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THE ROOSEVELT BIG GAME SPECIMENS SENT TO THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

These numerous cases, which were photographed on their arrival in New York, show the results of Roosevelt's African Trip in tangible form on American soil. The world famous initials "T R" were conspicuously painted on every piece before shipment and it will be noticed that some boxes were, perhaps with pardonable pride, twice branded with the brush.

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Copyright, 1910, by Underwood & Underwood MR. ROOSEVELT AND GENERAL SLATIN ON CAMELS AT KERRERI, EGYPT

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BOOK ONE

EARLY LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER

CHAPTER I

Remarkable Characteristics of Theodore Roosevelt

IN

N the opening years of the nineteenth century a man of remarkable character and ability stood in the center of the historic stage, with the world's eyes fixed upon him. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, the most famous of soldiers. In the opening years of the twentieth century a man equally remarkable in character and ability stood in like manner before the world, with all eyes upon him. This was Theodore Roosevelt, the most famous advocate of peace and progress.

The careers of these men were strikingly unlike, their fame strikingly similar. It was the blare of trumpets and roll of drums, the charge of cavalry and the cannon's roar, "all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war," to which Napoleon owed his fame. There was none of this in Roosevelt's career. Aside from his few days of fighting in Cuba, with his picturesque charge up San Juan Hill, his life has been one of a struggle against graft and dishonesty; a battle with politicians and law-making bodies for reform; a demand of equal rights for all men, a square deal for high and low, for rich and poor alike.

Others before Theodore Roosevelt have fought the same fight and yet not been heard of beyond the boundaries of their countries. What is it in this man that has set the world agape, put his name into every mouth, opened every ear to hear his least utterance, made his proposed quiet journey through Europe a phenomenal ovation, in which multitudes crowd to see him and cheer him as he passes, and the greatest monarchs are eager to greet him as a favored visitor, a man their equal in rank? Do the world's people hail him as their friend, the man who stands for the masses against the classes? Do the kings hail him as a great ruler of men, a modern Cæsar or Charlemagne? Whatever the cause, this simple American citizen, without rank or power, stands in the limelight of the world's applause, the Halley comet of the political skies.

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