Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1919-01-15

| y.
when he was shot while entering hal
where he was to speak, he made his
speech first, not knowing what mo.
ment might be his last, then had the
bullet extracted.
This is one of the fundamental ele-
ments of his greatness. No man is fit
| to live who is afraid to die. No man
can attain to such greatness as he
might otherwise be capable OF whose
best energies are constantly ham,
strung by that form of moral coward
ice known as the fear Of death. 1t was
profound insight that led Jesus to say:
He that will fling away his life shall
find it." The only way, to live in man
ner worth living is to recognize the
fact that it is not highly important
whether you live at all.
And this brings us to the basic ele-
ment of Roosevelt's greatness. He had
the courage of his convictions. He was
loyal to what he believed to be right.
When he saw what appeared to him to
er people what they thought about it.
He knew what he had to do, and he
did it, regardless OF life or death, po-
litical or otherwise.
That was the fundamental reason
for his great popularity People knew,
even his enemies knew, that his opin-
ions, whether right or wrong in them
selves, were honest opinions, honestly
held. Sometimes he was lauded when
he was wrong in his views; more Of
ten he was condemned when he was
right; but never was he accused Of
discrimination, of trying to mislead
people as to his own views. Every
body knew where he stood and that he
stood there because he felt that he
ought to stand there, regardless Of the
effect of his stand upon his own for
tunes.
These, as it seems to me, are some
only some-of the elements Of his
greatness. OF others I have not time
to speak. What made him great?
Looking at a man Of his colossal
mould, we cannot help but ask with
Shakespeare:
Upon what meat hath this our Caesar
fed,
! That he hath grown so great?
He was a self-made man. That
phrase is not to be understood in its
- that
he started without dollar and ended
by being a multi-millionaire. do not
mean that he attended a district
school for only nine weeks in his life
and then educated himself. He was
the child of wealthy parents, and a
graduate of Harvard.
He did something better and inf
nitely more difficult than making mon
ey He took himself in hand when he
was of no account and made himself
enormous account. He began life as
pale, sickly, anemic boy, too timid
and feeble and shrinking to play a
boys part in the world. He trans
formed himself into veritable dyna-
mo of physical energy. He determin-
ed to live in the spirit, if not the
words, of the poem:
"Out Of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to. pole,
l thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
1T matters not how straight the gate.
How charged with punishment the
scroll;
! am the master of my fate,
| am the captain of my soul"
Because he could captain his own
soul, he could captain others. AS an
underling, he was the despair of the
bosses. Soon after his election to the
governorship of New York, when the
political bosses who had helped to
elect him, expected that he would con-
duct the affairs of his office in con-
cormity to their wishes as others of
their creatures had done, he laconical-
ly informed them: "A governor is one
who governs" Wherever he was COM
manderi chief, he bossed the bosses.
To sum it all up, Roosevelt grew
great for the same reason that David
did. Because Jehovah, the God of
hosts, was with him" And Jehovah
was with him because he saw to it
that he was with Jehovah. He did not
say, like the kaiser, Il und Colt" He
put God first. He stood for the right
as he saw it, because it was the right.
He repeatedly 'risked the loss of ev-
erything else in order that he might
preserve his personal integrity, his
loyalty to the best within himself.
And the best within every mans self
is God.
He had his faults, and they were
great, because everything about him
was great. When you take a small
photograph, in which no defects ap-
pear, and magnify it thousand times,
you make the defects stand out as
ugly blotches. Great men have great
faults as we'll as great virtues.
But his faults will be forgotten,
while his virtues will live In the
words of a recent writer, HE some
times dominated and always influen-
ced American life;" and on the whole
he Influenced it powerfully for good.
That will be his chief claim to immor-
tally.
How great man he was we cannot
saw The nerspecfiya of time is need