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good credit. There are two reasons of locality that make Iowa a very proper place to find a suitable Secretary of the Treasury. One is that Iowa raised the most extravagant crop of false financiers in variety and vehemence that ever appeared in any State. The wildest ideas were widespread and in the discussion of the problem of the money standard, the people of Iowa were excep tionally well educated in finance, when the standard issue was threshed out in that State and settled right. Iowa was very productive of outright repudiators of bonded indebtedness, and when they disappeared there was light beyond the Mississippi. There are none so strong for the truth as the fighters for it. Iowa's veteran, Senator Allison, has been the ideal Secretary of the Treasury for many years, but has adhered to the opinion his place of greater usefulness is the Senate. Iowa is well situated and educated to supply the vacancy in the Treasury Department that has been announced, and the President was fortunate to find so excellent a man as Governor Shaw, to fill a vacancy of such importance. The President has been highly complimented for his selection.

While the literary labors of the President are not confined to the West, his writings are largely of the Great West, and have the flavor of the soil. His "Winning the West" is five volumes in all, the third published in 1894"The Trans-Allegheny Commonwealths." He says of it:

"The period covered in this volume includes the seven years immediately succeeding the close of the Revolutionary War. It was during these seven years that the constitution was adopted, and actually went into effect; an event, if possible, even more momentous for the West than for the East. The time was one of vital importance to the whole nation; alike to the people of the inland frontier and to those of the seaboard. The course of events during these years determined whether we should become a mighty nation or a mere snarl of weak and quarrelsome little commonwealths, with a history as bloody and meaningless as that of the Spanish American States."

Senator Lodge is a statesman who has written history; and he and Mr. Roosevelt are authors of "Hero Tales from American History."

Last year, Mr. Roosevelt's "Biography of Oliver Cromwell" was published. The Sagamore edition of Roosevelt's works collected was issued in fifteen volumes last year. The production of this library is a surprising achievement. It could have been made possible only by the most faithful industry, joined to a surprisingly orderly mind, retentive memory, and patience in making sure of the small features that make up the certainty that the work is that of information, not imagination. The most valuable of his books are the Public Papers, for 1899 and 1900, of New York. They will rank very high.

If President Roosevelt had been when he first wrote history, called the Boy Historian, the name, though not falsified, would have been misguiding. While he was becoming a self-made man, he "aged rapidly," as Napoleon said

when his youth was regarded as a fault, one did on fields of battle. While poetry may be applauded when produced at an uncommonly early age, the judgments of the origin and consequences of events seem to demand not only talent and industry, but maturity. While we know the President wrote history before he had distinction as a politician, the fact that he was an age when a college graduate is ascertaining his adaptations, and possibly reading a little law, tentatively to tell whether he has a taste for it, is not disclosed in his books. They consist of sober studies, and serious statements of facts, and bear the marks of intelligent and patient labor. The subject chosen was the very thing to kindle the fervor of patriotism, and call for high colors and flash light snap-shots of the picturesque. It was the 1812-15 naval war with England. The young author had an idea of the dignity of history that would not allow him to depart from truth in the celebration of the gallantry of his countrymen. -not even by coloring a victory too high. His American blood is very red, but it is not often perceptible in his historical work. He is a stern referee in combats, showing fair play to an extent that an enthusiast on our side deplores. When he does praise, his cool and clear impartiality makes it praise indeed; and, presently, the character for judicial integrity is established, and the employment of accurate statements is a delight. There is ruggedly distinct the constant evidence of searching and preserving investigation, that seeks the verities and goes to the bottom of pigeon holes, official reports, private letters-indeed, all the authenticities. There is nothing extenuated and nothing set down in favoritism. It has not unfrequently happened that American History about America is so ardently patriotic, that it is partizan, and the youth of America find flattery rather than fact. The very truth, however, is what the patriot truly wants.

Roosevelt's way of putting things for our side is to state incidents with studious avoidance of exaggeration, so calmly that the readers are not carried away with the energies of enthusiasm, by the arts of eluding the unpleasant and exaggerating the agreeable.

The early historical writings of Mr. George Bancroft glowed with color, and blazed with the inflammable inspiration of Americanism. If we may speak his honored name, as an essayist upon all our glories, we should, to be candid with Roosevelt, say that he is as a man who works in iron, and is at a forge, hammering the iron truth on an anvil, that rings while the metal stricken into form gives out showers of bright flashes. That which is wrought is not meant to call upon emotional natures for admiration, but the workman smites hard and fast to weld the bars into a structure that will stand firm against the thunder of a sledge.

The knights in the tournaments, swept from the helmets of each other their plumes, so that the feathers flew with the wind, before blood was drawn.

Roosevelt loves to speak of a combat, when steel edges bite and the turmoil is musical. He ransacks the papers that tell the truth in an unvarnished way. His grand passion is for the particulars, names, dates, rolls, diaries, private letters, cleaning up points invaluable. If it is a fight at sea, that which is to be told first is wanted, all about the ships, and all about the guns aboard, the number of men, state of the weather, possibly family treasures of officers' papers. One fact brings in another, and so history is made real and earnest, and of absorbing interest, because the veracity of it asserts itself.

The surprise of the books from the President's pen is, however, not that the first of them were written by a very young man to undertake such a task, but that he has gone on for twenty years, and ranks high among our historians. His range of subjects is remarkable, as his productiveness is unflagging. His Americanism gives forth a better light than brag or bluster, and the splendid volumes, "Winning the West," are read with surprise that the President's reputation as a historian has not reached a celebrity, exceeding what it has attained. He has placed before the American people the true story of the West, from Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Lewis and Clarke, and all the heroes, white and red, from those who fought over the Alleghanies and the "Dark and Bloody," but "Happy Hunting Grounds," the Salt Licks and Sugar Camps of the Blue Grass parks of Kentucky, down to the days when the historian becomes a ranchman and hunted everything in the still unoccupied Rockies and along the remote rivers that contribute to the Missouri. His selection of Thomas H. Benton for a subject of biography displays Roosevelt's strong sympathy with the West, and his enlightenment as to the men who were foremost in the passage of the Mississippi by the people dwelling between the Atlantic and the great river, to establish new States. Jefferson and Jackson had been remembered as chief of the statesmen and heroes who gained the great valley and continued well doing to the ocean that rolls from America to Asia; but Benton's brave and striking services and glorious watchwords had been, not forgotten, but unappreciated in their magnitude, until the young historian, in writing of the ways the West was won, discovered the grandeur of Benton's work, and gave it place, and erected in imperishable form his monument in literature. There is a certain majesty about Benton that will be memorable. His eye first clearly caught the luminous fact that the West-our West-was the way to the East. It was his finger pointed, and his voice uttered, "There is the road to the Indies." Our fathers crossed the waters from Europe, and our sons inherit the Destiny that brings us face to face with Asia. Roosevelt, like Benton, holds that more land for the people is a primary need, if we are to do our duty. We have won our way across the American continent, and stand guard over a hemisphere.

CHAPTER XXVI.

HIS CO-ORDINATE DEPARTMENTS.

Lieutenant-General Miles Imparts Information and Is Rebuked-What the Secretaries of War and Navy had to Say-Admiral Dewey Did Not Tell All He Meant-The President on Dangerous Obedience to Orders-His Two Years' Old Opinion Was Sampson Was in Command-There Is a Shake Up-A "Historian" Ordered Not to Labor Any More, Pleads He Is of the Civil Service Class, but Is Put out-Melancholy Illness of Admiral Sampson-The Origin of the Trouble-The President's Finding Finally.

HE official and other documents in which the agitations of Washington

City, during the holiday recess of Congress, were recorded, and the

Associated Press as distinguished from the Journals that more largely represent individual or corporate enterprise, are not in full accord as to the facts, but all the outlines are clear. The Press that may be called historically Opposition, display high colors, not in evidence in the Newspapers of naturally strong inclinations to sustain the Administration.

It has not been at any time a secret, that the McKinley Cabinet was unlikely to last longer than through the holidays, and the reconstruction began in the week before Christmas came.

The President could not be expected to make a great change in character expressly to detain a Cabinet, members of which were known to seek relief from office before the death of President McKinley. There was an element in the relations of McKinley and his Cabinet strengthening that of a concert in public policy-that of personal consideration. This was an expression of mutual affection. With every desire on both sides to cultivate kindness between President Roosevelt and the McKinley Cabinet, it was evident the conditions of endurance were lacking. The policy of President McKinley was from the early days of his first Administration to be confidential with and deferential to the Cabinet; and at the same time have his own way smoothly and certainly. All the members of the Cabinet loved him and served him gladly. There was no one suspected of controlling him. He also was pleased to be very close to Congress, and got more out of Congress, than would have been possible in any other way, than by making all Senators and Representatives welcome to

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the White House. Whether he ordered an extra session, as at first, or refused one, as at last, he did it in such a way as to be agreeable to the average member, and with the exception of a few bidders for sensations, this applies to all members. The busy men of both Houses were frequent callers at the White House, and each found himself in favor, irrespective of partizan antecedents. It was not unusual if a member during the day was exuberant on "the floor" in fault finding with the President, he would be found around the White House in the evening, with a dress coat on, beaming with the cordiality of delight, himself a celebration of good fellowship. Still, there were "scattering" "statesmen" who made gross investments in malignity, which makes it awkward in some cases to meet the exigencies of peaceable public opinion.

Vice-President Hobart was very near President McKinley, and the two had alike the charms of gentleness. The relations of President McKinley and Vice-President Roosevelt were entirely agreeable, and that was not for the reason of their resemblances in clear public purposes, so much as the fact of their differences, duly recognized and interpreted with good will. McKinley had a habit of carrying on his own shoulders great burdens of Cabinet matters that he need not as a rule have taken, but he and the Cabinet were mutual helpers. This, however, was an early, not a late experience.

When the Spanish War opened, it was said three departments were disabled, and the disabilities credited to bad health. The President was willing to do everything one man could reach, and through Day, Corbin and Roosevelt, the four were all day and all night laborers. The last word came very often at all the hours of the days and nights, from the President himself. This was almost invariably true if the matters were momentous.

The President had much pleasure in praising his Cabinet, and was surprised that any one thought they were not, as a body, a delight to the country, save in the fact that there was a trouble in bad health. When Vice-President Hobart died, and it was evident McKinley should run for a second term, it was in the Cabinet to which the President first turned to find a suitable VicePresident. There were, however, differences of opinion even as to that; and into the warm discussion Roosevelt was summoned by the people to disturb harmony because he was opposed to himself as a candidate. There was a Cabinet candidate, notwithstanding, and Secretary Long was the man; but there was over against him that the Commander-in-Chief of the American Atlantic fleet found in his personal information and put it in his dispatches` that the conduct of Admiral Schley was "reprehensible." Sampson was also weakened by a warning from Secretary Long that ironclads should "not be risked." There were a dozen questions in the air sharp as swords. Into this agitated locality, however, it is not necessary to enter. Admiral Sampson, notified that an ironclad must not be risked, did not prove very aggressive, and

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