New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-03-09

IN the March number OF mum
~ sey's":
Roosevelt was as distinctly a
man of. letters as he was man of action.
He made himself known to the public, first
of all as the historian of the American
navy in the War of 1912; he followed this
up with the four strenuously documcnted
volumes of his Winning of the West and
later years he made leisure for the written
appreciation of one or another of the books
he had found to his taste.
"It must be admitted that in the decade
which has elapsed since he left the White
House his intense interest in public affairs
led him to devote large part of his energy
to the consideration of the pressing prob
lens of the hour, to topics of immediate
Importance, to themes of only ephemeral
value, sufficient unto the day. In three or
four different periodicals he served as con-
tributing editor'-in other words, he was
writer of signed editorials, in which he was
always free to express his own views
frankly and fully, without undue regard for
that mysterious entity, the policy of the
paper
"These contemporary contributions to
dailies and weeklies and monthlies arc jour
nalism rather than literature; and the
more completely they fulfilled the purpose
of the moment the less do they demand
preservation. But in these same ten years
Roosevelt wrote also his two books of travel
in Africa and in South America, as viva
cious as they were conscientious; his allur-
ing and self-revelatory autobiography, and
his two volumes of essays and addresses.
History as Literature and "A Book-Lover's
Holidays in the Open, both of them pun
gent with his individuality
ut is not always-in fact, it is not often
that the accomplished man of letters has
the essential equipment for journalism He
is likely to be more or less academic,' and
to lack the simplicity the singleness of pur-
pose, the directness of statement, demanded
IN the discussion of the events of the mo-
ment. The editorial stands in the same
relation to literature that the stump speech
holds to the stately grafton.
"In his state papers and messages he had
alreduy proved that ne mad the gilt OF the
winged phrase, keenly pointed and barbed
to flesh itself in the memory. He had
preached the doctrine of the Strenuous life
and he had expounded the policy of the
square DEAL He had denounced some men
undesirable citizens and others as male
factors of great wealth. And when he took
up the task of journalism he was happily
inspired to the minting of other memorable
phrases.
There was for example, an unforgetful
felicity in his Characterization of the weasel
words that sometimes suck the life out of
phrase seemingly strong and bold. Never
did he smooth and sleek rhetoric to dis
guise absence or vagueness of thought. In
the periodical, as on the platform, he spoke
out of the fulness Of his heart, after his
mind had clarified his emotion so that it
poured forth with crystalline lucidity. Pos
sibly the practice of the platform, which
finds profit in iteration and reiteration
was responsible for the occasional diffuse-
ness and redundancy in his writing for the
periodical.
"There no mistaking the full intent Of
his own words. He knew what he meant to
say, and he knew how to say it with simple
sincerity and with vigorous vivacitv. His
strai ghtforwardness prevented his ever en-
ploying phrases that faced both ways and
that provided ratholes from which he might