go out in midwinter for want of coal had nothing but praise for this salutary interference.

When the Republic of Colombia refused to sustain the action for the building of the Panama Canal and the State of Panama seceded in consequence and proclaimed its independence, President Roosevelt with what seemed unnecessary haste recognized the new republic and proceeded to negotiate with it instead of Colombia. His impatience in this instance seemed to run away with his judgment, for a little delay would not have stood in the way of getting what he desired.

In November, 1906, his interest in the progress of the canal took him in person to Panama. Here was a flagrant violation of another precedent. No President before him had ever gone beyond the jurisdiction of the flag. But Roosevelt lost no sleep in consequence; he saw what he wanted to see, and the solar system suffered no disruption.

What else did he do? During the three and a half years of his first administration the country owed several important executive acts to him. In addition to settling the anthracite coal strike and recognizing Panama, he prosecuted the Northern Securities Company for violating the anti-trust law; he established reciprocity with Cuba; he created the new Department of Commerce and Labor; he founded the permanent census; he reorganized the army; he strengthened the navy; he advocated the national irrigation act which is reclaiming vast arid tracts to cultivation; he submitted the Venezuela imbroglio to The Hague Court of Arbitration; he sent America's protest against the Kishenev massacre to the Czar of Russia.

The way the latter was done was an apt illustration of the Roosevelt method of doing things. He well knew that if the petition was sent to the Czar in the usual way he would not receive it and his government would probably hint that this country had better attend to its own business.

Roosevelt cut the Gordian knot in a different way. He telegraphed the whole petition to the American Ambassador at St. Petersburg, bidding him to lay it before the Czar and ask him if he would receive such a petition if it came regularly before him. The Czar politely replied that he would not. But in spite of diplomacy he had received it and read it, and in this way he learned something of what

was going on in his dominions. Salutary results soon followed from the Roosevelt diplomacy.

We have told some of the things for which President Roosevelt stood sponsor. They were not all. His activity was enormous. He not only stood for the best things, but he worked and fought for them, and in some instances stood the test of making powerful enemies in order to secure them. The faculty of persistence in him was strongly developed. The word "strenuous," which he has bound up with his own name, aptly illustrates his character. His was a true example of the "strenuous life." There was always "something doing" in his neighborhood, and always will be while he breathes the breath of life. The Roosevelt doctrine of a "square deal," the enforcement of the laws and statutes of the United States, and the upholding of the dignity and integrity of the nation were ever the keynotes of his administration.

"G

CHAPTER IX

Reformer and Peacemaker

IT-THAR ROOSEVELT" is a familiar cowboy designation

of our late President, and it is one that well fits. All his life he has been "gittin' thar." Ability and impetuosity have carried him headlong forward from one position to another in the public service, his rare vacations from political labor being those of his ranch and hunting life in the Wild West, and of his active career as a soldier. These were his recreations, his intervals of holiday enjoyment. As for resting-the man cannot do it; it is not in him.

He has got the posts he wanted throughout his life; and got one post he did not want, that of Vice-President. It is one that would appeal to the ambition of most of us, but it was a restful post, and Roosevelt was not hankering after rest. Yet by a strange dispensation of Providence it lifted him to the very summit of an American political career; it made him President.

He would not have been human if he had not felt a sense of triumph over those plotting politicians who had fairly forced him into the Vice-Presidential office, fancying in their shrewd souls that they had the inconvenient reformer shelved. Fate had broken the threads which bound down this modern Gulliver and set him free to carry his ideas to their highest ultimate.

Yet that he was satisfied cannot be said. It was a bitter and sorrowful reflection that he had reached this high office over the slain body of his lamented predecessor, the loved and lovable McKinley. He would ten thousand times rather have spent his four years as voiceless chairman of the Senate than to be made President through the assassination of a dear and cherished friend.

Nor was it altogether pleasant to feel that chance, not the act of his fellow-citizens, had lifted him to this high office. Did they want him? Was he not in some sense an interloper? That could only be

told when they had the opportunity to express their real sentiment, and he must have looked forward with some hope and some anxiety to the election of 1904, to learn if the people really approved him, or if they merely waited their opportunity to shelve him effectually.

If he really had any doubt in this direction, it was dispelled when the time came to act. The enthusiastic nomination which he received was enough to show that he was by all odds the first choice of the Republican party. And when the vote of the people was cast it became evident that he was the first choice of all parties, that the magic of his name had swept hosts of converts from the Democratic ranks. This was shown by his immense plurality in the popular vote of over 2,500,000, far the greatest that any President had ever received, and his large Electoral College majority of 196. Evidently the people at large wanted Roosevelt, and it remained for him to justify their faith in him.

That we are correct in crediting him with a strong desire for election to the Presidency we may quote his own words to show. This he has said:

"I do not believe in playing the hypocrite. Any strong man fit to be President would desire a nomination and re-election after his first term. Lincoln was President in so great a crisis that perhaps he neither could nor did feel any personal interest in his own re-election. But at present I should like to be elected President just as John Quincy Adams, or McKinley, or Cleveland, or John Adams, or Washington himself desired to be elected. It is pleasant to think that one's countrymen think well of one. But I shall not do anything whatever to secure my nomination save to try to carry on the public business in such shape that decent citizens will believe I have shown wisdom, integrity and courage."

On the 4th of March, 1905, this favorite of the American people, for in the highest sense he was that, was inaugurated President of the United States. He was now a man unhampered, except by the platform of the Convention, and that was broad enough to carry out all the reforms in which he felt an interest. No purpose of running for another term trammeled him. He had cut the bridges in that direction behind him by announcing positively that he had no such intention.

There were some not ready to believe him, even when in December, 1907, he reiterated his determination not to run for a third term. It was not until 1908, when he absolutely refused a nomination, that all the people felt that he meant just what he said.

He might justly for other reasons have declined a re-election, for the Presidency for him had been no bed of roses. He had worked to win his aims with all the strength of his strong character and was justified in looking forward for a period of reprieve-not exactly of rest, but of occupation not quite so nerve-straining.

During this term of office the President worked strenuously for the reform legislation he had at heart. That he got all he wanted cannot be said, for Congress was hard to handle, but he gained enough to make the path easier for later reformers. Chief among his victories. over intrenched privilege was that of the Anti-Rebate Law, which forced the railroads to come out into the open and to desist from the unfair practices which they had so long maintained. Another was the pure food law, to save the people from being poisoned by villainous purveyors, and the law against the sale of unclean meats. Other acts sustained by him were those to protect the forest reserves and national parks, to enlarge the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and to prevent corporations from making contributions to election expenses.

The old soldiers, especially the veterans of the Civil War, for whom he had a warm place in his heart, felt the benefit of his sympathy in the General Service Pension Act, which gave to each of them, whether injured or not, a liberal pension after he had reached his sixty-second year. In 1906 he made a speech advocating an inheritance tax, a measure of which his successor, President Taft, is strongly in favor.

All this was matter which brought him under the limelight of the people of his country. In 1905 he brought himself under the limelight of the world, when he appealed to Japan and Russia to bring to an end their desolating war by negotiating a treaty of peace. The offer took hold. Both parties to the conflict were glad enough to see this hand stretched out to them across the two great oceans, bearing the olive branch of peace. While Europe dallied and delayed, America