man.

land had given an equally significant estimate of the Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Roosevelt, although of opposing parties, had worked together at Albany, when the former was Governor and the latter a young member of the Legislature. When Mr. Cleveland became President for the second time, he found Mr. Roosevelt serving as a Civil Service Commissioner. There was pressure upon him to displace this Republican member of the Commission, and President Cleveland is said to have replied:

"You do not know Theodore Roosevelt. I do, and I tell you that he is one of the ablest politicians either party ever had and the ablest Republican politician in this generation. The country will find this out in time. If I keep him where he is, he can't do us any harm; if I remove him and make a martyr of him, he has political ability enough to do us serious damage. I shan't remove him."

It is known that in the trying hour when Mr. Roosevelt took up the burden of the Presidency, nothing else gave him quite the comfort that he derived from the sympathy and confidence which ex-President Cleveland communicated to him. When the two men stood beside the bier of McKinley, in

the rotunda of the Capitol, the new President sought out the ex-President, and with genuine emotion said: "I shall always deem it a high honor to have served under President Cleveland."

One more prophecy of Mr. Roosevelt's future is well worthy of mention. In this instance Thomas B. Reed was the prophet. He was Speaker of the House at the time, and, in a conversation with Mr. Lacey, a new member of Congress from Iowa, regarding men in Washington, the members of the Civil Service Commission came up for discussion.

"We've got an American of blood and iron-a coming man - on that Commission. I tell you, Lacey, you want to watch this man, for he is a newworld Bismarck and Cromwell combined, and you will see him President yet."

"Who is he?" Mr. Lacey asked.

"Theodore Roosevelt," the Speaker replied.

Not many, however, had such insight into the qualities of the new President. He was expected to be a headstrong, rough-riding President, who would try to gain his point by hard fighting with Congress and with the political leaders. People generally looked for an honest but a stormy adminis

tration and in the end a disorganized Republican Party, broken up into quarrelling factions. Nothing of the kind happened.

Discarding secret trades and dickers with this man and that, with one interest and another, the President adopted the completest publicity. He at once put himself into the closest communication with the thought and feeling of the country. When he wished a thing to be done, he plainly told the people and asked them to help him. He would always turn to them first, and they were his chief reliance. He would advocate his policies in frequent messages to Congress and in speeches in various parts of the country.

In the first four years of his Presidency he travelled more than fifty thousand miles and visited every state and territory in the Union. While on a Western tour he went fourteen thousand miles by rail, one hundred and fifty miles by horseback, and walked two hundred miles. In the course of that trip he delivered three hundred and eighty-five speeches in twenty-five states and territories. Naturally in so much journeying he was more than once involved in accidents. His narrowest escape was while crossing an electric car line in Massachusetts.