We cannot pass over the retirement of Mr. Roosevelt without
adding a few words in review of his remarkable presidency, and as a token of very warm admiration for him as a man. He will always be remembered as the President who was responsible for the tone of that transition period in which the United States passed from her old circumstances of detachment into the larger business of the politics of the world. And he has secured that her influence should not only be one of the most powerful influences in existence, but that it should be employed consistently in just and righteous causes. If Mr. Roosevelt wants his country to be strongly armed, it is because it increases her power to defend the right. That is what strikes us chiefly about his relation during the past seven years to other countries. But the same passion for high-principled conduct has distinguished his career as Chief Magistrate of the American people. He has assumed that public life can have as high an ethical standard as private life, and that every failure to keep it up to that standard is an ignoble declension. He has made bitter enemies as well as countless friends. Part of the criticism of his methods may be true. It matters little. What we do know beyond fear of dispute is that he has shown a consistent, wholesome, and absolutely fearless character ; that he' has done much to purify and elevate his country ; and that every one who speaks the English tongue will wish that he may live long to render the world new services.
