Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1901-10-19
26h PRESIDENT of Me u. S. !

~ FKL0lO-
United States Civil Service Commits
sion. His ability and rugged honesty
in the administration of the affairs of
that office greatly helped to strengthen
his hold on popular regard.
Police Con7n,iSSioner in Metz
York.
Roosevelt continued in thai Office I'M
til May L, 1895, when he resigned to
accept the Office of Police Commits
sioner from Mayor Strong He found
the administration of affairs IN a de-
moralized condition. but he soon
A. Riis, who is an intimate friend of
President Roosevelt:
We had been trying for forty years to
achieve system of dealing decently with
our homeless poor Two score years be-
fore, the surgeons of the police depart
ment had pointed out that herding them
in the cellars or over the prisons of police
stations in fostering heaps and turning
them out hungry at daybreak to beg their
way from door door, was indecent and
inhuman- Since then grand Juries. acad-
emieS of medicine, committees phil
anthropic citizens. had attacked the foul
disgrace, but to no purpose Pestilence
ravaged the prison lodgings. but still they
stayed. 1 know what that fight meant,
for 1 was one of committee that waged
IL year after year, and suffered defeat
every time, until Theodore Roosevelt
came and destroyed the nuisance in a
night. I remember the caricatures of
trampS shivering in the cold with which
the yellow newspapers pursued him at
the time, labelling him the poor man
foe" And 1 remember being just little
uneasy lest they wound him. and perhaps
make him think he had been hasty. But
not he 1t only those who did not
know him who charged him with being
/ roh
yes, that is his way; but he thought it
out. and. having thought it out. suited ac-
| ton to his judgment. OF the consequences
I he didn't think at all He made sure he
was right. and then went ahead with per-
feet confidence that things would come
out right
His "A dolce 10 Organized Labor.
Mr.. Riis says he never saw Roose-
| Welt to better advantage than when he
once confronted the labor men at their
meeting-place, Clarendon Hall:
The police were all the time having
trouble with strikers and their .pickets-"
| Roosevelt saw that it was because neith-
the other. and. with his usual directness,
sent word to the labor organizations that
he would like to talk it over with them
At his request 1 went with him to the
| meeting. 1t developed almost immedi-
ately that the labor men had taken a
wrong measure of the man. They met him
4
limited at trouble unless their demands
were met Mr. Roosevelt broke them on
short:
/ 'Gentlemen,' he said-with that snap
| of the jaws that always made people lis
, tent asked to meet you. hoping that
we might come to understand one anoth-
err Remember. please. before go fur
| ther- that the worst injury anyone of you
| can do to the cause of labor is to counsel
| violence 1t will also be worse for him
| self. Understand distinctly that order
| he he Now
| We proceed
1 was never so proud and pleased as
when they applauded him to the echo He
| Redeemed with pleasure. for he saw that
| the best in them had come out top.
| as he expected it would
Attracted BY "yeTosO" WeeUs-
papers.
1t was of this incident that q handle
was first made by Mr.. Roosevelt's enc
mics in and out of the police board
and he had many-to attack him:
1t happened that there was music
hall in the building in which the labor
| men met The yellow newspapers circu-
| lated the lie that he went there on pur-
| pose to see the show, and the ridiculous
| story was repeated until actually the
| liars persuaded themselves that II was So
| They would not have been able TO under
| stand the kind of man they had to do
| with. had they tired Accordingly they
| fell into their own trap 1t is tradition
| of Mulberry Street that the notorious
Seeley dinner raid was planned by his en-
| emies in the department of which he was
the head. in the belief that they would
| catch Mr. Roosevelt there The dinners
| were supposed to be his set"
i Some time after that, Mr. Riis was
in Roosevelt's office when a police of
fetal of superior rank came in. and re
ouested a private audience with him:
They stepped aside and the policeman
spoke in an undertone. urging something
,rr 1Sc~2 I'D crrl
denly / saw him straighten up as a man
| recoils from something unclean. and dis
| miss the other with sharp- mo. sir.
don't fight that way" The policeman
went out crestfaI1en- Roosevelt took two
or three turns about the floor. struggling
evidently with strong dtsgust He told