Mulberry Street love him yet in secret. They dare not mention his name openly in these days of Tammany rule. For once, and once only, the honest policeman who did his duty, but had no pull, had an equal chance with the schemer. Neither kind will soon forget the two years of Roosevelt. I well remember the time I clashed with all three of the qualities in him which I have mentioned. It was when a woman was condemned to death for the foul and wicked murder of her step-daughter, and he, as governor, was beset by an endless array of more or less maudlin petitions praying for pardon. I, too, labored with him. I did not like the execution, but more-I never owned it before, he would have been the last man to bring that argument toI feared the effect of it on his career. I was weak and foolish, I know it now. I went to Albany, and all that evening and night, till the I A. M. train went back to the city, I argued it with him in his study. I pleaded on every ground I knew how, and I saw in his face the yearning to see it as his friend did. But he could not. He had pardoned others before, and I knew it was his dear delight to temper justice with mercy where it could rightly be done. Roosevelt is farthest from being a hard man; his heart is as tender as a woman's where it may be, as hard as steel where it must be. In this case he was absolutely right. Every consideration of fairness and justice demanded that the law take its course if the prisoner was responsible. That fact he ascertained by the strictest scrutiny, and then stood aside, heedless of the clamor. It was with something almost of awe that I saw him do it, for I knew what it cost him.

Theodore Roosevelt loves children. When he was a police commissioner, we would sometimes go together to the Italian school of the Children's Aid Society, or some kindred place, and I loved of all things to hear him talk to the little ones. They did too. I fancy he left behind him on every one of those trips a streak of little patriots to whom, as they grow up, the memory of their hour with "Teddy"

will be a whole manual of good citizenship. I know one little girl out on Long Island who is to-day hugging the thought of the handshake he gave her as the most precious of her memories. And so do I, for I saw him spy her,-poor, pale little thing, in her threadbare jacket,-way back in the crowd of school-children that swarmed about his train, and I saw him dash into the surging tide like a strong swimmer striking from the shore, make a way through the shouting mob of youngsters clear to where she was on the outskirts looking on hopelessly, catch and shake her hand as if his very heart were in his, and then catch the moving train on the run, while she looked after it, her face one big, happy smile. That was Roosevelt, every inch of him.

His home is one of the happiest I know of, for love is at the helm. It is his harbor of refuge, which he insists on preserving sacred to him and his, whatever storms rage without. And in this also he is faithful to the highest of American ideals, to his country's best traditions. The only time I saw him so angry as to nearly lose his temper was when he was told that his enemies in the police department, who never grasped the kind of man they had to do with, or were able to do it, were shadowing him nightly from his office to his home, thinking to catch him in some wrong. He flushed hotly.

"What!" he said, "going home to my babies?" But his anger died in a sad little laugh of contempt. That was their way, not his. When, soon after, the opportunity came to him to pay them back in their own coin, he spurned it with loathing. He fought fair even with scoundrels.

A just man and a fair; a man of duty and principle, never, by any chance, of expediency, political or personal; a reverent man of few public professions, but of practice, private and public, ever in accord with the highest ideals of Christian manliness. In fact, I know of no one who typifies better the Christian gentleman. In the hands of

such a man, no one but a frightened newspaper editor, whose secret wish is father to his fears, need be afraid to leave the destinies of our country."

A Christian gentleman, a reformer and a soldier became Vice-President of the country in 1901. That he appreciated his office, that he had studied to comprehend its relation to the country was not to be doubted.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Office of Vice-President Unique-History of the Office-Electoral College-Distrust of Party Government-The Vice-President's Theory of VicePresidency-Examples Cited-List of Books Written by Roosevelt-Address in Minnesota-Life of Effort-Right Start-Law and Prosperity-Amassing Forture-Say what you Mean-Dealings with Cuba-Essential of Civilization-President McKinley Shot.

A

UNIQUE office is that of the Vice-President, both in his char

acter and functions. There is little for him to do while he remains Vice-President, and yet at any moment he may be called to become the head of the nation. The history of such an office cannot but be interesting.

The men who drew up the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the government, in some instances failed entirely to achieve what they had endeavored to do by a most elaborate governmental arrangement, while in others they builded most wisely of set purpose.

What would now be called "pure democracy" they distrusted, and they dreaded what we would now call party government. "Their distrust of democracy induced them to construct the Electoral College," says Theodore Roosevelt in his paper on the Vice-Presidency, "for the choice of a President, the original idea being that the people should elect their best and wisest men, who, in turn, should, untrammeled by outside pressure, elect a President. As a matter of fact the functions of the electorate have now by time and custom become of little more importance than those of so many lettercarriers. They deliver the electoral votes of their States just as a letter-carrier delivers his mail." The distrust felt by the founders of the Constitution for party government took shape in the scheme to

provide that the majority party should have the foremost place, and the minority party the second place, in the national executive. The man who got the greatest number of electoral votes was made President, and the man who received the second greatest number was made Vice-President, on a theory somewhat akin to that by which . certain reformers hope to revolutionize our system of voting at the present day.

In the article to which we refer, Mr. Roosevelt reviewed the history of the Vice-Presidential nominations, and criticised sharply the custom "of offering the Vice-Presidency as a consolation prize to be given in many cases to the very men who were most bitterly opposed to the nomination of the successful candidate for President." Mr. Roosevelt went on to show how, on the death of the elder Harrison, "the Presidency fell into the hands of a man who had but a corporal's guard of supporters in the nation, and who proceeded to oppose all the measures of the immense majority of those who elected him." In the case of the death of President Lincoln, Mr. Roosevelt remarks that "Johnson was put on the ticket largely for geographical reasons, and on the death of Lincoln he tried to reverse the policy of the party which had put him in office." His historical comment upon a more recent case proceeds as follows:

"An instance of an entirely different kind is afforded by Garfield and Arthur. The differences between these two party leaders were mainly merely factional. Each stood squarely on the platform of the party, and all the principles advocated by one were advocated by the other; yet the death of Garfield meant a complete overturn in the personnel of the upper Republican officials, because Arthur had been nominated expressly to placate the group of party leaders who most objected to the nomination of Garfield. Arthur made a very good President, but the bitterness caused by his succession to power nearly tore the party in twain."