Roosevelt has faults, many of them, but he has virtues which throw his faults into the shade. His hasty disposition, his impulsiveness, have often led him into wrong paths, and he has that dislike to acknowledge himself in the wrong which leads many men into persisting in false measures. His doctrine of "the strenuous life" mirrors his own character. To do things, to keep things moving, to keep the top of politics spinning, to gain his end by the shortest and most obvious path, to rage against obstacles and seek to break through them instead of going round them, is the course to which his disposition leads him, whether it brings him face to face with a party leader in Washington or a rogue elephant in Uganda. In both cases his method is the same, to bring down the game by a center shot. Men of this character face peril, they make mistakes and incur dangers which others would have avoided. Yet these are traits of character which most men approve. Whether cowardly or brave ourselves, we admire courage and daring in others, and if these are united to good intentions and solid integrity, we are ready to forgive the errors to which they often lead, and make a hero of the man who possesses these traits of honor, courage and strength.

Strength of purpose, directness of action, unflinching courage, hatred of weakness, persistence in his campaigns against fraud and in favor of reform, have been lifelong characteristics of Theodore Roosevelt. Had a war broken out during his life, he would probably have shown the qualities of a great soldier, perhaps proved himself a Grant, possibly a Napoleon of modern type. Having no battalions in the field to fight against, he has taken the warrior's method of fighting against those in legislative halls and has burst through their ranks as Murat's cuirassiers burst through the serried ranks of Europe's infantry. A fighter in grain, a warrior born, Roosevelt's ways throughout have been those of the soldier, though tempered by the political skill and acumen which his field of campaign demanded.

It is a difficult matter to follow the path of Theodore Roosevelt. Not that it is in any sense a crooked path. It is, on the contrary, notable for its undeviating straightness. But the hero of this work has cut so wide a swath in his course through the history of his time,

has taken interest in such a multitude of subjects, has made himself prominent in so many fields of human endeavor, that one stands in deep wonder before the varied panorama of his career.

He is a man who must be "up and doing." When not engaged in public duties, hunting has been his favorite sport. Not fishing. That lacks the activity and spice of danger that appeal to him. It is a fact of striking significance, yet one thoroughly characteristic of the man, that after filling for years one of the chief places in the civilized world, he should leap at one plunge into the heart of unadulterated nature, the realm of native savagery, and exchange his gladiatorial struggle in the arena of politics for as strenuous a one with the savage denizens of the African wilds.

When not working, exercising, or hunting, he seems never to have spent an hour in idling. The pen or the book have filled his leisure hours. A rapid and omniverous reader, with a quick capacity of taking in the worth and significance of a book and a retentive memory, he has filled his mind with a wealth of knowledge on a great variety of themes. Some of the things thus learned have been given to us in the various books coming from his pen, and the stirring events of his life as a hunter have been detailed in others, all of them of much interest and full of original views.

The astonishing thing is how he has found time to do all that he has accomplished. It could never have been done by a waster of the minutes. For in addition to all here spoken of, come his long messages to Congress, his numerous speeches, all of them full of meat for thought, and the multitude of things for which only the busiest of men could have found time. A man such as this, with the vigor of a dynamite charge, and the force of genius to give it effect, could not help impressing himself upon his age; making his mark in some direction or other, stirring the world in some of its many activities. There are men who await opportunity; there are others who make opportunity. General Grant was one of the former; without the Civil War he would never have been known to the world. Ex-President Roosevelt is one of the latter; in war or peace alike he would have made his way; he made his own Civil War, and fought it out, to use his own expressive phrase, "to a frazzle."

Is there more to say of Theodore Roosevelt? Yes. He stands for this and more. The people of Europe have not alone cheered and admired him; they have gazed at him with wonder; not as a new species of animal come out of Africa, but as a new type of man come out of America. People and princes alike had never seen his like before and do not quite understand him now. Only in America can he be fully understood, for he is one of ourselves, an American in grain, in its fullest aspect an example of the most modern Americanism. There is in him none of the European sense of repose. To do things is his forte. To "get there" by the shortest route. To make the world spin around him. To win his way by main strength, and without regard to precedents or convention. This is the American in him, and this it is that easy-going Europe finds it difficult to understand.

Through all his life this has been Theodore Roosevelt's record. His career has not been so much a climb as a flight. Whatever has been put in his hands to do he has done with all his might. Every step he has taken has been made the sure foundation for a new step. There has been no hesitation, no faltering, no creeping around corners. His life has been a steeple-chase from start to goal. Danton's famous phrase: "To dare! again to dare! always to dare!" fits his case admirably. Whatever has been put in his hands to do he has done with all his might. He is not new as a reformer, but new in his methods of reform. He does not beg, request, manipulate, but strikes, and strikes to win. The areoplanist of the political field, he swoops to rise.

Let us glance at his record. A legislator at twenty-three, the youngest member of the New York Assembly, he made the feathers of corruption fly in that store-house of graft, till the air around him was as thick as in a snowstorm. Two years of this established his fame as a tireless champion of honesty in office. Then as a rancher and hunter in the West, he left a trail of anecdote of daring adventure behind him. Put on the Civil Service Commission, he woke up that moribund body to a vital activity it had never before shown. New York next got him and put him at the head of its Police Department. It had been a very quiet department before, afraid to stir lest it might

cause some ill smelling disturbance. With Roosevelt in it, housecleaning began. Much dust was raised, but he left his path clean, and all over the land people began to look with admiration upon this Police Commissioner of a new type.

Then came in rapid succession his brief but telling era as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and his Rough Rider career in Cuba. Everybody talked of him now. He was the popular hero of the war, and rose on the wave of popularity to the governorship of New York. Here he raised such a commotion among the easy advocates of the "good old ways" that their leaders actually had him nominated for Vice-President to get rid of the firebrand of Albany. All know what followed; the deplorable event that made him President; his phenomenal service in the Presidential chair; and how afterwards he 'delighted" himself as a hunter of big game, and "delighted" all Europe as a new variety of big game himself. Truly "the stars have fought in their courses" for the uplifting of Theodore Roosevelt.

T

CHAPTER II

Boyhood and Early Life

HEODORE ROOSEVELT comes to us from good old American stock, the family of the Roosevelts tracing their career on this continent to the days of the sturdy old Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant. Klass Martenson Van Roosevelt, the first of the name in this country, landed in New Amsterdam in 1649. From that time on the family occupied a position of prominence in New York City, taking an active part in the war for independence, and later on becoming energetic and wealthy members of the mercantile community.

Born in New York City October 27, 1858, Theodore Roosevelt was given his father's name and inherited some of his father's characteristics, especially his love of outdoor life and his interest in the doings of the "common people."

A thin, pale, delicate lad, weak and short-sighted, he did not seem a hopeful case for the building of a strong man. Indeed, to keep him from the rough play of the public schools, which he seemed unfit to bear, he was taught at home and in private schools. Yet the boy had under this pale exterior the inborn energy from which strong men are made. Determined to be the equal of his fellows, "to make a man of himself," as he has said, he took part in all sorts of boyish sports and exercises. He learned to swim, to row, to ride; he tramped over hill and dale. In this way the delicate child grew up to be a hardy boy and developed into a man with muscles of steel and indomitable vim and endurance.

Stories of animals and adventure interested him from early boyhood. The favorite pursuits of the man began to declare themselves in the child when he was but six years of age. And his love for a good, hard fight in later life manifested itself as early. There are several stories extant of his boyhood contests, one of which may be worth telling.