The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-11-10

NEW YORK.-(By MaiD-Delvins into the mine of 15O,O0O letters which Thedore Roosevelt wrote during his public career. Joseph Bucklin Bishop the colonel's biographer, in the Oc. tobcr issue of Scribner's magazine brings to light a number of gems in tho intimate correspondence be. tween the former President of the United States and Sir George Otto Trevelyan. Bart, o. M. English statesman and author. with whom the great American enjoyed rare friendship covering 20 years.
 Mr. Bishops paper, the second of of the series, entitled, Roosevelt and Trevelyan," reveals the many-sided Roosevelt as "an unsuitable reader of books" his warm sympathy for au- thors and his broad and profound knowledge of ancient and modern lit erature. Even amid the cares of the Presidency. MT. Roosevelt, it is shown, maintained a regular corres- pondence with leaders of literature and intellectual life both in this coun- try and Europe. In Sir George Trey elyan, nephew of the historian Mac aulay. he found man singularly re. sponsive to his own intellectual tastes and knowledge. The cores rondence began when he was Gov. enor of New York and continued until few months before MT. Roosevelt's death.
 q certainly would not be willing
 hold the Presidency at the cost of failing to do the things which make the real reason why care to aold it
 { all," he wrote to Sir George on May 2S, 1904. "I had much rather be a real President for three years and half than a figurehead for sev- cn years and half. think can truthfully say that I now have to my credit a sum of substantial achieve ment and the rest must take care of itself."
 Previously, in 1899, Trevelyan had sent Governor Roosevelt a copy of the first part of his history "The Ameri- can Revolution" which made l deep impression on its recipient and which he praised for "its interest, delightful humor, absolute fairmindedness and exactness of narrative," an opinion which was shared by Senator Lodge and Elihu Root, both of whom later joined with Roosevelt in buying a silver loving cup and sending it to Sir George as a token of their appre- citation. Roosevelt. his biographer says, was always on the alert for writers of only "even moderate fame'' and of encouraging them with friendly letters and invitations to visit him at the White House or Oyster Bay.
 The books that made the President happy covered a remarkable range history, fiction, philosophy, travel zoology, ornithology, anthropology, re- ligion and art and he said they gave him ease and relaxation he could get in no other way, mot even on .orse- back"
 Statements and apothegms char acteristically Rooseveltian abound in this collection of letters. Some of them are here reproduced for the first time in any newspaper:
 A great free people owes it to it. self and to mankind not to sink into helplessness before the powers of evil"
 Unfortunately for us, small men do most of the historic teaching in the colleges. The great historian must have the scientific spirit, able to marshal and weigh the facts"
 "The Presidential office tends to r ut
 
 of trouble rather than upon his ac. complaining results. The electorate is very apt to vote with its back to the future."
 "I do not think the average Ameri- can mult-millionaire very high type and I do not much admire him. On the whole our people are. spiritually as we'll as materially, on the average better and not worse off than they were 100 years ago."
 Each man knows where his own shoe pinches. I have had most vivid realization of what it must have meant to Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the heartbreaking anxieties of the Civil War, to have to take ur his time to satisfy candidates for postmaster"
 There are numerous and grave evils incident to free government, but after all is said and done I cannot imagine any real man being willing to live under any other system"
 Benedict Arnold. What base web was shot thru the wool of his wild daring. He was at heart a Lucifer, that child of thunder and lover of the battles hottest heat"
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