already gained a broad and firm grasp on the main threads of American history, and the ambition to be an actor in the growth and development of this great nation, even as his fathers had been before him, took possession of him, and he at once became active in the affairs of his State.

Mr. Roosevelt early developed a liking for politics. He had descended from a long line of merchants, but his paternal ancestors for four generations had always taken an active interest in public affairs, and had served their city and State as aldermen, assemblymen and Congressmen. But in Theodore Roosevelt all the ambitions of his race seem to have crystallized in the one thought of country. In his philosophy, to be a free man under a free government is the nearest approach to earthly happiness. He became a hunter of wild beasts almost as soon as he was able to sight a rifle, and took as much pride in the trophies of the chase as any old viking would have done. The floors of his house at Oyster Bay are strewn with the skins of bears and mountain lions, as well as many of those of smaller though not less ferocious animals, slain by him in their native fastnesses. Horns of stag and moose decorate the halls, and sea-turtles are

the playthings of his children. He delights in overcoming things worth while, just to emphasize the supremacy of man's genius. The same dominant spirit that sends him alone through the forest on the trail of a panther spurs him into the thick of the fight during a political campaign, and keeps him there until the reforms he promised from the rostrum are achieved in legislative halls or he is altogether overthrown.

In his treatment of political questions Mr. Roosevelt's methods exhibit much of the shrewdness of his merchant ancestors. He believes in honest goods, but not in mixing his silks and satins with the cheap prints in the show-window. He believes in woolen as an every-day costume. He can see no hope in the reform that has not a practical basis. In his essay on "Americanism" he says: "There are philosophers who assure us that in the future patriotism will be regarded not as a virtue at all, but merely as a mental stage in the journey toward a state of feeling when our patriotism will include the whole human race and all the world. This may be so; but the age of which these philosophers speak is still several æons distant. In fact, philosophers of this type are so very far advanced that they

are of no practical service to the present generation. It may be that in ages so remote that we cannot now understand any of the feelings of those who will dwell in them, patriotism will no longer be regarded as a virtue, exactly as it may be that in those remote ages people will look down upon and disregard monogamic marriage; but as things now are and have been for two or three thousand years past, and are likely to be for two or three thousand years to come, the words 'home' and 'country' mean a great deal. Nor do they show any tendency to lose their significance. At present treason, like adultery, ranks as one of the worst of all possible crimes."

This utterance gives an insight into one distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Roosevelt. He states his position with absolute frankness. The dream of a millennium is nothing to him unless you can prove that it is practical and can be brought about at once. "Let us get hold of things as they are," is his motto, "and when we have them straightened out we will try something else. Let us stick close to the thought that we are Americans, first, last and all the time. We may not be so polished as our neighbors across seas, but we have certainly as good timber

in our construction and can never be so great, or useful, or happy in any other country as we can in our own." In the same essay quoted above he says: "One may fall fall very far short of treason and yet be an undesirable citizen in the community. The man who becomes Europeanized, who loses his power of doing good work on this side of the water, and who loses his love for his native land, is not a traitor; but he is a silly and undesirable citizen. He is as emphatically a noxious element in our body politic as is the man who comes here from abroad and remains a foreigner. Nothing will more quickly disqualify a man from doing good work in the world than the acquirement of that flaccid habit of mind which its possessors style cosmopolitan."

That Mr. Roosevelt is didactic to a degree one must admit; but that he is here expressing his actual beliefs cannot be questioned. That is one of the things even his enemies admire. His words are an utterance of himself, and whether they be true or false in themselves, they are true to him. It is complimentary to his judgment that while he has been speaking and writing in this vein for more than twenty years he has never yet had to recede from his position, although he has