The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-03-04
President Roosevelt.

| WHEN tue CdIIleT euCcIS d ucu VI Win
beasts the animals fawn at his feet,
measuring his whip with crafty eyes
and wondering whether they dare to
spring. So the grizzled old man-eaters
of the republican national committee
have crouched at the feet of Theodore
Roosevelt, glancing furtively at the whip
of the presidency, but for which they
would pick their masters political
bones.
What an odd sequence of incidents
has brought this young man in to this
position! Born one of the "weaklings"
he despises, he made himself an athlete.
Lacking in precocity, he doggedly forced
himself to learn, and is the author of
many books of greater or less authority.
When he was barely of age it occur
red to certain politicians that young Mr.
Roosevelt would be handy instrument
to use in downing their opponents in a
fractional row. They regretted the idea
later, as other politicians have done
since in larger fields. The college boy
whom Conkling described as "that denti
fetal young man with more teeth than
brains," broke into the local primaries
and bounded thence into the legislature.
He began to want to reform things.
The politicians were aghast, but they
saw way to make use of the young
mans valuable advertising. They put
him up as straight republican candi-
date for mayor of New York. He was
beaten, of course, but he had establish
ed claim on his party. A regular can
didate for mayor could not be offered a
clerkship. President Harrison put him
on the civil service commission-appar
emily a safe and decorous shelf. He was
not made the head of the board, but
that cut no figure. He made himself
the whole thing. He kept the admins
tration in continual hot water, and got
the number of places under civil service
rules pegged up from $4,000 to 10000.
Then he went west and shot grizzlies.
Again a queer doad to the presidency
one never trodden before, but it took him
the right way. En- route he stopped in
at police headquarters in New York and
closed saloons, working himself and the
reform administration out of job in
the process. With another long jump
he landed in the office of assistant sec
rotary of the navy-apparently polit-
ical graveyard, for who ever heard of
the assistant secretaries of the navy
who preceded or followed him? More
Roosevelt luck. The Spanish war was
coming, and his chief, Long, was law
yer and a member of the Peace society.
Roosevelt ran things as if he had for
gotten the assistant" in his title, lavish
ed money on target practice and wrote
Dewey's orders, or got the credit for it..
| Another leap to the CORY field of war
as second in command of Woods Rough
Riders. More luck Woods incompar-
able pull, already in smooth working
order, lifted him to higher spheres and
! Roosevelt became head of the regiment.
He charged up San Juan Hill, or Kettle
Hill, which was just as good We
marched home, khaki-clad and glory
crowned. Platt wanted a popular name
to beat Frank s. Black with. He took
Roosevelt. The democrats nominated the
ice trust against him. He scraped into
the governorship. Then Platt wanted to
get him out and threw him into the
vice presidency. Fate interviewed again
and made him president.
Could any historical novelist invent a
more interesting or a more improbable
romance?