The Springfield herald., 1904-09-16
NOT AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY
The People Know Roosevelt, and Ad-
mire and Respect Him.

mire ana Respect Him.
President Roosevelt is not an unknown
quantity to the American people. He
is personally well known to vast num-
ber Of voters in every part Of the coun-
try. In New York he is familiar to the
sight of a great majority of the people
of that great city Throughout his own
State the same is true. In Boston he
is as much at home as in New York. for
Harvard Is his alma mater. Throughout
New England he is recognized as the
representative and exponent Of the ideals
which have ruled the cradle of American
liberty from the landing of the Pilgrim
fathers.
And this native of the Empire State.
this graduate from the famous New
England university is even more fer
vently admired and beloved in the West
the far West-and the middle West,
than he is in the East. And this in
tensity of feeling for Roosevelt in the
West unswayed by sectional bias. as it
is, is but the national feeling of young,
virile people. A people who recognize
a man when they see him.
During the Mckinley campaign o.;
1900 Roosevelt, as candidate for Vice
President, visited almost every Western
State and territory. He spoke to i'm
sands by his straightforward, self-con-
trolled, dignified utterances, and his
manly, generous personality.
Toward the end of the campaign the
national committee was overwhelmed by
requests for speeches by Roosevelt in
all parts of the country. 1t was n ply
steal impossibiity for him to accept one
fourth of the engagements to speak that
were urged upon him.
In Chicago. where, on his return from
the West, he addressed great crowd at
the Coliseum, he was received with the
utmost exhibition of enthusiasm. His
speech was calm, forceful. logical and
convincing, contrast to the frantic ef-
forts of ordinary speakers.
Contrary to the expectation of people
who had derived their ideas from the
comic supplements, and other pictorial
atrocities of the yellow press, Mr.. Roosc-
velt's utterances were characterized by a
steadfast adherence to the main cues
tions at issue in the campaign, and what
ever he said bore the stamp of original
thought, broad experience and study, and
the most conscientious sense of response
bility. There was no ranting, no per-
sonal abuse, no wild statements or
strange ina ginings. in any of Mr.. Roose-
relts speeches, and there was no posing.
He stood before his great audiences dig
nihed, collected and amply able to take
care of himself-an American gentleman.
In language, in bearing. in all that he
said and did, there was what made
friends for him of all who came within
the sound of his voice
President Roosevelt has visited the
Pacific coast since his assumption Of the
presidency, and there. as well us through
out his journey from and back to the
capital, the people rose to him with I'M
matched enthusiasm. He met and talk
ed with hundreds of his fellow citizens,
In every occupation, in every stage and
state of society, from the cowboy to col
lcge president. He saw and spoke to and
was cheered by thousands upon thou
sands of men. women and children. Pres
ident Roosevelt is no stranger to the
people of the United States. He knows
them. They know him. And they un.
derstand each other.