Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-09-15
GOV. ROOSEVELT.
Character Sketch Of a Great and Re-
markable Man.
Jacob A. Riis OF New York Writes from Per-
sonaI Knowledge Of His Career.

high office his countrymen have thrust
upon him. writes Jacob a. Rlls or New
York. nut before DO that, let me, az
Il citizen of his state, record my pro
test gainsrt his being taken from us
be fore he was half done with his work
as governor of New York, and get my
mind freed on the subject. We can
not spare him at all. Whatever we
shall do with the factory law, which
was lust from a dead-letter becoming
an active force: With the tenement
house problem, which means life, lib.
crtv. and the pursuit Of happiness to
million Wage-earnefs; with the fran
,hises and the trusts, whom he save
the cold shivers by proposing to deal
Justly BY them-Whatever the bosses
will do with us when he is gone who
dealt justly by them also, l don't
know | know what happened in the
police department when he was gone.
May it help US to understand that the
Roosevelts and the Warnings Of our day
are sent to set the rest of US to work,
and that for US to stand by and see
them do it, merely applauding and
calling them good fellows. is not the
meaning of it and not sense. Only
7ynen we grasp that is their real work
done and we need have no further
fear NJ the bosses There! l have said
iii: and. having said it, shall do what
it is the business Of every good New
Yorker ana every good citizen any
where ITO do. take off my coat and help
but Theodore Roosevelt where the
mass Of his countrymen want him,
even though | have to give him w.
AZ | understand it, that is the Ameri
can plan.
! remember well when We first ian
across each other Seen him | haA be-
fore, heading an investigation COM
mittcc that came down from Albany
with true instinct to poke up the po-
lice department. I had followed his
trial in the Legislature, always expos
ing j1bbery, fighting boss rule, much
10 the amazement Of the politicians
who beheld this silk-stocking young
stcr. barely out Of college. rafting dry
bones they had thought safely buried
ont Of the reach Of even old hands at
that business. They Comforted them
selves with the belief that it was a
fad and would blow over. It did not
blow over They lived t. rue the day.
same Of them, when they picked him
up" as a handy man in a faction fight.
They got rather more fight out Of him
than they bargained for. But they
might have spared themselves their
sctf-reproaches. They We're not to
blame.
He came to the Evening Sun office
our day looking for me. | was out.
but hc left his card with the simple
message that he had read my book,
7 4sI, 4
come to help" That was the intro
ductiOn. 1T seems only a little while
ago. and measured by years it is not
long: but what has he not helped with
i'll New York since? We needed to
have the police made decent, and he
pulled it out cf the slough Of blackmail
it was in. 1t did not stay out, but that
was not his fault. He showed that ii
could be done with honest purpose.
While he was there it was decent; and.
hy the way. let me say right here that
there is a much larger percentage of
policemen than many imagine who
look back to that time as the golden
age Of the department, when every
man had a show on his merits and
whose votes are quietly cast on cleo
ton day for the things Teddy stands
for.
We have been trying for forty years
t. achieve a system OF dealing decent
" with our homeless poor. Two score
Yeas before the surgeons Of the police
department had pointed out that
htrding them in the cellars or over the
prison of police stations in fostering
heaps ana turning them out hungry
at daybrcak to beg their way from
man. Since then grand juries. acade-
mics of medicine committees of phil
authropic citizens. had attacked the
foul disgrace, but to no purpose. Pesti-
lcnce rlvaged the prison lodgings. but
Still they stayed. | know what that
fight meant; for | was one Of COM
mittec that wagcl it year after year.
ana suffered defeat every time, until
Teddy Roosevelt came and destroyed
the nuisance In a night | remember
the caricatures Of tramps shivering in
thu cold with which the yellow news
papers pursued him at the time. label
ling him the poor mans foe"
The poor mans foe, Why the poor
man never had a better friend than
Theodore Roosevelt. We had stu
through q season Of excitement over
bNI ltllt liltlll houses. i ne awful eX-
E.hits Of the Glider committee had
crowded remedial laws through the
Logislature-laws that permitted the
destruction of tenement house prop
crty on the showing that it was bad
BAD meant murdCTous. The death rec
ords showed that the worst rear-tene-
mruts killed one in five Of the babies
born in them. The tenement house
committee called them infant slaugh-
tor-houscs." They stood condemned,
hut still hey stood A whole year was
the law dead-lcttcr, until as presi-
dent ot the police board, Roosevelt be
came also a member Of the health
board that was charged with the en-
foreement of the statute Then they
went, ana quickly. a hundred Of them
were seized and most of them de-
StroNed In the June number Of the
Review n Reviews l gave the result
IN the case Of a single row. the Bar
racks in Mott street, which Mr Roose-
Nrit and | personally inspected and
marked FOR seizure The death rate
came down from 1886 in the thousand
OF the living to 16.2S- less than the
general death rate Of the whole city,