The Columbus journal., 1910-09-14

When I Was in Moutreal last sum
mer I saw some young men with tri
pod and transit and chain and not<
book performing the always strange
but familiar antics that 60 with sur
veying. Inasmuch ~ the particula,
place where they were seemed to me
to have passed the frontier stage, my
curiosity was aroused, and upon in
quiry l learned that they were uni
versity students surveying the cam
pus q . practice stunt" The old
driver who was showing US about did
not seem to understand it At all, and
in . manner that almost sayOred Of
superstition, impaired to US the infor'
nation the men had been measuring
and remeasuring the same hill for over
twenty years, and that for some rea'
son or other they never seemed to be
satisfied with the results.
The people of the entire world are
out now With their measuring appara'
tus trying to get the real size Of The
odore Roosevelt. In fact. like the
boys of Montreal university, they have
been measuring him and remeasurine
him for the last dozen or fifteen years
and like those boys again nobody ID
just exactly satisfied with anybody
else's measurements and not entirely
certain of his own. Mr.. Roosevelt
has defenders and defamers; those who
swear by him and those who swear at
him, but all agree that he is the most
remarkable man in the world today.
'The most sterling figure in the world
since Napoleon Bonaparte." is the way
one writer gives the result of his sur
vey. Others have had to 60 back to
Julius Caesar for a prototype. "More
nearly like jackson than any man in
American history" is = very common
way Of expressing it, and, to say the
least, a very conservative measure Of
his greatness as the measuring is going
on in these times.
That Theodore Roosevelt is q most
extraordinary man is conceded alike
by friend and foe. but just how great
IS the world estimates greatness is, Of
course. not universally agreed upon.
This is not surprising. because the
measurement Of men intellectually
and morally is not an exact science.
Greatness of character aud mental
worth cannot he measured by metes
and bounds, for it is an operation of
judgment in which figures and inches
and bushels are not employed in the
calculation; and judgment, like dis
cretion, varies with the one who is ex-
ercising it. No two men by the sight
alone will agree exactly on color or
on the height Of a balloon, or on the
distance of a ship at sea. The judy
ment of any single individual is affect.
ed by the relative position he occupies
to the thing to be judged. the angle of
his vision or his proximity. Men are
generally underestimate at close
range, and are perhaps likely to be
overestimated At long range. The
man who has felt the whack of the
"big stick" will naturally view Roose-
welt at a different angle from one who
nurses NJ such unpleasant recolIec-
ton. Members of the Ananias club
will have some difficulty in distin.
heroism from bluff"
Nevertheless with all proper allow
ance for personal pride and political
pique, everybody must agree that
Theodore Roosevelt is stronger in the
minds and hearts of the people today
than any living man, and. in fact,
stronger than he ever was before.
Criticise his methods or his doctrines
Is they may. he has obtained results,
and results are what count with the
people. The people are seldom exact
ing rs to methods and not always Is to
but they do like results. They
may never have inquired intricately
md specifically into the real ofIenses
IF the maIefactors of great wealth, nor
into the motives of those persons who
would stay their filching hand, but It
vas enough for the people to know
hat the verdict was against those out.
avs to society, and that Theodore
Roosevelt proposed to enforce the yer.
lict. The people only knew that |
here had been high financing of the |
nstrumentalities of their commerce at |
heir expense; they knew that there
,ad been rottenness in Wall street;
hat there had been violation of plight