reached for him and firmly threw him out of the hall. The meeting failed utterly from lack of opposition, and the great national movement against the Jews was ruined, at the outset, by Mr. Roosevelt's illustration of the virtues of Jewish citizenship.

The Republican party was now once more in power at Washington, and Mr. Roosevelt, feeling that he had done what he could for the police department of New York, resigned from the Board, again

to serve in the broader field of the national government. The standard of honesty which he set in police affairs has not since been lowered, without disastrous results to those responsible for it. He showed the people of the city that wholesale graft was not a necessary evil, and the lesson has never been forgotten.

GETTING READY FOR WAR

April 19, 1897, appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. - The bosses reluctantly let him have an office where "he can do no harm." The prophet of the coming war with Spain. "Sharpening the tools of the navy." - Reorganizing the naval personnel. — Giving the "men behind the guns" a chance to learn how to shoot. President McKinley and his Cabinet invite the ardent Assistant Secretary to a Cabinet meeting and are much amused by his advice as to how the war may be avoided. Buying vessels. On the War Board. The war comes, and he leaves his desk to go to the front, resigning May 6, 1898.

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MR. ROOSEVELT did not seek one of the higher stations in the administration of President McKinley. Although he had been in public life more than fifteen years and had a national reputation, he never had asked for or received any honorary appointment. Many young men of wealth and education are willing to take only fancy assignments at European courts, where, as ministers or secretaries of embassies, they can "loaf around a throne." Mr. Roosevelt, on the other hand, had always avoided the soft berths, and had sought places where he could work and fight

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