The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-10-28
NO FEAR OF WORK
The President Goes at It as if He
Were Bucking a Football
\ - Line.
. ~ so g ...
Gum'shoe Politicians Not Popular
& With Him-Roosevelt
as Father.

From The journal Bureau. Room, <S; PoA
b"ttSt'0, Harrington. '.''
Washington, Oct. 28.-In the much e.
plotting Of President Roosevelt's broncho-
busting, cross country riding, athletic
strenu1st1c character, many people have
lost sight of one or two phases of the
president which are quite as interesting.
Roosevelt the father and Roosevelt the
statesman, are less spectacular aspects:
but both are quite individual and worthy
of notice.
The physical activity Of Roosevelt is
merely safety valve. He has always
peen an athletic man. In college he
played football and afterwards he rode and
walked and hunted on his ranch in the
far, west. His system has become accus
toned to a certain amount of physical
labor every day, and he finds it necessary
III order that he may keep we'll and dc
the indoor intellectual work which his of
flee necessitates. How much work of the
latter kind he does is scarcely realized
Probably no man who has been In the
White House since Jefferson's time has
been SO much Of a student as Roosevelt
lie works at being president with all the
| earnestness of a college student on the
verge of a critical examination.
He is great deliver into books and re-
| ports. He has the congressional librar nv
| ransacked for works which bear on prob
lens foreign and domestic legal and eco
nom1c, legislative, executive, judicial po-
| litical. He reads far into the night He
talks a great deal. much of the talk being
merely the threshing out verbally of prob
lens in his mind. He keeps his secretary,
Mr.. Cortlyou, long after other people are
in their beds, discoursing to him of tariff
| revision, reciprocity, Cuban relations,
1Sthmlan canal, navy, army, trusts, rail
roads, civil service politics and a thou
sand and one other matters which come
in the days work.
The president keeps the departments on
the, jump supplying him with data and
statistics bearing on matters which will
come before him. it may be months in the
future. He is keeping ahead Of the pro-
cession of events, and it is mighty seldom
that subject comes before him and finds
him in state of undergraduates. If it
chance to be trust legislation which looms
in. front he goes into the subject from all
sides, reading as If he were preparing for
a thesis, studying the history Of trusts
from the earliest times and famiIiarizing
himself with the theories and opinions OF
all the leading political economists and
publicists: He digs into reports Of the
census and of the industrial commission,
and the various bureaus Of statistics. He
secures legal advice from all the sources
this disposal, and consults with practical
| men of affairs whose experience and com :
mon sense he values. -
| OF his reading. his advices and his own
theories and beliefs he talks freely and
continuously to those about him, Sitting
rejecting, proving. combating and for
mulating, until he has some well digested
convictions and great supply OF ready
information bearing on all sides of the
faffair. With other questions it is the
same. One after another, and with equal
enthusiasm. he takes them up and goes
ravening through them. He likes the
work. and he goes at it as if it were q
wrestling match, and he thirsting for the
encounter.
But all this takes time. and it takes
energy. Much of tie presidents day is
! eaten up with the seeing Of people who
have right to see him, and who must be
seen. He turns his luncheon table into
an informal executive session with such
! people as he wants to have more tall
! with; but even so, it is necessary to turn
night into day and steal three or fou
hours a.day from sleep for quiet, or rathel
uninterrupted. digging.
| Roosevelt. delegates less Of his officia