York regiments to assign to the state more or less of their monthly allowance. In this way several million dollars were rescued in the course of the war and delivered to the wives and mothers of the boys in blue, enabling them to keep roofs over their heads and homes to which they welcomed the veterans when they came back from the war.

On the return of peace, when hundreds of thousands of young men were suddenly mustered out of the army and thrown upon their own resources, Mr. Roosevelt formed in New York, whose streets were thronged with idle and moneyless men, a Soldiers' Employment Bureau. To see that they got their just dues from the government without being robbed by claim agents, he joined in establishing the Protective War Claims Association.

The call to these nobler duties, which the war had brought him, turned the elder Theodore Roosevelt from the business career which his father had planned for him. The philanthropic tendencies of his family, manifested in every generation for a hundred years, became the controlling force in his life. His grandfather had given his services as commissary to the Continental Army without pay.

His father had been a liberal contributor to charity, and one of his kinsmen had given the larger part of his fortune to found the great Roosevelt Hospital in New York.

Theodore Roosevelt, the elder, belonged from birth to the House of Have, but he determined to give his heart to the House of Want. He was not rich, as riches are counted in New York; but he had all that he and his family needed, and he would not go on piling up a hoard of unneeded wealth.

Nearly all his life he had made it his practice to set apart one day of every week, wholly for the service of the less fortunate, visiting and cheering them as a friend, while he meant to let no day pass without some act of kindness to its credit.

"I remember seeing him," his son fondly said of the father, "going down Broadway, staid and respectable business man as he was, with a poor little sick kitten in his pocket, a waif which he had picked up in the street."

He withdrew from business more and more, until, at last, he quit it entirely that he might give himself, as well as his money, to lighten, as he could, the burden of the poor in the great city. Thus he was

free to devote himself to his children and to those other children of his sympathies, the children of the people. He was the active head of the Children's Aid Society, and for years never missed a Sunday evening at the 18th Street lodging house of that society. His generous activities were widely recognized, and he was made chairman of the State Board of Charities.

Heavy as his sense of duty was and keen as were his sympathies with those in misfortune, Mr. Roosevelt was yet a pleasure-loving man, and his distinguished son has boasted, "My father was the finest man I ever knew, and the happiest." He delighted in the woods; he was fond of sailing his

yacht, took part in many athletic sports and drove

a four-in-hand with skill in the park.

In politics he was loyal to the principles of his party, but he was as independent of the bosses as his son has shown himself to be. President Hayes honored him for this independence and nominated him to the highest federal office in the state, the collectorship of the port of New York. But the bosses knew that they could not control him and they had the power to cause the Senate to reject his name.

Mr. Roosevelt died in what should have been his prime, but yet not until he had seen his son and namesake, over whom he had watched with so much loving anxiety and upon whom he had looked with the proudest hope, a student at Harvard, and displaying among his fellows a promise of that strength and soundness, alike in body and in character, which he had done his best to give him. As the good man lay dying, the children of the tenements brought him flowers and sent him tear-stained letters, and when he died, the flags of the city were lowered to half-staff in honor of this modest, great-hearted private citizen. "His life," the members of the Union League Club declared in their resolutions, "was a stirring summons to the men of wealth, of culture and of leisure, to a more active participation in public affairs."

This is the summons which Theodore Roosevelt, the younger, has obeyed. The spirit of service was bred in him. He stands the embodiment of his father's devotion to public duty on the one hand, and on the other, of the gallantry of those Confederate uncles, whose daring feats have been his admiration since childhood.

BOYHOOD BATTLES

A youth beset with disadvantages. The first rich man's son to find a way to leadership in American history. The only city-born boy to reach the Presidency. - A long struggle against ill health. Schooling interrupted. Seeking strength in Europe and at home. - How he won the first and hardest of his battles and fitted himself to play a man's part in life.

THE boyhood of Theodore Roosevelt was beset with disadvantages such as few have had to overcome. It is true that he did not need to toil in the wilderness, as Washington did in his youth, or, like Lincoln, walk many miles to get a book to read. But struggles and privations of that kind are believed to have been the making of many of our foremost men.

Among all the youths born to wealth, Roosevelt alone has gained an important place in the history of our democracy. Shielded and pampered in youth, the average rich boy has no heart for the rude shock of manhood's battles, and learns with despair that there is no royal road to fame. "Theodore Roosevelt, a bright, precocious boy, aged twelve," the