B CHAPTER XXXI Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President Y the death of William McKinley on Saturday morning, HIS ANCESTRY Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858, and is therefore not quite forty-three years old. He was born in New York City, at 28 East Twentieth Street. His people originally lived on the Battery, but as the town changed gradually moved away from the business centre. His grandfather once owned a fine residence at one of the corners of what is now Fourteenth Street and Broadway. In blood Mr. Roosevelt is a quarter Hollandish and three-quarters Scotch, Irish and French Huguenot. His mother was a Bonhill and had relatives of the name of Lukin and Craig. The Lamontaigne family is in his ancestry, and the Devoes, of Georgia and South Carolina. His uncle, James D. Bullock, built the noted privateer Alabama, and another of the Bullocks fired the last gun aboard her. But after all this is said of the ancestry, chronicles agree that Mr. Roosevelt owes a great deal to his father. The elder Theodore Roosevelt was one of the leading men of his day in the metropolis—the days of the Civil War. He was a merchant, philanthropist and a lover of out-door life. He, more than anyone else, founded the present newsboys' lodging-house system. He devised and carried out the plan of the war time allotment commission. could drive a four-in-hand team better than any other New Yorker in his day. He died in 1878, idolized by the son who was to take up the lines of the ambitious part of his life and carry them on. He "What strong direction did your home influence take in your boyhood?" was asked Mr. Roosevelt. FOND OF ATHLETICS 'Why," he replied, "I was brought up with the constant injunction to be active and industrious. My father, all my people, held that no one had a right to merely cumber the earth; that the most contemptible of created beings is the man who does nothing. I imbibed the idea that I must work hard, whether at making money or whatever. The whole family training taught me that I must be doing, must be working-and at decent work. I made my health what it is. I determined to be strong and well, and did everything to make myself so. By the time I entered Harvard College I was able to take my part in whatever sports I liked. I wrestled and sparred and ran a great deal while in college, and, though I never came in first, I got more good out of the exercise than those who did, because I immensely enjoyed it and never injured myself. I was fond of wrestling and boxing; I think I was a good deal of a wrestler, and though I never won a championship, yet more than once I won my trial heats and got into the final round. I was captain of my polo team at one time, but since I left college I have taken most of my exercise in the 'cow country' or mountains, hunting." HIS ENTRY INTO POLITICS He was graduated at Harvard University in 1880, being then twenty-two years old, and took a European trip for a rest before entering on his life career. His first view of the Alps inspired him with a desire to surmount them, and he climbed the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn before that desire was satisfied. Returning to New York, his native city-for he was born as we have said, at No. 28 East Twentieth Street-he began the study of law, but soon became engrossed in politics. He has described his entry into the political field thus: "I have always believed that every man should join a political organization and should attend the primaries; that he should not be content to be merely governed, but should do his part of that work. So after leaving college I went to the local political headquarters, attended all the meetings and took my part in whatever came up. There arose a revolt against the member of Assembly from that district, and I was nominated to succeed him, and was elected." ELECTED ASSEMBLYMAN It was in the Fall of 1881 that he was elected to the Assembly from the XXIst District, and he was twice re-elected, serving in the legislatures of 1882, 1883 and 1884. At Albany he found an ample field for that aggressiveness of his nature which wrong always arouses. Some of the veterans were at first only amused at his straightforward and ingenuous speeches, but they soon realized that "this ridiculously candid youngster," as one of them called him, was a fighter who could not be cowed, either by open or by secret methods. Few men looked more unfitted for public life. His eyeglasses led the Tammany Hall members to think him effeminate, until they learned that he was a fine boxer, and two or three encounters, which did not, however, lead to any blows, convinced them that he was a courageous man, but the fact being disclosed that he had written a book, the opinion gained ground that he was merely a writer, and therefore would take no prominent part in legislation. The member from the XXIst Assembly District, however, soon began expressing his sentiments, and the serious-minded members of the Assembly became convinced that his judgment on New York City matters was sound. He spoke rapidly, spoke attractively, hit hard, was good-humored, but savagely sarcastic in dealing with well-known rascals, and public opinion outside the Capitol was soon in his favor. For several years attempts had been made to pass a reform charter for New York City. All failed, because the threatened departments united and were too strong for the reformers. Assemblyman Roosevelt made his attacks on certain departments of New York City separately, and bowled them over one by one. His rise in rank in the Assembly was startlingly rapid. The second year of his membership he was the Republican candidate for Speaker. It was a Democratic House, but the honor was nevertheless a great one for a young man. In his third year as an Assemblyman he was put at the head of the Committee on Cities, having proved his thorough knowledge of the affairs of New York and other cities. He served his constituency particularly well by aiding in the passage of bills abolishing fees in the offices of the Register and the County Clerk, and while chairman of the Committee on Cities he introduced reform legislation which proved immensely beneficial. One of his measures was the act taking from the Board of Aldermen power to confirm or reject the appointments of the Mayor. He was chairman of the noted legislative investigating committee which bore his name, and which revealed many of the abuses existing in the city government in the early 'Sos. Assemblyman Roosevelt was highly popular with his associates, irrespective of party. It is seldom a man receives more genuine expressions of sympathy than he did from his fellow Assemblymen when his mother and his wife both died in one week. The Roosevelt of that period was already a national figure. Attending the Republican State Convention of 1884, he was elected one of New York's four delegates-at-large to the Republican National Convention, as a delegate desirous of nominating George F. Edmunds for the Presidency. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER In 1886 Mr. Roosevelt was the Republican candidate for Mayor against Abram S. Hewitt, United Democracy, and Henry George, United Labor. Mr. Hewitt was elected by about 22,000 plurality. Mr. Roosevelt was appointed a member of the United States Civil Service Commission by President Harrison in 1889. His ability and rugged honesty in the administration of the affairs of that office greatly helped to strengthen his hold on popular regard. There were 14,000 places under the merit and capacity rules of the Commission when he went in. There were 40,000 when he went out, a record he may well point to with pride. Mr. Roosevelt continued in that office until May 1, 1895, when he resigned to accept the office of Police Commissioner from Mayor Strong. He found the administration of police affairs in a demoralized condition, but the same energetic methods that had characterized all his work-the same uncompromising honesty that is the most prominent note in his character-when applied to police affairs soon brought the administration of the department to a high degree of efficiency. BECOMES POLICE COMMISSIONER IN NEW YORK CITY In the period between Mr. Roosevelt's election to the legislature and his appointment as Civil Service Commissioner he had spent most of his Summers in the West on a ranch, and had written several books on the life of the Western plains and mountains. Some surprise was expressed, therefore, by a friend, when Mr. Roosevelt became Police Commissioner, that a literary man should volunteer for police work, and Mr. Roosevelt gave this reason: "I thought the storm centre was in New York, and so I came here. It is a great piece of practical work. I like to take hold of work that has been done by a Tammany leader and do it as well, only by approaching it from the opposite direction. A thing that attracted me to it was that it was to be done in the hurly-burly, for I don't like cloister life." His enforcement of the excise law produced an abundance of hurly-burly. Many said it was the most potent factor in the overthrow of the Strong reform administration at the next election and the return of Tammany to power; but Roosevelt answered all criticism by asserting that he had sworn to enforce all the laws and would not stultify himself. Moreover, he maintained that the best |