The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-10-01
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
HE Is THE BEST POSSIBLE SUCCESS
Sol TO MIR. M'KINLEY.
So Thinks Henry ormaB Who Has
Had Opportunities for Observation
An American First.

sides the public facts that everybody
knows, my memory gives me some private
data for comparison.
The first American chief magistrate l ever
spoke 10 was President Hayes. l was All
undergraduate then, visiting Washington
for the first time, and a New York friend
had given me a letter of introduction to
the President and told ne to call at the
White House.
President Hayes was a courteous gentle
man, of high personal character, but there
was nothing whatever great about him.
He owed his position to the fact that ir-
reconcilable sections compromised upon
him, and the historian will have nothing to
say about him except that he was upright
and dignifed. "You are an Englishman,
Mr.. Norman" ne said to me, although
you are at Harvard?" "Yes, Mr.. Presi-
dent" 'Then," he replied. and 1 we'll re-
member how he traced the pattern of the
carpet with his foot as he spoke. you
escape one danger which hangs over ev-
cry American %boy-you will never have to
come here!"
The second President I had the honor of
meeting was Mr.. Cleveland during his first
term Of office. i was older then, and 1
brought him a letter from a prominent
man in New York to whom he was under
great political obligations-whose support.
in fact. had done more than anything else
to win for him the ~''mugwump' vote-so
he received me with special courtesy.
IMPRESSIONS OF CLEVELAND.
The third time L was received by an
American President was under very differ
ent circumstances. / had been in Washing
ton for six weeks fighting hard. by a cabled
column every day, for the principle of ar
bitration in the Venezuela dispute. My
dispatches were copied widely at home,
they were reproduced daily in every Ameri-
can paper, Mr.. Curzon in reply was making
in Parliament the best of a bad case, and
a certain London newspaper vas accusing
me of anti-patriotism and declaring,
through it's American correspondent, that
President Cleveland would not receive me.
Needless to say that as l was occupied
with such a delicate international contro-
versy l had never dreamed of even attempt
ing to see the President, whose position
would have made such an interview, at
such a time, highly improper. But when
the fight was over, and II was clear that
Mr.. Olney had won, and that Lord Sails
bury had completely reversed his policy and
agreed to submit the SchOmburgk line TO
arbitration, II was conveyed TO me the day
before L was leaving Washington that Mr..
Cleveland would be pleased to receive me
if L called to take leave of him. That in
terview was one of the most memorable
experiences of my life, and IL left upon my
mind an ineffaceable impression of the
Presidents inhexible character and iron
will.
This is the point at which a comparison
naturally suggests itself with President
Roosevelt. was at college with him at
| Harvard, but we were not thrown much
together, although we had many friends
in common, for he was in his last year
and 1 was in my first. In later years, how
ever, / have had the opportunity of fol-
lowing his remarkable career pretty close
ly, and its one chief aspect is that he
has been lever a fighter" OF powerful
physique, overlooking with nervous energy,
tireless in conversation, ineXhaustible in
ideas, he also possesses in a high degree
that invaluable quality which is often dis
paragingly called o~bstinacy. In Mr.. CleVe-
lands character there is an element or bru-
tally; in Colonel Roosevelts the same
metal is of finer temper. He is a man
of birth and breeding, and a scholar-in
fact, he became the latter by force or cir
cumstances. The strong Democratic Pres
ident is a man of colossal bulk, whose
armchair has to be specially made for him,
who is averse from exercise, whose one
| sport is to sit still and shoot ducks, whose
strength of will lies chiefly in his confident
and phlegmatic Indifference; the strong
Republican President has no superiuous
flesh, he is the horseman, the hunter, the
boxer, the rough rider, whose difficulty
is to sit still and not to care When
4 ne NdS dulCd " OC AOl1 VI IAC
UNEXPECTED collapse of President Mckinley
he was found deer hunting on the top of
a mountain. But so far from his birth and
training giving him the mind or the aristo-
crat l should say that of the two strong
men Colonel Roosevelt is at heart the
truer democrat, the more entirely satlsfled
by conviction with a republican form Of
government, the surer in confident reliance
| upon the will and wisdom of the people.
Mr.. Cleveland under other skies might
have been a despot; Colonel Roosevelt new
err. He would never have been able TO re-
sist his natural impulse to mix freely and
equally with his fellow-men. 1t Is within
the bounds Of possibility that President
Roosevelt may quarrel with the Senate or
! even with his Cabinet; it is safe to proph-
esy that he will never quarrel with the
American people. He is the most popular
man in the United States to-day, for the
simple reason that the people have learned
of late that he is sincerely one of them
selves. l know enough of his character
and aims, and have faith enough in his
wisdom, to believe that his popularity to-
day is nothing to what it will be three
years hence.
TWO ADVANTAGES.
President Roosevelt comes to the White
House with two important advantages
over his predecessors in his high office.
First, he has a most unusual knowledge of
his own country and people. He knows
East and West equally well-the rough
sense, the primitive prejudices, the senti-
mental heart of the West, the traditions,
the fears, the deeper experience of the
East. And he knows Europe, too. But 1t
is as the cosmopolitan of his own vast and
multifariouS country that he is rare among
Americans. / was once sitting next TO
him at lunch at a club in New York, where
half a dozen men of unusual influence and
position were gathered round the table.
Two of them were discussing affairs in a
certain part of the West where | happened
to have been. Mr.. Roosevelt listened. as
1 could see, with stupefactiOn. AT last he
turned and whispered 10 me: IF you
hadn't heard il, could you have. believed
that two such men could be so ignorant
of their own country To have been Gov
ernor of New York State is also, of course,
an invaluable training, but it is not unique
for a President. To have been chief COM
missioner of police of New York. however,
is 10 have come into personal and respon-
sible contact with men and problems in a
manner which no other position could have
afforded. Problems of police, as we in
Europe should call them, are likely enough
to arise in serious shape in the United
States before long, and no man could be
better fitted TO deal with them so far as
they call for federal action.
In the second place, President Roosevelt
comes to Office unpledged-the representa-
tive of no interests, the nominee Of no
section. Beyond loyalty to his party-and
party divisions are very thin in America
to-day-he has no services to reward, no
election promises TO keep, no political bills
TO meet. II is well known that he did his