THEODORE ROOSEVELT.* AT this moment President Roosevelt is probably the
most interesting political figure in the world. He is one of the protagonists in what is certainly the foremost of constitutional combats; but he is also the inaugurator of a new era in American public life, a revolutionary who has dared to face the apathy of the cultivated classes and the ingrained corrup- tion of party politics, and by the sheer force of a masterful personality has compelled the majority of his countrymen, many, no doubt, against their will, to think with him. Whether he succeeds or fails, things can never be quite the same again. America's eyes have been opened to the chances in her destiny, old catchwords have been discredited, old abuses exposed. A thrill of electric energy has gone through classes who at one time saw in the political life only a sordid career without honour or ideals. Like Miraheau, he has been a "swallower of formulas," and he has forced his people to discard the veil of cant and rhetoric, and look facts simply in the face. He is, moreover, a man of remarkable versatility: hunter, scholar, soldier, as well as statesman, a man who has always been marked out for a career, though it was an accident which brought him from the shelf of the Vice-Presidency to
(1) Addresses and Presidential Messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904. With an Introduction by Henry Cabot Lodge. London : G. P. Putnam 's Sons. [6s.] —(2) Theodore Roosevelt the Man and the Citizen. By Jacob A. Eris. London: Hodder and Stoughton. gs. tid. net.]
ment is hidden in a wilderness of rather foolish gossip. For ourselves, we prefer to read Mr. Roosevelt's character and aims in the excellent volume of his speeches, which takes the place of the partisan biographies of Presidential candidates that are usually published on the eve of an election. The true biography of a statesman is in his speeches, when, as in Mr. Roosevelt's case, they are the sincere expression of his mind.
The first thing that impresses the reader is the simplicity of the style. American oratory in the hands of Webster and Calhoun was an impressive but florid product, and Mr. Bryan has worthily sustained the same tradition. Heaven and earth and the waters under the earth were ransacked for metaphors, and if sometimes there were present the real fire of imagina- tion and a noble sonorousness of diction, there was more often turgidity and bathos. Mr. Roosevelt has a wholesome dread of the spread eagle. He has no morbid fear of invoking great emotions, but he says nothing for effect, and no sentence rings hollow. In admirably simple English, the language of ordinary life, he hammers out his meaning. Take this, for example :—" Then came Bull Run, and a lot of those same people who a fortnight before had been yelling On to Rich- mond at once,' turned round and said the war was over. All the hysteric brotherhood said so. But you didn't think so. The war was not over. It was not over for three years and nine months, and then it was over the other way." Or again "Your work is hard. Do you suppose I mention that because I pity you P No; not a bit. I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I pity the creature who doesn't work, at whichever end of the social scale he may be." There is a good deal of repetition in the speeches, as is natural, for the creed of the speaker is not a subtle or elaborate one- There are also some hasty and inaccurate historical retrospects which might have been omitted, for Mr. Roosevelt is apt to extract from history a somewhat arbitrary justification of his views. Many may object that most of his doctrines are truisms, and truisms they undoubtedly are, for the laws of sound government have been the same in all ages, though the world is apt enough to forget them. But unlike many truisms, Mr. Roosevelt's are true ; and if he preaches an old lesson, it is one sorely needed by his countrymen. He wishes to make politics once more the business of the best men, to stir up the civic conscience to a realisation of public duties, to impress upon the rich that prosperity is not everything, to impress upon all that there can never be a sound State without sound individual citizens. Truisms, certainly ; but as needful now, and as neglected, as when Pericles preached the same doctrine to the Athenians.
The most frequently repeated warning is against the dangers of too great material prosperity. " If when people wax fat they kick, as they have kicked since the days of Jeshurun, they will speedily destroy their own prosperity." It is a good thing to be rich and to have ambition, but duties follow upon rights, and responsibility is the invariable attendant of power. If this is forgotten, bluster appears, and after bluster comes incompetence. He believes with all his heart in the Monroe doctrine, but he would sooner see it relinquished than pro- claimed without the recognition of what it implies,—that the exclusion of foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere means that the. responsibility for justice and order falls on America, and that America must provide the equipment to discharge her trust. The same high sense of the seriousness of politics is seen in his plea for the qualities of citizenship in the individual. " There is no patent device for securing victory for the forces of righteousness in civil life. The all- important factor is the character of the average man." And elsewhere he gives a statement of the true basis of democracy which is worth a thousand ordinary panegyrics :-
"We have founded our Republic upon the theory that the average man will, as a rule, do the right thing, that in the long run the majority will decide for what is sane and wholesome. If our fathers were mistaken in that theory, if ever the times become such—not occasionally, but persistently—that the mass of the people do what is unwholesome, what is wrong, then the Republic cannot stand, I care not how good its laws, I care not what marvellous mechanism its Constitution may embody. Back of the laws, back of the administration, back of the system of government lies the man, lies the average manhool of our people, The speeches and letters are more interesting than the Presidential Messages which are printed at the end of the book, for the latter treat of familiar policies, but the former with the springs and motives of policy. Many current topics are dealt with, from the preservation of the Californian forests to the negro problem and the question of Trust legislation. Mr. Roosevelt's views on these matters are well enough known to the world, but they are stated here with so much moderation, and so broad a survey of all the issues involved, that any one interested in American politics would do well to read the chief speeches. One very interesting point is raised in connection with the Trusts. There is no attempt at indis- criminate condemnation. Mr. Roosevelt is healthily modern, and would be the last to propose reactionary measures. He sees that great combinations of capital are a natural and logical development : all he asks is that the State be given the power to control them. It is part of his policy of centralising the administration of really national questions, and it is for the national Government that he claims the right of control. But valuable as are his contributions to current discussions, he is at his best when he is inculcating wider truths, and attempting to mould character rather than opinion. In speaking to young men of all classes be is especially good, for he has himself all the qualities of youth, and it is to the youth of his country that he looks for that serious citizenship which can alone make the future secure. A democracy must be warned against the demagogue, against lip-service to ab- stractions, against the fatal supineness which follows on the degradation of the political career. It must learn that " the courtier and the demagogue are but developments of the same type under different conditions, each manifesting the same servile spirit, the same desire to rise by pandering to base passions." It must learn that freedom is not license, or inertia, but carries with it a full measure of duties. There is one phrase in a letter which admirably sums up Mr. Roosevelt's simple but profound political faith. " The well-being, indeed the very existence, of the Republic depends upon the spirit of
orderly liberty."
EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.*
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