Those two years of strict, businesslike administration of the Governorship of a great State were an invaluable preparation for any higher office to which he might be appointed by the will of the people.

Colonel Roosevelt's tenderness and gentleness, his devotion to the needs of the poor, are traits to make him admired in those circles where too much of such tenderness and devotion on the part of a high executive are not common. Nothing about Colonel Roosevelt is more touching than the fact, related by Mr. Riis, that shortly after Mr. Riis had published his book, "How the Other Half Lives,” he found on his desk the card of Theodore Roosevelt, and written on it: "I have read your book and have come to help."

For the poor have always been with Colonel Roosevelt. He thinks that there are many ugly things about wealth and its possessions, and that there are many rich people utterly lacking in patriotism and who show such sordid and selfish traits of character, or lead such mean and empty lives that all persons who are right-minded must regard them with contempt. But the first lesson to teach the poor man is that, taken in the long run, the wealth of a community is beneficial to him-that he is better off because other men are well off. As to the power of the State in regard to the poor he said it might be found necessary to interfere more than has already been done in the right of private contract, and to hold in cunning as the State holds in force. But there must be sureness of ground before getting legislation, and nothing must be expected to be done at a jump. Above all, it is criminal to excite anger and discontent without proposing a remedy, or only proposing a false remedy. He considers the labor leader, whether he be a political leader or a philanthropist, the worst foe of the poor man when he would try to teach the poor man that he is kept down by conspiracy or injustice, when in truth. the poor man is working out his fate, hardly and sadly though it is

done, as the tremendous majority of men who are worthy of the name are doing and always will do and have done. Law can do much, but the difference between what can be done by law and what not is well exemplified by the experience of the country in the negro problem. Slavery was formerly the state of the negro in the United States. This was a great wrong which could be remedied by legislation, and which could not be remedied except by legislation. Therefore, the law set the negroes free and made citizens of those who had before been chattels. When this was done many of the friends of the colored people believed that in some way or other additional legislation could immediately put the race on an intellectual, social and business equality with the whites. It is fair to acknowledge that this effort has failed. In many sections of the country the colored race is not treated as it should be treated, and in politics the frauds upon the negroes have been gross and shameful and have roused not only indignation but bitter wrath. "Yet the best friends of the negro admit that his hope lies, not in legislation, but in the constant working of those often unseen forces of the national life which are greater than all legislation."

Great advances in general social well-being can hardly be met by the adoption of a far-reaching political or other scheme, but must come by gradual growth, and by never-ceasing effort to do first one thing and then another till the difficulties be overcome. Social reformers often decline to favor schemes for practical reform because people with sane and wholesome minds refuse to have to do with the wild ideas of these reformers.

"There has been an honest effort in New York to give the city good government, and to work intelligently for better social conditions, especially in the poorest quarters. We have cleaned the streets; we have broken the power of the ward boss and the saloon keeper to work injustice; we have destroyed the most hideous of the

tenement houses in which poor people were huddled like swine in a sty; we have made parks and playgrounds for the children in the crowded quarters; in every possible way we have striven to make life easier and healthier, and to give man and woman the chance to do their best work; while at the same time we have warred steadily against the pauper-producing maudlin philanthropy of the free soupkitchen and tramp lodging-house kind. In all this we have had practically no help from either the parlor socialists or the scarcely more noxious beer-room socialists who are always howling about the selfishness of the rich and their unwillingness to do anything for those who are less well off."

These words, written in 1896, show the practical way in which Theodore Roosevelt holds the condition of the poor and its amelioration. He believes that certain labor-unions, bodies of organized labor, such as the organizations which include railway conductors, locomotive engineers and firemen, and the like, embody one of the better hopes for healthy national future growth. But experience has taught men who have reform at heart that the usual labor leader and demagogue who shout aloud for depreciated currency or the overthrow of the rich will do very little to help those who do what they can to make civic conditions better.

Vast numbers of workingmen can be appealed to with confidence, but a large proportion of the men who call themselves labor leaders are influenced by short-sighted hatred of what they do not understand. What is more to be deplored is the fact that sincere and earnest men of high character and honest intention go far astray in their methods at times and thus are prevented from doing the good work they started out to do. A man when he gets out of the right road can do very little to help those who are already on the wrong road. Many and grievous wrongs should be righted, many measures for relief should be pushed, and it is discouraging that when