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A Cartoon History
of
Roosevelt's Career

Illustrated by Six Hundred and Thirty Contemporary Cartoons and Many Other Pictures By Albert Shaw 

                                PREFACE

IT has long been my custom to make note of political cartoons and caricatures in the press of various countries.    It requires, perhaps, some understanding of political questions and personages, and some acquaintance with the types and symbols used in caricature, to appreciate altogether the meaning and value of that kind of work.    But when one has acquired  a  certain  amount  of knowledge  and familiarity in this field, he is sure to find the  current  cartoons very enlightening as well as amusing.    The cartoonists, indeed, reflect more faithfully the changing phases of the public mind than do the writers of editorial articles. 

The political writer must exercise a certain dignity and restraint. But the cartoonist is a privileged character, who may tell the plain, homely truth as people see it and feel it, very much as the court jester in olden times was expected to take liberties with those in high places and—under the guise of quip and fling and witticism—tell the king a bit of direct and wholesome truth. Thus I have not hesitated to make constant use, in reproduced form, of American and foreign cartoons from month to month in the Review of Reviews, not merely because they are diverting, but chiefly because they frequently express so much of fact and sentiment and point of view, in such telling and convincing ways.

For a long time there were mechanical difficulties in the way of the large use of illustration in daily newspapers. Pictorial matter of all kinds was chiefly confined to the weekly and monthly illustrated publications. The large and influential use of cartoons was, therefore, confined to a set of weekly periodicals, not very numerous, that made a specialty of political subjects. Of all these, it is needless to say the most famous has been Punch, of London. In this country Harper's and Leslie's weeklies, followed by Puck and Judge, have been the most famous and influential of the weekly papers making use of cartoons in such a manner as to express and influence political opinion throughout the country.

In all the European countries, political cartoons have for many years been used with great effect. In Germany the publishers of papers using cartoons have at times been subjected to a rather severe censorship; but in the main throughout Europe there is permitted an extreme freedom of expression to cartoonists that would not be tolerated in political writers. And there is a fierceness of satire, and a malignancy of attack, in many of these European cartoons that would not accord with the kindlier and more humorous tone of American cartoon work.

The very rapid growth, during recent years, of the use of cartoons in the daily newspapers of the United, States has been due to the improvement of photo-engraving methods which permit the very rapid making of a zinc-etched block in reproduction of a pen drawing. Thus the cartoon as drawn this afternoon in illustration of the latest political incident, may be as readily printed in to-morrow morning's paper as the letter-press itself that reports the news. There are few people who realize the extent to which inventions of this kind are changing the methods and character of the press.
It is hardly less remarkable, however, that the use of photo-engraving in newspaper offices should have been followed so quickly by the development of a great number of clever American cartoonists. It had seemed at one time that John Tenniel, afterwards knighted in recognition of the importance of his cartoon work in Punch, could have no successor worthy of the name. But Punch keeps its hold, and England has several very clever political cartoonists at this moment. And it had seemed at one time that the political cartoon could have no future in America, after Nast and his two or three contemporaries. But then came the school of Keppler and Gillam, whose marvelous work, printed in colors by lithography, made Puck a power in the land, interpreting—perhaps better than any other newspaper or periodical—the aims and achievements of President Cleveland. It was cartoonists of this same school and method who, with similar ability, represented the Republican point of view in the weekly paper called Judge.

Then came the rise to influence and power of the cartoonists of the daily press, the foremost of these being the late Charles G. Bush, for several years on the New York Herald and then for many years on the New York World. One is tempted to run over the list of remarkable men who within the past fifteen or twenty years have been drawing cartoons for the American newspapers and periodicals. But this volume—which is chiefly theirs rather than mine—shows well enough my estimate of their wit, their humor, their kindliness, and, above all, their remarkable instinct for politics.

Their drawing has had to be done under great pressure; and some of the most influential and effective of them all are quite defective when judged from the standpoint of draughtsman ship. But where their drawing is often greatly at fault when compared, for example, with such a piece of work as that of Bernard Partridge of Punch on page 75 of this volume, their cartoons have been redeemed by the skill with which they expressed their ideas. The artists of Punch, drawing perhaps only one finished cartoon a week, have a much better opportunity to do good technical work than the newspaper cartoonists who often draw an effective cartoon each day for weeks together.
 Of all the political personages who have become familiar in cartoons, no one in recent years has figured as frequently as Mr. Roosevelt. And we have no other public man whose career has been illustrated in contemporary cartoons so continuously, or for such a long time. Mr. Nast's cartoons were drawn on the blocks which were laboriously tooled by the wood-engravers. He did not waste much effort 011 minor personages. And Mr. Nast's tributes to Roosevelt give fine testimony to the impression the young reformer in the New York Legislature was making upon public opinion in State and nation.

As our readers will discover, we have been able to find striking cartoons that bear witness, in each successive phase of Roosevelt's career, to the recognition accorded him at the moment as a man of energy and leadership who was taking hold of essential problems rather than giving his energy to lesser things. I believe, therefore, that these cartoons, brought together in such a way as to bear upon successive episodes or periods in Mr. Roosevelt's public life, will be found useful as a contribution to the political history of our own time.
 
Very much of the material assembled here is of a nature so ephemeral that its assembling has not been a very easy task. For example, although the Verdict ran its brief but brilliant career of two or three years as recently as 1899-1900, my own office file had disappeared, and it was not easy to obtain access to the copies in which Roosevelt as Governor and Vice-Presidential nominee was so strikingly presented, until Mr. Alfred Henry Lewis, who had been its editor, generously lent his own personal file. Thus thanks are also due to the Columbia College Library, the Astor Library, and to the editors and proprietors of Puck, of Judge, of Harper's Weekly, of Leslie's, of Collier's, and of several other periodicals. I am much indebted also to several members of my own office staff for toilsome search in the files of newspapers.
 
Recognition is due in this place to Mr. William Menkel, of the editorial office of the Review of Reviews, more than to any one else, for co-operation without which the assembling and arrangement of so much pictorial matter would have been very laborious and difficult. There is such a thing as making one cartoon add to the effectiveness of another by the manner of their grouping on the same page. This is also true of the contrasts or the cumulative impressions produced in arrangement of facing pages. To Mr. Menkel I am much indebted for help in all this,— which, if it may seem easy in the result, was more difficult than anything else in the actual doing.
 
I have tried to make the simple text of this volume a clear and honest interpretation of what Mr. Roosevelt has tried to do as a public man, and the spirit he has shown throughout his career. I have had some advantages of intimate knowledge of most of the period I present in these cursory pages; and this has included acquaintance not only with the hero of the play but with most of the other people who have been prominently associated with him upon our political stage. I hope, therefore, that the collection of cartoons and other pictures, with the thread of text that binds them together, may find some modest place with the materials that a historian like Air. James Ford Rhodes, for example, would some day like to vise-as helping him to throw into true historical perspective the political period in which Mr. Roosevelt has been so notable and dominant a figure.
ALBERT   SHAW. NEW YORK, August 22, 1910.

A Cartoon   History of Roosevelt's Career{{Pause=0.5}}

CHAPTER I{{Pause=0.5}}

His First Political Experiences{{Pause=0.5}}

IT so happened that Theodore Roosevelt became a national figure at the very beginning of his public career. His name was printed in newspapers from one ocean to the other, his portrait duly appeared in the illustrated press, and he was conspicuous enough to be caricatured by political cartoonists in the days when it was not customary for the wood engravers to carve the lineaments of any except those who, for good or for ill, were among the eminent personages of the hour.

There might be some difference of opinion about the quality of Mr. Roosevelt's mental endowments; but there could never be any difference about his courage, his single-heartedness, his concentration upon the thing in hand, and the clear, strong, stubborn will power to do his best under any given circumstances, and to see in any piece of work, whether public or private, quite sufficient opportunity to justify his best endeavor.

Doubtless some conditions, not of his own choosing or making, have aided Mr. Roosevelt in the successive onward steps of his public career. But when one studies the case thoroughly, one must admit that Mr. Roosevelt has made his own way by his own efforts, just as truly as did Mr. Lincoln, or any other man of distinction in our history. The city boy, brought up in affluent circumstances, who scorns ease, deliberately chooses a life of work and of usefulness, and never for a moment doubts the value of his ideals, deserves just as much credit as the country boy who pores over his few treasured books by the dim evening light in his log cabin.

Thus far in our history it has not made very much difference. Most American boys have had a fairly good chance to improve their own positions, and to be of use to their fellow men, if only they were endowed with will, energy, some gift of moral power, and some little kindling touch of imagination.

As a boy, Theodore Roosevelt was rather sickly than strong, and he gave few signs pointing to a very exceptional future. But he was plucky and persevering. He became strong by degrees through physical exercise, and through a gradual acquirement of the art of living in such a way as to be hardy and well. He graduated at Harvard in 1880, and was twenty-two years old October 27 of that year, having been born in 1858.

His father, also named Theodore Roosevelt, was a man of business and affairs in New York City. He was prominent in all that made for the best interests of New York, noted for philanthropic works, sound in his principles, wise and devoted as a father. He died a
year or two before his son and namesake finished the  Harvard course.    The family ha lived in and about New York  City for  more than two hundred and fifty years.

During the college period, Theodore Roosevelt was a diligent student, devoting himself especially to out-door science, American history, and literary studies. He was active almost every form of exercise and sport, and took creditable rank in everything, although he was never a champion athlete. He learned to ride well, and played polo. He learn to shoot, and made the most of his vacations. He was fond of animal life and nature and cultivated that habit of close observation which has made him a naturalist and h; added so much to his happiness in life. He took to the water, with Long Island Sound offering ready access; and his appetite for the study of American naval history w whetted by some practical knowledge of boats and seamanship.

Thus, soon after leaving college, he wrote and published his first book, on the " Na\ War of 1812 "; and the greatness of the American navy to-day is largely due to such « periences and studies as produced that excellent volume. After leaving college, A Roosevelt spent about a year in further study and foreign travel. It was characteristic him that in that year he did some difficult mountain climbing and qualified himself : membership in the famous Alpine Club of London, his sponsors being Mr. Bryce and L Buxton, whose careers have been so distinguished and useful, and who have been I Roosevelt's life-long friends. ,

His year of travel and study ended, Mr. Roosevelt settled down in his native ci determined to be a good citizen and to do with his might whatsoever his hand found do. In his private capacity, he was reading law, with a view to taking up a profession that he has never yet found opportunity to practice. He was a studying American history and began to write his books.

On the public side of his life, he ' trying to  find out how  we  were really governed in the city and  State of New York.    He  proposed  to  take  a citizen’s part in the governing business, and he out to acquaint himself with the practical as well as the theoretical mechanism politics and government.   He soon discovered that he must join a political organization, attend the primaries, and do part at the local political headquarter 

He studied his own voting precinct municipal ward, and his assembly dist He found himself a Republican by heritance and tradition, and by his own study of the course of the country's political history.    He attached himself, therefore the  Republican organization  of his district, and insisted upon taking his { as an active worker.

He was not taken seriously at first by the workers and heelers in the old
Hess district; but it was not many weeks before his positive and serious qualities were apparent to everybody. There was dissatisfaction with the district's leadership, and with its member of the legislature. Young Roosevelt was ready for the fight, secured the nomination, and was elected a member of the law-making body of the State.

This was in the fall of 1881; and he served in the legislature during the sessions of 1882, 1883, and 1884.
There were in the United States several thousand members of State legislatures at that time, many of whom must have had ability, and not a few of whom were laying foundations for future eminence. But among all those thousands, young Roosevelt at that time took positions which gave him an immediate recognition throughout the country. He had a way of finding what were the great issues and driving straight at them, with no thought of waiting for more experience, or of deferring to older men. It was not vanity or egotism that impelled him, but earnestness and his great, life-long talent for decision and action.

He was, of course, fortunate in the stage that was set for the part he had to play. New York State was the foremost of our commonwealths, and New York City was our chief metropolis. Reforms in the administration of his State and city were sure to be noted throughout the land.

He saw dawning upon the horizon of practical politics two essential reforms. One was the movement to substitute for the old spoils system in nation, State and city, a business-like civil service, based upon merit and efficiency regardless of party. The other was the improvement of the methods and character of our municipal government, in view of the rapid growth of town life. He studied the civil-service question, and identified himself with the national and State civil-service reform associations.

The Hon. Carl Schurz, serving as Secretary of the Interior from 1877 to 1881, was promoting the movement at Washington ; George William Curtis was at its head in New York; leading Massachusetts men were identified with it, and Theodore Roosevelt at once took his place with these men. He wrote the civil-service law for the State of New York, and secured its passage. This was a great achievement, because the spoils system was firmly intrenched.

He secured a legislative investigation of New York City government, and headed the committee of inquiry. He secured the passage of a law increasing the authority of the mayor, and in various other ways improved the city charter, while reforming abuses in many offices.

Grover Cleveland, who had been a reform mayor of the city of Buffalo, was elected governor in 1882, and although he was
a Democrat, while Roosevelt was a Republican, there was co-operation between the two men in the work of purifying politics and administration in the State and its cities and counties. The position that young Roosevelt then occupied in the public eye is admirably shown in a cartoon drawn by Nast in the spring of 1884, in which Governor Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt are represented as working out reforms for New York that would prevent such disorder and bloodshed as had at that time occurred in the city of Cincinnati. It is a felicitous thing that this first important cartoon in which the face of Roosevelt appears should associate him with Mr. Cleveland. Each man was destined to become President of the United States. They were friends to the day of Mr. Cleveland's death.

So vigorous was Mr. Roosevelt's work in the legislatures of 1882 and 1883, that he was prominently mentioned for the Speaker ship of the Assembly that convened in January,1884. His work in that session was so noteworthy that it made him famous throughout the country, and he would have remained a prominent and respected leader in public affairs even if he had never held another office.

Young men of like views and aspirations in other States all the way to the Pacific took note of this courageous young leader in New York, and felt that they might some day bring him forward as their candidate for the Presidency. His Dakota ranch and his studies of Western history and pioneer life were already becoming a factor in his larger reputation. What proved to be the turning point in his political career lay just ahead of him, although it could not be clearly foreseen.

CHAPTER  II
The Crisis of   1884
 
MR. ROOSEVELT was made one of the four delegates-at-large from New York to the national Republican convention of 1884, and was chosen as chairman of the State delegation. This was a very unusual honor for so young a man, and is an evidence of the influential rank he had already attained. James A. Garfield had been elected President in 1880, but his assassination had placed the Vice-President, Mr. Arthur, of New York, in the White House. The idol of the Republican masses of the Middle West was the Speaker of the House, Mr. James G. Blaine, of Maine. President Arthur was a candidate for renomination, and many of the anti-Blaine men rallied about him. He belonged to the " Stalwart" faction of the party in New York, of which Senator Conkling was the mentor, while Mr. Blaine was the inspiration of the so-called " Half-breeds " of the Empire State.

Roosevelt was not in alliance with either faction; and he strongly hoped, with many of the reformers and conservative men of the day, that it might be possible to secure the nomination as a compromise candidate of Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, then the strongest and most respected figure in the United States Senate.

Popular sentiment triumphed, and Mr. Blaine was nominated. The reformers admitted Mr. Blaine's brilliancy as a party leader, but distrusted his judgment and his character. Until that time, Carl Schurz, George William Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher, and many other prominent reformers had been acknowledged leaders of the Republican party. Curtis and Schurz had been great figures in Republican conventions. They were deeply disaffected by the nomination of Blaine and went home in silence, waiting to see what the Democrats would do. Mr. Roosevelt, meanwhile, went out to his Dakota ranch, primarily to attend to his cattle business, but also to think over the political situation.

The Democrats had the wisdom to nominate Governor Cleveland, of New York, and the disaffected Republicans, led by Schurz and Curtis, organized the so-called "Independent" or "Mugwump" movement, and decided to  support Cleveland against Blane.

It was believed by the Independents and the Democrats that Roosevelt would also support Cleveland; and even the Blaine Republicans had little hope of holding him within party lines. But after a brief interval, Mr. Roosevelt came out with a public statement so characteristic of him that it ought to be quoted in this record. It was as follows:

" I intend to vote the Republican Presidential ticket. A man cannot act both without and within the party; he can do either, but he cannot possibly do both. Each course has its advantages, and each has its disadvantages, and one cannot take the advantages or the disadvantages separately. I went in with my eyes open to do what I could within the party; I did my best and got beaten, and I propose to stand by the result. It is impossible to combine the functions of a guerrilla chief with those of a colonel in the regular army; one has greater independence of action, the other is able to make what action he does take vastly more effective. In certain contingencies, the one can do the most good; in certain contingencies, the other; but there is no use in accepting a commission and then trying to play the game out on a lone hand. During the entire canvass for the nomination Mr. Blaine received but two checks. I had a hand in both, and I could have had a hand in neither had not those Republicans who elected me the head of the New York State delegation supposed that I would in good faith support the man who was fairly made the Republican nominee. I am, by inheritance and by education, a Republican; whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public life has been accomplished through the Republican party; I have acted with it in the past, and wish to act with it in the future."

The cartoons relating to this period that are reproduced herewith indicate how general was the belief that Mr. Roosevelt would abandon his party. Grover Cleveland was his personal friend; and his views were regarded as more nearly like Roosevelt's than were those of the successful Republican candidate. But Roosevelt believed that his place was with the Republican party, and that in the long run he could be far more useful to the country as a member of his own political organization than as a critical outsider.

Bereavements in his family just at this time lessened his public activity; but he made some speeches before the campaign was over, and indulged in no bitterness toward those who reproached him for abandoning the leadership of Curtis and Schurz. He had predicted,—while the fight was on in the convention and there was some chance to nominate Edmunds,—that Blaine could not be elected. The issue in November was very close; but the Democrats won and Grover Cleveland was inaugurated as President in March, 1885.

Mr. Roosevelt had maintained the party regularity that was a valuable asset in his subsequent political career, while by his position in the convention of 1884 and during the campaign he had firmly established his position as a man of independence and self-direction within the party councils. He followed no political boss in the New York organization, and he worshipped at the shrine of no popular idol. He was never wholly forgiven by Mr. Schurz and the leaders of the revolt; nor, on the other hand, was he ever in full favor with Mr. Blaine and those closest to the ambitions of the so-called " Plumed Knight."

But he had worked out a consistent line of action for himself, and on more than one occasion in subsequent years, when there might have seemed some good reason of the moment for acting in opposition, he preferred to stay in the Republican camp, while freely criticising the party's mistakes.

CHAPTER III
 
The Mayoralty Fight of  1886

MR. ROOSEVELT had bought his ranch in the " Bad Lands " of Northwest Dakota near the Montana line on the Little Missouri River in the summer of 1883, and had invested a good deal of his patrimony in the cattle business. He had returned to his ranch after the convention of 1884, and was much absorbed in all the phases of frontier life, remaining almost continuously for the following two years. He had published a book on various hunting experiences in 1883. He founded the Boone and Crockett Club, and sought to know by experience as well as by study all those phases of pioneer life that had made the American people what they are.

Yet he had by no means severed the ties that bound him to New York. Like the Roosevelts before him, he had grown up at once a townsman of Manhattan and a countryman of Long Island. It would not have been like him to transplant himself altogether. He could identify himself with the Dakota pioneer experiences, but it would not have been in keeping with his nature to break the continuity of the Roosevelt life in and about the great town that had grown up where the original Roosevelts had settled.

Even while he was writing his books on ranch life and the pursuit of large game in the Rockies, and while at work on his chief historical production, " The Winning of the West," he also produced a history of the City of New York which was published in 1890. He had spent some part of each winter in New York City; and when the municipal reformers brought him out as their candidate for mayor in 1886 he could not refuse.

   The Republican party promptly made him its candidate. His father had been mayor before him, and he himself while in the legislature had only recently secured charter changes for the metropolis and given great attention to its affairs.    Mr. Henry George, who was then at the height of his fame, had come from San Francisco to live in New York; and the labor party, together with the believers in Mr. George's single-tax theory, made him a candidate for the chief city office. Tammany Hall and the Democratic party nominated an able business man and member of Congress, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, son-in-law of Peter Cooper.

It was a stirring campaign. As election day approached, certain conservative business interests were alarmed lest Henry George should win, and to make sure of his defeat they decided to vote with the Democrats for Mr. Hewitt. The alarm about Mr. George is well expressed in a cartoon from Harper's Weekly that we reproduce. Mr. Roosevelt received more than 60,000 votes; Mr. George more than 68,000, and Mr. Hewitt more
than 90,000.    New York at that time was a strong Democratic city, and Mr. Roosevelt's vote, under all the circumstances, was highly creditable.

His defeat was not a disappointment. He had sprung unexpectedly into the forefront of political life within a year or two after leaving college, and he heeded an interval of private life for further reading and study, the building up of his mental and physical constitution, and the ordering of his -personal and private affairs.

CHAPTER IV
A Brief Period of Private Life

THE Western life that Mr. Roosevelt led in the eighties is not likely to be overestimated by any biographer as a formative influence in shaping his mature character, and as relating itself in many ways to his later career as leader of the nation. Its human contacts were direct, unconventional, and sincere. Mr. Roosevelt became hardy by long days in the saddle and the pursuit of game in the fastnesses of the mountains. His graduating theme at Harvard had been in the field of natural history; and the Western life made him a high authority upon the animals of the North American continent.

He found time in this period to read standard literature and become saturated with it; and he became firmly grounded in the habit of giving literary expression to his own observations and experiences. The years 1887 and 1888 were devoted to this Western life, to .historical study and writing, and to domestic life and the founding of a home and family.

The Roosevelt kith and kin had long been identified with the Oyster Bay neighborhood of Long Island, and it was natural and easy for Theodore Roosevelt to settle there and to build on the top of his Sagamore Hill the modest but ample and comfortable home that has since become so famous, and that is pictured (as it then looked) at the end of this chapter. 

Some years ago, at the request  of  the  writer  of  the present volume, the late Julian Ralph prepared an  admirable  character  sketch   of  Theodore Roosevelt.   Much of it is in the form of direct statement by Mr. Roosevelt himself. One of the paragraphs sums up, in his own words, Roosevelt's period of life in Dakota. " A man with a horse and a gun is a picture or idea that has always appealed to me," he says. " Mayne Reid's heroes and the life out West also always appealed to me. I wanted to see the rude, rough, formative life in the Far West before it vanished. I went there just in time. I was in at the killing of the buffalo, in the last big hunt, in 1883, near Pretty Buttes, when the whites and the Sioux from Standing Rock and Pine Ridge were doing the killing. I went West while I was in the Assembly, in the long vacations—went hunting—went to the Bad Lands and shot elk, sheep, deer, buffalo, and antelope. I made two hunting trips, and in 1884 I started my cattle ranch. After my terms in the Legislature, and until I was appointed Civil Service Commissioner, I lived most of the time out West in the summers and spent only the winters in New York. I never was happier in my life. My house out there is a long low house of hewn logs, which I helped to build myself. It has a broad veranda and rocking chairs and a big fireplace and elk skins and wolf skins scattered about,-—on the brink of the Little Missouri, right in a clump of cotton woods; and less than three years ago I shot a deer from the veranda. I kept my books there,—such as I wanted, —and did a deal of writing, being the rest of the time out all day in every kind of weather."

These sentences, taken together with the pictures with which this brief chapter of our volume is embellished, enable one to understand quite clearly how it came about that the ranching period of his life entered into the very structure of Roosevelt's character and mind. And they also explain why in after years his frequent hunting trips were indispensable. The later quest of great game in Africa was in response to that persistent call of outdoor life, and love of wilderness adventure, that has always belonged to Mr. Roosevelt's essential nature.

CHAPTER V
Battling with the  Spoils  System

IN the campaign of 1888, the Republicans were victorious.    Mr. Cleveland had been re-nominated, but was defeated by the Hon.  Benjamin   Harrison.     Mr.  Roosevelt had cordially supported the Republican ticket, and his friends thought him highly fitted to be Assistant Secretary of State.    In his interval of private life, Mr. Roosevelt had again traveled abroad; he was intelligently interested in foreign affairs, and he would have been a valuable man in the Secretary of State's office at a time when a number of foreign questions 'of some moment were pending. But Mr. Blaine, who had been an unsuccessful candidate for the nomination, was made Secretary of State, and he had not forgotten Roosevelt's attitude in the convention of 1884.

Mr. Harrison, therefore, found something else for the energetic young man from New York and Dakota. The new civil-service act was unpopular with the politicians of both parties. Yet every one realized that the spoils system had run its course, and that the great business of public administration had to be put upon some basis of merit, efficiency, and permanence. The enforcement of the act was not popular. No man of great political ambition, or high party standing, desired to be made a civil-service commissioner
Mr. Harrison, however, offered this seemingly thankless post of difficult service to Theodore Roosevelt, who promptly accepted it.

It should be remembered that from the time of James Buchanan to the time of Grover-' Cleveland, the Democrats had been* out of office. Thus for the twenty-five years from 1861 to 1885 the Republicans had been filling the offices from top to bottom with their own men. The Democrats were hungry for their turn, and although President Cleveland was not in sympathy with the spoils system, he could not resist the pressure which put scores of thousands of Republican office-holders, great and small, into private life, in order to meet the clamoring of the Democrats for at least half of the salaried positions of the government. Furthermore, in the latter half of his term, Mr. Cleveland was a candidate for re-nomination ; and he allowed himself to be guided by his political friends and supporters, and by the Democratic National Committee, in much that had to do with appointments to office.

When, therefore, Mr. Harrison was elected in November, 1888, and entered upon his administration in March, 1889, it was natural enough that there should have been a furious onrush of Republican office-seekers. A large part of these were the indignant people who had been from time to time displaced during the brief four years of Democratic rule.

There were three Civil Service Commissioners, and Theodore Roosevelt was chairman of the board. The law did not prevent the dismissal of government employees, but it provided a system under which appointments were to be made upon merit, ascertained in chief part by examinations; and this system was under the control of the Civil Service Commissioners. The system was ridiculed and assailed. At each session of Congress there was a formidable attempt to starve out the system by refusing to appropriate the money  necessary  for the  expenditures  of the Civil Service Board.

Mr. Harrison was a good President, and instinctively in favor of a business-like public service; but he belonged to his own period and he was a candidate for a second term. The cabinet officers and the heads of bureaus, in large part, wanted to appoint their subordinates in their own way. They regarded the civil-service restrictions as irksome. Mr. Roosevelt at times stood practically alone, with the politicians and the more partisan newspapers against him. But public opinion would not permit the repeal of the civil-service law, and Roosevelt not only enforced it but secured its gradual extension, so that it applied to an ever-increasing number of public offices.

Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Harrison were again the opposing candidates in 1892, and the Democrats carried the day. Mr. Cleveland showed his appreciation of the chairman of the Civil Service Board by asking him to remain at his post, and Mr. Roosevelt consented. Again there was the pandemonium of office-seekers at Washington. The Democrats insisted that the}' were entitled to the spoils of their victory. Mr. Cleveland was in a position to stand more firmly than in his first term for the merit system, and he and Roosevelt found themselves working together for efficient and economical administration and against the evils of the spoils system,—just as they had been working together ten years before in the State of New York..

Mr. Roosevelt held this office for six continuous years, from 1889 to 1895. It was a period of patriotic service, with little promise of glory or reward. A man of different physical and nervous organization would have been worn out with the nagging and worry of a place that was involved in sharp, unceasing controversy. But the fights for the law, and against the politicians, did not worry Mr. Roosevelt in the least. He was able to keep it all within office hours, and it was a kind of work that gave him exceptional familiarity with every phase of the administrative system of the United States Government.

It gave him, also, a vast acquaintance with the personalities of Congress, and the active men in all branches of the government. Within a little more than six years it was his destiny to become President of the United States; and few experiences could have fitted him so well for the Presidency as the six years of firm, incessant battling at Washington for the systematizing of the government's work in all departments.

CHAPTER VI
Reforming New York's Police Work

THERE   had   been   fruitless   endeavors   for many years, to elect a reform mayor and bring new methods and ideas into the municipal administration of New York City.    Mr. Roosevelt had always believed, and said, that New York afforded a boundless field of  
usefulness for any man who chose to put his energies into its social or political service.    At length, in the fall of 1894, all the anti-Tammany forces of the city had united upon a candidate and had elected as mayor Mr. William L. Strong, a merchant of public  spirit and repute.    Under the charter then existing, the principal function of the mayor was to select the heads of working departments.

The most difficult department on many accounts was that of the police. This department was charged with duties far more extensive than the control of some thousands of policemen in their work of maintaining law and order, and of aiding in the prevention and punishment of crime. The Police Department was charged with the enforcement of important laws of the State of New York that had to do with the manners and morals
of the people. The Police Department, further, had control over the tenement house conditions, and at that time was even more important than the Health Department in its relations with the sanitary and social welfare of the people.

The charter called for a board of four police commissioners, one of whom should be the president of the board. Mayor Strong asked Mr. Roosevelt to return from Washington to become chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners of his native city. To have enforced the civil-service laws at Washington was, in the estimation of all politicians, to perform a work so unpopular as to destroy a man's chances of future preferment and
public honor. Now he was asked to take upon himself the work of Police Commissioner in New York City, with the intention of enforcing unpopular laws of the State, and of breaking up the blackmailing and grafting practices which had for so long a time prevailed in the Police Department—in partnership with the criminal elements on the one hand, and the mercenary politicians and large corporation interests on the other hand. To attack these evils was to attempt a task of Augean stable-cleaning that was more unwelcome and far more contentious and difficult than to be embroiled with the national politicians in attempts to enforce the civil-service law.

 Mr. Roosevelt did not hesitate to accept this difficult office. The eyes of the country were upon him in his work, just as they had been when at Albany he was dealing with similar questions and problems. All the growing cities of America were wrestling with the difficulties of municipal reform. The police department in most cities seemed to be at the very center of civic misrule and corruption. Mr. Roosevelt's sympathies were with every policeman who tried to do his duty, and he recognized the fact that the corruption of the police force was due much more to the conditions outside than to those inside of the body of policemen. His discipline was severe, but he became popular with the rank and file of the city's uniformed guardians.

He had always been an optimist about our city populations. He explored the tenement houses, and in his brief two years as Police Commissioner he accomplished a great work in the destruction of unsanitary tenements and the improvement of housing conditions. He knew that most of the plain people were industrious and honest, and that the hordes of immigrants speaking many languages would rapidly become Americanized and make good citizens. He was striving in every way possible to improve their environment, in order that these people might contribute the more effectively toward the welfare and progress of the community.

A source of great evil and  much blackmail had been the old laws of the State requiring the closing of business places, and particularly of licensed liquor saloons, on Sunday. The Sunday closing law was violated almost universally, but its existence gave opportunity for blackmail that at once corrupted the police force and intensified many other evils. Mr. Roosevelt took the ground that laws must be enforced or changed. He pressed his point so aggressively that Mayor Strong was alarmed and many good people opposed him. He worked under the further difficulty of a divided police board. But he made a great record that will live in the municipal life of New York.

His work, and that of Colonel Waring as Street Cleaning Commissioner, have resulted in a stupendous advancement in the comfort, health, and safety of the great population on Manhattan Island that lives more densely than any other city population in the world.

Fortunate progress in many directions has been made in the metropolis since Mayor Strong's administration. But in several of the departments,—notably those having to do with the daily life and comfort of the people,—the advance movement seems to have derived its great impulse from efforts made at that time with such ardor and intensity by department heads of whom Roosevelt and Waring were conspicuous types. All day at his desk Mr. Roosevelt was the decisive, untiring Commissioner of Police. It is the sort of office that no hesitant, indecisive man should ever try to fill. He was transferring good policemen to difficult precincts, disciplining bad ones, and sequestering indifferent ones to suburban beats. At night, Mr. Roosevelt was shaking up sleeping or loitering patrolmen; unexpectedly appearing in police stations; but more especially he was examining the conditions of the over-crowded tenement houses, in companionship with newspaper-men and reformers like Jacob A. Riis,—in consequence of which reforms of a sweeping nature have followed.

CHAPTER VII
 
Preparing the Navy for War
 
MR. ROOSEVELT'S duties as Police Commissioner did not prevent his taking an active part in the Presidential campaign of 1896 between Mr. McKinley and Mr. Bryan. The great issue was that of the monetary standards, and Mr. Roosevelt opposed the Bryan doctrine of the free coinage of silver with an energy that came near leading him -to a misunderstanding of the honest motives of many Western people whose virtues in a general way he understood so well. Though not a technical political economist, or an authority in matters of monetary science and finance, Mr. Roosevelt's clear and well-trained mind led him to the firm grasp of sound principles.

There was still work for him to do in  the   fight   for  municipal   reform   in New York; but the national conditions drew him again to Washington. Even before Mr. Cleveland went out of office in March, 1897, there was a high and ever-rising tide of American public opinion that demanded our intervention in Cuba for the sake of ending an intolerable situation. Our commercial relations with Cuba were intimate and important. Spanish administration had been selfish, corrupt, and detrimental to Cuba's welfare.

From the time when most of Spanish America had established its independence early in the Nineteenth Century, Cuban revolutions had occurred one
after  another, only to  be  	But  in  1895  a  Cuban  revolt  occurred that was managed with skill and was prepared for a long struggle. With 'Cuba lying so near our coasts, and with a good many American adventurers helping the insurgents, while arms and ammunition were constantly smuggled into Cuba from this country as a base of supplies, the situation between our government and that of Spain had grown very critical, when Mr. McKinley was inaugurated in March, 1897.

The Hon. John D. Long, of Massachusetts, was made Secretary of the Navy, and Mr. Roosevelt, who had felt strongly the necessity of Spanish withdrawal from Cuba, and the importance of naval preparation on our part, was willing enough to take the post of assistant secretary. The New York political machine stood in the way at first, but Senator Platt's reluctant consent was given at length, and on April 6 Mr. Roosevelt was duly appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. It was understood that in that post he was to be the active executive officer of the department. 

It must not be forgotten that our navy at that time was low in rank and that European naval authorities considered the Spanish navy stronger in ships, equipment and men than ours. There was real fear lest, if trouble came, Spain's European fleet might attack the Atlantic seaboard, while her Asiatic fleet, with headquarters at Manila, might occupy Honolulu as a re-coaling base and attack San Francisco.

Mr. Roosevelt's early studies were of use to him in his new post. His preparation of the volume on our naval war of 1812 had led him into a broad reading of naval history. He had been recognized in Europe as a naval writer, and had been associated with Captain Mahan in certain contributions to a history of naval warfare. His remarkable energy had found precisely the work that was most congenial at the moment. He cultivated the society of the ablest naval officers in Washington, and found out what was most necessary to be done. He had to fight against apathy and red-tape everywhere.

It has been characteristic of Mr. Roosevelt at all times that he has known whom to consult, and where and how to find out what things should be done. And, having found out, he has had the force and energy to do those things without hesitation and with surprising promptness.

We have on record a little statement of his own which pictures the things he found to do while Assistant Secretary of the Navy:

" Commodore Dewey, Captain Evans, Captain Brownson, Captain Davis,—with these and the various other naval officers on duty at Washington, I used to hold long consultations, during which we went over and over not only every question of naval administration but specifically everything necessary to do in order to put the navy in trim to strike quick and hard if, as we believed to be the case, we went to war with Spain. Sending an ample quantity of ammunition to the Asiatic squadron and providing it with coal; getting the battleships and the armored cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to train them in maneuvering together, and to have them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo boats into a flotilla for practice; securing ample target exercise, so conducted as to raise the standard of our marksmanship; gathering in the small ships from European and South American waters; settling on the number and kind of craft needed as auxiliary cruisers,—every one of these points was threshed over in conversations with officers who were present in Washington, or in correspondence with officers who, like Captain Mahan, were absent."

If, at the moment, in some of this work Mr. Roosevelt's energy was not appreciated by his superiors in the McKinley administration, or by older naval officers who had fallen into easy-going habits, it was approved by the country as a whole; and its wisdom was destined to be admitted by everybody before the mid-summer of 1898. The late Senator Cushman K. Davis, who was at that time chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, declared that " If it had not been for Roosevelt, Dewey would not have been able to strike the blow that he dealt at Manila. Roosevelt's sagacity, energy, and promptness saved us."

CHAPTER VIII
The Rough Rider of 1898

IN the opening sentences of his volume, " The Rough Riders," Mr. Roosevelt says that, while his party was still out of power, he had preached with all the fervor and zeal he possessed " our duty to intervene in Cuba and to take this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the Western world."    And he goes on as follows:

" Now that my party had come to power, I felt it incumbent on me, by word and deed, to do all I could to secure the carrying out of the policy in which I so heartily belieyed; and from the beginning I had determined that, if a war came, somehow or other, I was going to the front. Meanwhile, there was any amount of work at hand in getting ready the navy, and to this 1 devoted myself."

War was declared in April, 1898. The navy was as nearly ready as it could be made. Armies can be somehow improvised, but navies require planning in advance. When wan> break out, naval direction must pass over practically to the strategists and to the high naval officers. Thus Mr. Roosevelt felt that his period of especial usefulness at the naval office would have an end.

The army of the United States consisted of scattered companies and fragments of regiments, located at posts and garrisons extending across a continent and comprising altogether only about 25,000 men. It is within bounds to say that for a great many years previous to the Spanish war, no officer had commanded,—even for the drills, maneuvers and marching of peaceful days,—as many United States troops as would be comprised in three full regiments. The Spaniards in their struggle against the Cuban insurrection had massed in that island about 100,000 troops, transported from Spain. It was evident that
we should have to do something more than gather together the scattered fragments of our regular army. It was necessary to issue a call for volunteer troops, and this President McKinley did very promptly.

At first, Mr. Roosevelt thought of going to the front as a member of the staff of one of the generals; but some obstacle intervened, and when it was proposed to form a volunteer cavalry regiment or two from the cowboys and horsemen of the Western plains, Mr. Roosevelt had an opportunity to form such an organization and to become its colonel. He had, however, been much in company with an army surgeon, Dr. Leonard Wood, then residing in Washington, and he and Dr. Wood had found themselves in entire harmony regarding the Cuban question and the military situation. Dr. Wood had served in campaigns against the Apache Indians, where he had won credit and honor. It was arranged that Dr. Wood should be colonel and Mr. Roosevelt lieutenant-colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, Dr. Wood was slated for early promotion to a brigadier-generalship, and the regiment from the beginning was known as " Colonel Roosevelt's Rough Riders."

It was a very picturesque organization, and remarkable in the individual efficiency of its members. It was made up of cowboys from Montana to New Mexico and Arizona, Texas rangers, young Southern horsemen and young college men of the East who were accustomed to riding and shooting and fond of adventure. The regiment arrived in Cuba in time to participate in the brief but very real campaign near Sanitago, and Mr. Roosevelt acquitted himself in/ a soldierly way that was quite in keeping with qualities that had been developed by the accumulated experiences of his life. In his earlier New York experience he had been a member of a militia company, and he had been accustomed to horses and firearms from school boy days.

The expansion of the  army was sudden, and we were quite unprepared at Washington to manage it well on the business side. Many volunteers died in unsanitary camps who had no chance to go near the seat of war. Commissary supplies were mismanaged, our soldiers in Cuba were badly fed and supplied, and we were obliged to face serious scandals. Mr. Roosevelt's experience in Cuba gave him intimate knowledge of these conditions, and his protests helped to bring about some drastic reforms.

Soon after the war was over Mr. Elihu Root became Secretary of War, and there followed a thoroughgoing reform in army administration. Meanwhile it was a remarkable coincidence that a man who was destined so soon to become President of the United States, and therefore commander-in-chief of the army and navy, should have served at a critical time in the Navy Department and should have taken part conspicuously as a soldier at the front in the work of the army. 1 he story of the Rough Riders is a fascinating book, and Roosevelt's name, more than that of any other participant, will remain associated with the war for the liberation of Cuba.

CHAPTER IX
As Candidate for Governor

IT was in the month of August, 1898, that the troops came back from Cuba in bad condition from improper food and supplies, and were encamped for restoration  in the  bracing  air  of  Montauk Point at the eastern end of Long Island. There the Rough  Riders remained until they  were  mustered   out  and   disbanded on September 15.

The people of New York were about to enter upon a gubernatorial campaign. The Republicans were charged with having made dishonest use of money appropriated for the enlargement of the State canals. The so-called " Raines Law" had provided for turning the saloons of New York into sham hotels to evade the Sunday closing law, and great abuse and scandal had resulted. There was just criticism of the management of the State insurance department, as well as that of public works. Mr. Platt was at the height of his sway as Republican boss, and his followers had in so far abused their privileges of office and power that they were facing an almost inevitable defeat at the polls.

 It looked like an opportunity for the Democratic machine; and the Independents, together with many Republicans and Democrats of high personal standing, were thinking it necessary to nominate a third candidate against the machine tickets of the two parties. Mr. Roosevelt had every qualification by his previous experiences to lead such a movement; besides which his fresh popularity as colonel of the Rough Riders, and the hero of San Juan, was sure to add to his strength as a vote getter.

Colonel Roosevelt, however, could not forget the political crisis of 1884, and he was reluctant to take any position   that   could   put him outside the ranks of the Republican party.   He agreed under  certain circumstances   to   accept   an independent    nomination, but he proposed not to be a candidate until after he had had a fair chance to see  what  his  own   party was   going   to   do.     Mr. Platt  and  his   chief  lieutenants   were   thoroughly opposed to Roosevelt, but they  were  facing  certain defeat if they put any man known   to   be   identified with   themselves   at   the head of the ticket.     The alternative was bitter for them, but  they  accepted Roosevelt. 

He ran as a straight Republican and gave his cordial support to the other names on the Republican ticket. The cartoonists were much concerned through the campaign with his relations to Senator Platt as the acknowledged leader of the party in the State. Mr. Roosevelt's own point of view was clear on all such points. He would accept no man's dictation in anything that concerned his freedom of opinion or utterance, or his responsible actions as governor in case of his election. But in all things where custom and propriety allowed him to act as a member of his party he was prepared to consult cordially and fully with those who were the official heads and leaders of the party organization. He was willing to listen to suggestions from such leaders as to appointments to office, but would appoint no man to any position unless he was convinced of the man's honesty and faithfulness, and of his entire fitness to perform the duties of the place in question.

In his campaign Mr. Roosevelt was entirely frank as respects administrative scandals. He promised to unearth the canal frauds if any were to be found, and to deal as unsparingly with wrong-doers of the Republican party as if they were members of the opposing organization. Up to this time he had not had much experience as a public speaker, and the leaders were strongly opposed to his taking the stump in his own behalf. But the campaign began apathetically, and Mr. Roosevelt, with his unfailing instinct for the dramatic, took a few of his cowboys with him, allowed them to tell the public what they thought of their Colonel, and the Rough Riders drew the crowds, to whom the Colonel appealed with his direct promises to introduce reform wherever reform  wherever needed.  He was elected by a plurality of  about 17,000 in a year when a less striking candidate must have been defeated by a large Democratic plurality.

CHAPTER X
In  the  Gubernatorial   Chair
 
MR. ROOSEVELT began his term as governor with a message to the legislature that was ringing and statesmanlike. The people had elected a Republican governor charged with the duty of reforming conditions that the Republicans themselves had brought about. Governor Roosevelt appointed Democratic lawyers, together with engineering and financial experts, to examine into the expenditures of the canal millions. The Department of Public Works was reorganized on a practical business basis with proper men in charge.

In the other departments of the State government, the process of shifting things from a political to a business basis was quietly but firmly carried out. Great improvements were made in managing charitable and penal institutions. The insurance department and the bank department, under control of the governor of New York, have to supervise the insurance companies, and the banks and trust companies, that are the most essential and important of any in the nation.   The work of these departments was reorganized by Governor Roosevelt," though the task cost him a stubborn fight.

A board of revision was appointed to give New York an improved charter in view of the recent consolidation of New York and Brooklyn. The educational work of the State was improved, and in many ways the social welfare of the people of the Empire State was advanced under Mr. Roosevelt's administration.

The subject that proved in the end to have been the most influential in its bearing upon Mr. Roosevelt's future career was that of State taxation. During his early months as governor, a State senator, the Hon. John Ford, introduced a bill designed to secure for the State a proper revenue from public-service corporations, such as street railway companies and gas and electric lighting companies, which were in the enjoyment of unlimited and perpetual franchises. The street railway lines, particularly those of New York City, had been formed into a vast monopoly, capitalized at hundreds of millions of dollars by the issuing of inflated securities.

Most of the issues of stocks and bonds were based upon the commercial value of these franchises, rather than upon tangible property. Senator Ford held that such franchises ought to be assessed at their market value, just as real estate is assessed for purposes of taxation.

Public   opinion   and   the   best  newspapers  supported  him,   and   Governor  Roosevelt gave Senator Ford the backing of his support in so far as the principles involved in the Ford bill were concerned. Senator Platt's Republican machine and Mr. Croker's Tammany machine were alike opposed to the Ford scheme of taxing corporation franchises. Both political organizations derived a great part of their pecuniary support from the contributions they were accustomed to exact from the very set of corporations which it was proposed to tax under the Ford scheme.

Mr. Roosevelt was urged in high and influential quarters not to support any form of franchise tax. But he stood by the plan, called an extra session of the legislature, and with the masses of the people behind him, put the bill through the Senate and Assembly, gave it his signature, and made it a law. This action was typical of his brilliant administration as governor.

When the legislature assembly in January, 1900, Governor Roosevelt presented to it an annual message of great scope and statesmanlike ability, in which he discussed the problem of commercial monopolies and so-called trusts, and dealt broadly with the policies in which it seemed to him the State of New York should point the way for other commonwealths. He was looking forward to renomination as governor in the autumn of that year, in order that in a second term of two years he might complete the program he had laid out for himself as chief of the government of the State of New York.

CHAPTER XI
Named for the Vice-Presidency

FOR American politicians, the issues of a Presidential year overshadow all other affairs of a public nature.    The year 1900 was one of much political excitement.    We had acquired the Philippines as one result of the war with Spain.    Mr. Bryan and the Democrats were attacking the McKinley administration on the new issue of imperialism. Many people besides the Democrats were criticizing the administration because of Secretary Alger's unpopular management of the War Department.    Governor  Roosevelt was stoutly defending the expansion policy, and our acquisitions in the Atlantic and Pacific, but he was well known to be critical of the War  Department.    The   State   Department  had blundered frightfully with the original Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and Roosevelt had openly denounced it and helped to prevent its ratification.

The administration in turn was not devotedly attached to  Governor  Roosevelt,  and Secretary Alger had failed to show appreciation of the war record of the gallant colonel
of the Rough Riders. It was supposed that the Secretary was endeavoring to keep Mr. Roosevelt's name off the list of those to whom Congress was voting medals of honor.

No President ever approaches the time of his renomination without discovering that there are numerous people who would prefer to try a new candidate. Many critics of the administration were proposing to deprive McKinley of a second term, and to nominate Roosevelt at Philadelphia in 1900. The more practical party managers, however, saw that the logic of the situation called for a second McKinley term.

The friends and admirers of Mr.  Roosevelt were planning to elect him in the fall of 1900 to a second term as governor, and to bring him forward as their Presidential candidate in 1904. Mr. Roosevelt's enemies, however, had a different program. The Vice-Presidency had always been regarded as a somewhat empty honor and as a place for disposing of men who were not wanted in active politics. The corporations that had opposed the franchise tax, and that were very close to the Republican boss, Senator Platt, were determined to have some other man for governor. Roosevelt was too strong to be defeated in a direct fight. The only plan they could devise was to have him run for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr. McKinley

As early as February, Governor Roosevelt had issued a frank statement saying that under no circumstances would he accept a nomination to the Vice-Presidency, and declaring his desire to serve the people of New York in a second term as governor. He went to the Philadelphia convention as chairman of the delegates from New York. The street railroad magnates had arranged, through Senator Quay, to have Pennsylvania lead in the movement to make Roosevelt the Vice-Presidential candidate. Mr. McKinley and his manager, Senator Hanna, had other plans, but there was an insistent demand for Roosevelt from the Western States where Bryan was very strong. Many of these Western delegates asserted openly that they were prepared to abandon McKinley and make Roosevelt the head of the ticket. The pressure became irresistible and Mr. Roosevelt finally abandoned his preference.

Messrs. Platt, Quay, and the corporations had undoubtedly started the movement. They would not have prevailed, however, but for the genuine Roosevelt sentiment in the West. Roosevelt accepted the nomination for the Vice-Presidency not at the hands of his enemies, but at the hands of his friends. He felt that he was giving up his best chance for usefulness, as well as his probable future preferment. But it seemed to be his duty, and it was always Mr. Roosevelt's way to try to face the immediate emergency in honorable fashion and let the future take care of itself.

At almost every stage in his career he had illustrated the principle that the best way to save one's life is to seem to lose it at the call of duty. The New York political machine chuckled and sneered, and the enemies that Roosevelt had made through his honest and vigorous administration as governor thought that Samson was shorn of his locks. If Mr. Roosevelt's friends were a little disheartened, the governor himself was cheerful and buoyant. He had done his best, he was still young, and very much interested in the passing show, and he had never allowed himself to be the victim of ambition.

CHAPTER XII

His First National Stumping Tour

SENATOR MARK HANNA, of Ohio, who was President McKinley's close friend and political manager, was at this time chairman of the National Republican Committee. Mr. Bryan,  (who had also volunteered in the Spanish war, and had been made a colonel of volunteers, though he had not reached the front)   was again the Democratic nominee for the Presidency.    He was the most skilful and assiduous campaign speaker in the country.    His chances for election were not regarded as by any means hopeless.

Many of the best minds of the country, Republicans as well as Democrats, were profoundly opposed to the policy of acquiring the Philippines, with its attendant reorganization of the army and navy on a permanent scale of great costliness, and its inevitable sequel of new and untried adventures as a world power. Some one had to defend these policies on the stump, in a telling way, on behalf of the Republican ticket. Mr. Roosevelt, by common consent and demand, was the man to speak for his party.

He had, while serving his first year as governor, made a notable address before the Hamilton Club at Chicago, not a stump harangue, but a carefully written oration, in championship of the doctrine that the United States had grown into a maturity of influence and power which required the assumption of a full share of responsibility for the affairs of the world at large. In his earlier years, Mr. Roosevelt, as we 'have said, had not been an accomplished public speaker. He had been forcible and direct as a debater in the New York legislature, but he was not an orator, and had none of those easy gifts and tricks of speech so common among American politicians and so highly developed by the professional platform orators of Mr. Bryan's type.

Mr. Roosevelt had improved, however, in this regard, not so much through practice or through taking thought as to his platform manner or diction, as through the maturing of his convictions and knowledge and the corresponding increase in the value and range of the things he had to say. It is usually the case that the man who is on the one hand a student and on the other hand a man of action, will succeed well enough in public debate or on the stump when real occasions present themselves.

Thus Governor Roosevelt in his capacity as " running mate " with President McKinley made a great speaking campaign throughout the United States in the summer and autumn of 1900. He was aided by his splendid physical vitality; and his speaking grew more effective day after day. He was never lacking in that mysterious attribute of magnetic per
sonality that brings audiences together, and keeps them attentive to the speaker's words.

And his honesty and sincerity, together with the strength of his convictions, were bound to impress his audiences. There are some men who can never carry with them a campaign audience, because of their own lack of party spirit and because certain qualities of mind compel them to see both sides at once, so that they cannot lose the impartial and judicial spirit of history. They are hampered by philosophic doubts. Mr. Roosevelt, though a profound historical student, was even more the born fighter and the man of action.

His mind was always decisive. The issue before him took on ethical aspects, and he saw his own side clearly right and the other side essentially wrong.

To the group of anti-imperialists, Mr. Roosevelt's doctrines were abhorrent. Their timid, narrow, negative point of view was equally abhorrent to his bold and positive mind.

Mr. Roosevelt made a tour in that campaign of 22,000 miles, made five or six hundred speeches of considerable length, was the notable figure of the season,—as he had been of the Philadelphia convention,—directly addressed from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 people, and in the course of four months had placed himself in the rank of the half-dozen most effective platform and campaign speakers in the entire political history of the country.

CHAPTER XIII
A Half-Year as Vice-President

AFTER the election early in November, Mr. Roosevelt had still to serve nearly two months as governor at Albany. He had then an interval of two months in which to prepare for changing his residence to Washington and assuming the dignities of the Vice-Presidency after the 4th of March. He quietly resumed his literary work (he had already written in 1898 his famous book, " The Rough Riders," and in 1899, while governor, had written a . characteristic life of " Oliver Cromwell"), spent a much-needed winter vacation hunting the cougar, or mountain lion, in the Rocky Mountains, with pen as well as with gun, and reconciled himself to the prospects of four years of self-repressed, observant, and studious life in the functionless office of Vice-President. 

The Senate was convened for a brief session in March to confirm the President's appointments. And thus Mr. Roosevelt had his opportunity to sit as its presiding officer for a few days. The regular session was not to begin until the first week in December, and it so happened that this brief experience in March completed his service as presiding officer of the Senate.

Already the politicians were looking forward to the year 1904. They supposed that Mr. Odell, or possibly ex-Speaker Reed (who had retired from Congress and had come to New York to practice law), might secure the support of the New York delegation and carry off the Presidential honors. Mr. Roosevelt, however, with no machine behind him, had won hosts of ardent friends throughout the country in typical groups, like the Hamilton Club, of Chicago, and other Western organizations. Many of those who had professed to be his close political friends in fair weather, had sought other political society. Among the time-serving politicians, Roosevelt's stock had declined to a low figure. Few men are so little able to discern the real signs of the times in American politics as the machine leaders. They know the rules of the game as they play it themselves, but the larger forces of public opinion are quantities that they can never estimate.

At the very time in July and August, 1901, when they were most certain that Mr. Roosevelt had been excluded from influence and power in the politics of his own State, and sidetracked from a career that would have led to the Presidency or to the Senate, the Roosevelt movement was, in fact, taking on strength and form throughout the whole country. Hosts of influential men were joining in it, though mainly without the cognizance of the old-fashioned professional politicians. 

The men of the earlier political type could not understand that a new era had dawned in American affairs. With the rising men of a new generation, Roosevelt was stronger than any one else. These men had made it plain to Mr. Roosevelt that they were determined to control the national convention in his interest in 1904; and while he was taking no active steps himself, he could not refuse to listen and to observe.

Meanwhile Mr. Roosevelt was determined to be ready for whatever might happen. He resumed the reading of law that had been interrupted by his election to the legislature exactly twenty years before. His repute was such that he could not have failed at the end of four years in the Vice-Presidency to form connections that would enable him to earn an easy competence at the bar.

He laid out projects, moreover, for literary work; and proposed to use his sojourn in Washington and his seat in the presiding chair of the Senate to add every day to his already extraordinary knowledge of the men and the subjects about which a President ought to be well informed.

For a good while previous to the convention of 1900, the Vice-Presidency had as a rule been regarded with disfavor by men of ambition, and had usually been conferred upon men either of advanced years or comparative obscurity. Roosevelt's fame and position were already national, he had youth in his favor, and he could afford to take his chances in a great country where opportunities, whether in public or in private life, seemed well-nigh boundless.

CHAPTER XIV
Assuming the Presidency

In September, 1901, Mr. Roosevelt was spending a few days in the wilderness of the Adirondacks. President McKinley had gone to Buffalo, New York, to visit the Pan-American Exposition and make an address. It was on September 6 that the country and the world were shocked by the news of the shooting of Mr. McKinley at the hands of an anarchist. Mr. Roosevelt was found and hurried to Buffalo, where the cabinet was gathered, awaiting the inevitable end.

Mr. McKinley died on the I4th, and Mr. Roosevelt at once took the oath of office at Buffalo. In Mr. McKinley's first term, Mr. Hobart, of New Jersey, had been Vice-Presi-dent, and it had been Mr. McKinley's method to treat Mr. Hobart as a close personal and official adviser, rather than to hold him aloof. If Mr. Hobart had lived, he would have been renominated in 1900, and Mr. Roosevelt's career, however distinguished, must have been different in its external facts. When Mr. Roosevelt was selected at Philadelphia, Mr. McKinley promptly assured him that if the ticket should be elected, he would expect to treat Mr. Roosevelt exactly as he had treated Mr. Hobart.    Mr. McKinley had been true to this promise in so far as he had found opportunity.

Mr. Roosevelt, furthermore, was on terms of personal friendship with several members of Mr. McKinley's cabinet. In an article prepared at the request of the present writer, for the REVIEW OF REVIEWS, in 1896, Mr. Roosevelt had discussed the office of Vice-President, and had held that its incumbent should have close and harmonious relations with the President and the cabinet in order to preserve continuity of policy and of administrative work in case of his being called to the executive chair through the President's death.

Mr. Roosevelt, therefore, did not have to hesitate or take counsel in September, in order to decide precisely what his general course of action should be. Because he knew his own mind, he was able to give the country instant and welcome reassurance. The fact that he was devotedly loyal to Mr. McKinley and a supporter of the administration's
policies, made it the easier for him to  assume his new responsibilities.

He immediately declared that it would be his intention to carry out unbroken the pending plans and policies of the administration in accordance with Mr. McKinley's well-known views. He further invited every member of Mr. McKinley's cabinet to retain his portfolio, with an earnestness that not one of them could withstand.

Almost at once in his administration he had to face the problem of enforcing the Sherman anti-trust law against railroad and industrial combinations. He took the safe position that it was his business to enforce the laws, and to follow the advice of the Attorney-General on the application of the law to any given case. This explains the action against the Northern Securities Company brought early in his administration by Attorney-General Knox.

In every subsequent case under that law, Mr. Roosevelt was not the crusader against modern business methods or aggregations of capital, but he was the firm executive, sworn to enforce the law, and acting always on the advice of his constitutional counselors, like Attorney-General Knox, and Secretary Root who was then at the head of the War Department.

Obviously, there were new policies to be shaped and executed relating to our
occupation of Cuba and our acquisition of the Philippines and other insular possessions. But Secretary Root was in direct charge of all these insular matters, as well as of army reorganization; and Mr. Roosevelt, besides having profound respect for Mr. Root's legal and executive talents, had always been able to work with him in perfect harmony and co-operation.

Mr. Roosevelt's personality impressed itself at once upon European statesmen and the foreign press. His face became familiar in the illustrated papers and cartoons of Europe. He was frequently likened, in his energetic and versatile qualities, to the German Emperor.

That distinguished monarch almost immediately, through diplomatic and less formal channels came into friendly touch with the American President. He sent his brother, Prince Henry, to visit this country and to give his greetings to President Roosevelt. The Emperor ordered an American yacht, and the President's daughter christened it at the launching in the presence of Prince Henry and Mr. Roosevelt.

The English press was cordial and appreciative, and felt that Roosevelt was a man of broad views of international affairs, while finding also some reassurance in his retention of Mr. John Hay as Secretary of State.

Even more sensational, at the time of it, than the prosecution of the Northern Securities Company, was the President's intervention in the great anthracite coal strike in Pennsylvania in 1902. The former case had involved a combination of three great Western railroad systems. The coal situation was the result of a stubborn contest between the organized miners who desired better pay, better conditions of labor, and the recognition of their union, and the five or six railroad corporations that had monopolized the anthracite coal production and were managing it for their own associated welfare.
The strike was so stubborn and complete that there was danger lest the great cities of New York and Philadelphia should be without their supply of fuel during the season of 1902-3, and general business interests were also suffering. The workmen desired to arbitrate, but the so-called coal barons refused, and stood upon their rights to manage their own affairs in their own way.

Mr. Roosevelt found that the law permitted him, through the Bureau of Labor, to make inquiry into all the facts and to seek to bring about conciliation. In the end he was able to secure a satisfactory arbitration, as a result of which the men were gainers; and the anthracite industry has been carried on in a peaceful way ever since.

The President's leadership in these matters had the approval of the country, and resulted in the election of a Republican Congress in the fall of 1902.

Furthermore, several State conventions, as for example those of the Pacific Coast, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and others,—looking ahead two years,—made formal declaration of their intention to support Mr. Roosevelt for President in 1904.

CHAPTER XV
Asserting the Monroe Doctrine

EARLY in 1903 several situations gave opportunity for the fresh declaration by Mr. Roosevelt of our interest in the affairs of the Latin-American republics, in accordance with the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. The subjects of several European powers were in despair of being able to obtain compensation for claims due them from the government of Venezuela. A number of American citizens were in the same plight. A joint naval expedition was undertaken by Germany, France, and Holland to blockade Venezuelan coasts, seize ports and custom houses, and collect by force the sums considered by them to be due to their subjects.

Our government did not wish to see even a temporary occupation of South American soil by European governments on the pretext of collecting private debts. We. were able to persuade President Castro on the one hand and the European powers on the other, to send representatives to Washington in order to ascertain what sums were fairly due under the claims. We then undertook to see that such claims as were allowed should in due time be paid. The position of our government made some sensation in Europe and a profound impression in South America.

Our general attitude toward Latin America was the more sharply observed, because at that time we were in the thick of negotiations preliminary to constructing the Trans-Isthmian Canal. The war with Spain had brought that long-dreamed-of project into the domain of actual possibilities. We had sent the battleship Oregon on a memorable voyage from the Pacific Coast around the continent of South America, to join our fleet in Cuban waters and strengthen it for the attack upon the Spanish squadron. We had realized the need of a canal for the sake of better protection of both coasts.

Furthermore, our new insular possessions in both oceans called for the Panama Canal as a logical sequel. A French company had obtained from the Republic of Colombia the necessary concession to dig a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Many millions had been unwisely spent, great corruption and scandal had attended the history of the company in France, the enterprise had failed, and private capital was not available to resume it. Our American engineers for many years had preferred the Nicaragua route, and a private company had been formed which had made some beginnings. But the inevitable conclusion had been reached that no canal in the near future could be constructed, by either route, unless the United States Government should make a public enterprise of it and provide the necessary millions.

The country was almost unanimously prepared to proceed with the Nicaragua work when, by the efforts of the friends of the Panama scheme, a board of engineers was authorized to report upon the engineering and financial feasibility of both routes. It had been decided finally that Panama should be preferred if the assets of the French company could be bought for not more than $40,000,000. The next step was the drafting of a treaty with Colombia through Minister Herran and President Maroquin. Congress was called in special session to ratify this treaty, and also to pass upon the new constitution for the Republic of Cuba.

This constitution, with the significant part of which Secretary Root was identified, was one of the most important acts of statesmanship of all our recent history. It brought Cuba perpetually under our guaranty of internal order and financial responsibility.

The special session ended, Mr. Roosevelt was off for a Western trip, where in the Rocky Mountains he hunted the grizzly bear. He returned to a summer at Oyster Bay, where many questions of interest came before him, one of them being the endeavor to present to the Russian government the American view of the treatment of Jews in the Czar's dominions.

Another question of exceptional interest, relating also to our position on the North American continent, was the dispute with Canada regarding the Alaska boundary. This was settled by a tribunal, of an arbitral nature, composed of Americans on one side and Canadians and Englishmen on the other. It was a great triumph to have settled the Alaska boundary by amicable methods, and to have retained our unbroken coast-line as we had bought it from Russia.

CHAPTER XVI
Panama,—A New Sister Republic

'THE   Congress   of   Colombia,   sitting   at Bogota,   refused   to   ratify   the   treaty that   its   diplomatists   had   signed.     It was in every way to the advantage of Colombia to have the United  States  dig the canal that the French company had abandoned.  The
treaty proposed that we should give Colombia ten -million dollars for the privilege of conferring upon her a benefit of incalculable value. To have had us revert to the Nicaragua route would have been disadvantageous to Colombia for many centuries.

Furthermore, our return to the Nicaragua plan would have been ruinous to the people of the Isthmus of Panama, who were under no obligations whatsoever to the mercenary politicians at Bogota. Again, our choosing Nicaragua as the alternative would have made it impossible for the French company to have obtained its expected forty million dollars. Under these circumstances, the Isthmus of Panama declared itself an independent
republic, all in the twinkling of an eye, with the substantial encouragement of the representatives of the French canal company, and with no unfriendliness or discouragement on the part of our government at Washington.

The few Colombian troops on the isthmus  made no  resistance.    American  warships were prepared to keep order.   The ten million dollars that Bogota had  refused was gladly accepted by the new Republic of Panama. The treaty was promptly signed that established our rights in the canal zone, and put the new republic virtually under our protection. The President of the United States was authorized by Congress to appoint a board of canal commissioners and to proceed with the work of construction. And all this constituted a notable episode in our history.

CHAPTER XVII

MR. ROOSEVELT had been having the sort of strenuous experiences as President that were in every way congenial to him, and the American public had undoubtedly approved of his policies and actions in most essential respects.   It was not to be expected, however, that his renomination could come without opposition.

Senator Hanna, of Ohio, chairman of the National Republican Committee, and close friend of the late President McKinley, had become the most masterful personage in the Senate, not excepting Mr. Aldrich. Senator Hanna had broadened his interests. He espoused the cause of organized labor. He accounted himself responsible more than any one else for the practical steps that were making the Panama Canal a realized fact. In short, he was a candidate for the Presidency, and  was  effecting  a  powerful organization of politicians throughout the country in his own behalf.

A good many States as early as 1902 had endorsed Roosevelt. The question arose whether the Ohio convention of 1903 would speak favorably of his administration. Mr. Roosevelt, who was hunting in the West, sent a famous message that resulted in Ohio's recognition of him in its platform. There was tariff agitation in the air, with Senator Hanna as the champion of the high-tariff " stand-pat " policy,—to use his ownleaders like Governor Cummins, of Iowa, were demanding revision.    A great financial discussion was pending, moreover, having to do with the need of a different banking and currency system

Mr. Roosevelt's tone was progressive, but his attitude was expectant rather than positive touching such questions. Those were matters for Congress rather than for the executive. But when serious scandals were current regarding the administration of the business of the postal system, Mr. Roosevelt was in no doubt as to his responsibility.

He took hold of the work of postal investigation with such vigor that he left no opportunity for the Democrats to make capital in the approaching campaign out of abuses which otherwise might have led to Republican defeat.

As the time for the choosing of delegates for the 1904 convention approached, the movement for Mr. Hanna's nomination disintegrated, partly because of the great strength of President Roosevelt with the people, and also partly because of the serious breakdown of Mr. Hanna's health. One after another of the great States, in their local conventions, instructed their delegates to support President Roosevelt. Ohio itself fell in with the general movement and sent a delegation instructed for the President.

The convention at Chicago turned out to be a great spontaneous demonstration in favor of the man who had acceptably served out three and a half years of Mr. McKinley's unexpired second term. If President McKinley had lived Vice-President Roosevelt would have been a candidate for the nomination in 1904. But he would not have been personally identified with the many stirring matters, both foreign and domestic, that had been crowded into the busy period from 1901 to 1904; and no one can make even a sagacious guess as to what would have happened. Senator Fairbanks, of Indiana, was nominated for Vice-President. Under other circumstances, Mr. Fairbanks would have been a formidable candidate for the Presidency. His friends had declared that he was the natural successor of Mr. McKinley, and that it had been Mr. McKinley's hope and wish, if he had lived, that Mr. Fairbanks should succeed him. But the bluff, powerful Hanna had intervened, and with the disintegration of the Roosevelt opposition which had centered around the chairman of the National Committee, it was quite impossible to rally around any other man's standard the various leaders and groups who did not like Roosevelt.

Mr. Root, Mr. Beveridge, ex-Governor Black, of New York, and others, made eloquent Roosevelt speeches in the convention, and there was incomparably more enthusiasm over Roosevelt's nomination in 1904 than there had been at Philadelphia over Mr. McKinley's re-nomination, or the placing of Roosevelt on the ticket as candidate for Vice-President. For years Roosevelt's friends had hoped to nominate him for the Presidency in the year 1904, and now they had actually accomplished their purpose.