MR. ROOSEVELT'S TWO BOOKS.*
WE regret that we omitted to notice these volumes earlier, for it is not every day that we have a statesman writing essays on the art of life and at the same time illustrating his prefer- ences in character by a biography of a particular hero. Mr. Roosevelt is, to our mind, one of the sanest and most hopeful
influences in American politics. As a sportsman and hunter his name is well known in the Rockies, he has written a considerable number of books, he behaved with much courage and patriotism in the late war with Spain, and as Governor of New York State he has shown himself the foe of corruption and the sturdy friend of good government. Such a varied record in a youngish man is a sufficient proof of the strenuous life.
And now he has given us his philosophy of the strenuous life in a series of addresses and in a study of Cromwell. To do justice to both books we must consider them for what they pretend to be, and not for what they might have been and are not. They do not pretend to be contributions to metaphysical literature on the one hand, or to historical research on the other. In Mr.
Roosevelt's hearty, manly eloquence we find no attempt to grapple with the speculative difficulties in his task. Both books, be it remembered, are excursions in practical philosophy, the table-talk of a statesman ; and as such we find in them much healthy idealism tempered by common-sense. He stands for sound education of mind and body, for moderation, for the virtues of private life in politics, and for a genuine national spirit. All the papers have the atmosphere of oratory, for even the essays which first saw light in magazines have a touch of the necessary vehemence of the platform. But, as we have said, the character is in keeping with their purpose. They preach a sane, true, and rational doctrine of life, and this is precisely what Mr. Roosevelt's countrymen need to inspire their politics. The professor might polish his ineffectual sentences for a lifetime without results, but Mr. Roosevelt, with the glamour of soldier, sportsman, and administrator upon him, will, we hope, force a hearing for what is always the doctrine of righteousness. For special essays in the book we have nothing but the highest praise, such as the admirable discussion of latitude and longitude among reformers, and the account of rural life in some of the Eastern States. On the current questions, also, of American politics he writes with great sense and moderation. As an example of Mr. Roosevelt's style and manner we cannot do better than quote the following passage from his essay on "Latitude and Longitude among Reformers" :—
" These two attitudes, the attitude of deifying mere efficiency, mere success, without regard to the moral qualities lying behind it, and the attitude of disregarding efficiency, disregarding practical results, are the Scylla and Charybdis between which every earnest reformer, every politician who desires to make the name of his profession a term of honour instead of shame, must steer. He must avoid both under penalty of wreckage, and it avails him nothing to have avoided one, if be founders on the other. People are apt to speak as if in political life, public life, it ought to be a mere case of striving upward—striving toward a high peak. The simile is inexact. Every man who is striving to do good public work is travelling along a ridge crest, with the gulf of failure on each side—the gulf of inefficiency on the one side, the gulf of unrighteousness on the other. - All kinds of forces are continually playing on him, to shove him first into one (L) Ths;Strestuinss fife Essays and dddreises. By Theodore Roosevelt. New York: The Century Company.—(2.) Oliver Cromwsli. By Theodore Roosevelt. London : A. Constable and Co. [16s. 6d. net.] gulf and then into the other ; and even a wise and good man, unless he braces himself with uncommon firmness and foresight, as he is pushed this way and that, will find that his oonrse becomes a pronounced zigzag instead of a straight line ; and if it becomes too pronounced he is lost, no matter to which side the zigzag may take him. Nor iTl he lost only as regards his own career. What is far more serious, his power of doing useful ser- vice to the public is at an end. He may still, if a mere politician, have political place, or, if a make-believe reformer, retain, that notoriety upon which his vanity feeds. But, in either case, his usefulness to the community has ceased. The man who sacrifices everything to efficiency needs but a short shrift in a discussion like this. The abler he is, the more dangerous he is to the community. The master and typical representative of a great municipal political organization recently stated under oath that he was in politics for his pocket every time.' This put in its baldest and most cynically offensive shape the doctrine upon which certain public men act. It is not necessary to argue its iniquity with those who have advanced any great distance beyond the brigand theory of political life. Some years ago another public man enunciated much the same doctrine in the phrase, The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no part in political life.' Such statements, openly made, imply a belief that the public conscience is dull; and where the men who make them continue to be political leaders, the public has itself to thank for all shortoomings in public life. The man who is constitutionally incapable of working for practical results ought not to need a much longer shrift. In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousuess. Just as the upright politician should bold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realise that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughing- stock among decent men."
That is sound sense excellently put.
Some of his readers will hold it a pity that Mr. Roosevelt should have hit upon Cromwell to illustrate his particular philosophy, for the choice will seem to many to have resulted in a certain misconception of the Protector's character. Mystic, autocrat, thinker, iconoclast, with all his tenderness and his austerity, his common-sense and his idealism, Cromwell is from certain points of view one of the most superbly aristocratic figures in history. This side of Cromwell is not sufficiently apparent in Mr. Roose- velt's book. But though we do not find that the view of Cromwell here presented is complete, we fully realise the many good points in Mr. Roosevelt's interesting study. Like his essays, it has much sound, practical good-sense, and in the details of the campaigns he has drawn parallels -with the wars of his own country, many of which are sound and instructive. Mr. Morley seemed to us to err in projecting the views of a modern Parliamentarian upon the Cromwellian period ; Mr. Roosevelt goes a step further, and passes no event without drawing some moral for our own days. He has some interesting comments on the unprofessional soldiers on both sides, a subject on which he is entitled to speak with authority, and we are glad to note that he does full justice to Montrose.
In truth Cromwell was a many-sided man, and his character will admit of many readings. It is, therefore, with no little pleasure that we welcome this contribution to the study of Cromwell from an American statesman who is destined, we hope and believe, to strengthen an element in American politics which, though never wholly wanting, has of late been somewhat obscured.
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