The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-05
t1amuTHUWuTuM EQMuHIuFUMu ugRi
By one of those strange coincidents

By one of those strange coincidents of life the two men who rode down Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday morn ing as President and President-eiect have travelled more miles than all or their predecessors taken together, yet their ages are less by ten years than the average age at which the Presi- dents of the past have retired from their office. If they continue to travel in the future in proportion as they have in the past, each of them will have travelled more than all of
 the Presidents before Roosevelt. MT. Taft is the only globe-trotter whose travels have led him to the White House. Mir. Roosevelt, with the sin only man who has ceased to be Presi- dent to become globe trotter.
 It Is being said that the African ex- petition will not be the end of the Rooseveltian globe-tfotting. as the White House will not be the end of Mir. Tafts. In Mir. Roosevelt we have shining example of what the child admired, the youth endeavored, and the man acquired" even if seven years of Presidential service had to be gone through with before the acquisition. It Is said to have been the child-am- bition of Theodore Roosevelt to be naturalist. Now he is to be one, and lHe scenes or AIEiC SuIHy lOuH- tains" are not the only places where nature stories are to be gathered at dollar per word.
 Mir. Roosevelt Is now Americas only living ex-President. For the best part of year the nation has been without one. MT. Cleveland was the only living one from the time of MT. Harrison's death, and when the cur tain was rung down on his career, we had none until MT. Roosevelts retire.
 nent yesterday. Only once or twice be- fore in the nations history has it been without a living ex-President. and then for but d brief period. MT. Roosevelt has retired from the Presidency at an age younger than that of most men when they assumed it. Only Tyler, Polk, Pierce, Fillmore, Grant, Garfield and Cleveland assumed the Presidency under the age of 5l. MT. Roosevelt is younger. even than the man who suc- ceeds him. and nearly ten years young CT than the average age at which the Presidents have retired from the Pres idential chair.
 If he lives as long as the average of the lives of his predecessors-nearly sixty-seven years-he will see four more administrations come and go. No President up to Van Buren went out of office before he was 60, and no President up to Polk died below the dSC Ol " anu lHc tlutI Harrison were the only two. up to the time of Polk, who died under 72. The elder Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Mon roe and the younger Adams all lived past the four-score to which man at- tains by reason of his strength" John Adams leads In American Presidential longevity, he having reached the re- markable age of 92 years before he spoke his dying words: And Jefferson still lives" Madison was the next longest-lived. his age being S6.
 One gets a most startling idea of the shortening of human life under the stress of Presidential service by com pairing the ages of the earlier Presi- dents with those of the late ones
 Taking the first eight, at the time of death, it Is found that they aggregate 645 years, or an average of nearly Sl years to the man. The aggregate ages of the eight who who imme- diately preceded MT. Roosevelt amounts
 to 501 years. an average of less than
 63 years. This represents a shorten ing of eighteen years in the average lives of men who have been President General Jackson and Mr. Buchanan are the only Presidents who reached the age of 70 before retiring from office. ! MT. Roosevelt will probably give the same answer to the question, What shall we do with our ex-Presidents?" that was given by MT. Cleveland. That answer was to let them alone and al- | low them to attend to their own af fairs. He represents the RreateEt
 earning capacity that has ever left the White House. His world wide fame
 his straight-from-th the shoulder. call-a' spade spade way of saying, writing
 and doing things have made him
 reputation that can call forth a gra.-
 income. Equipped with such an ca rn
 ing power. he will hardly be wtIIing
 to accept any sort of pension or pIace at the hands of the people over whom
 he has ruled for seven years.
 What of his future? All men know l of his immediate plans, and those af- ter he returns from his African en-
 gasement and his period of hobnobbinR
 with William. Edward. and the rest of
 them. But stranger things have hap
 pened than that Cinctnnatus should again be called from the blow Was 1 it<not said of Cleveland. after his first
 term. that when he went to New York
 after his retirement. he made a noise
 like a stone thrown into the water-"a
 splash and then silence forever"" But
 did not Mfr Cleveland come back into
 ofice after four years on a political | landslide the like of which America had never seen? Perhaps Mir. Roosevelt