clear, sharp, boyish voice." He had already shown a capacity to oppose the short-haired, noisy toughs of Tammany with an equally short-haired and noisy virtue. Before he was thirty, when there was talk of having his party silence him, the professionally humorous Puck became serious when it remarked that "silencing is a process which requires at least two persons." He led the New York delegation to the National Republican Convention in 1884, and was equally true to his standards when he opposed the nomination of Blaine and when he supported the party ticket through the canvass. His later career as Civil Service Commissioner brought him for six years into the inner circle of Washington life, and made an uninspiring and experimental national office a center of activity for better government. His next two years as Police Commissioner in New York City gave a new range to his knowledge of society, and his return to Washington in 1897 as Assistánt Secretary of the Navy brought him new opportunities for action. He was at once a reformer and a party man, laying down his platform at the beginning of his career: "A man cannot act both without and within the party; he can do either, but he cannot possibly do both."

activities

The political experience of the new President was broader than his age indicated, and bore little resemblance to that of any earlier President. On the other sides of Other his life he was equally different. He was a successful man of letters, a painstaking amateur scientist, and a lover of the world of sport. In the field of letters, he had begun to write immediately upon leaving college, expressing himself in works of history and the records of his outdoor experiences. His Naval War of 1812 and his Winning of the West made him the equal of any contemporary American historian of his age. His Hunting Trips of a Ranchman was an early number in a series that was to carry him eventually to the heart of Africa and to the Brazilian River of Doubt.

The outdoor life of Roosevelt reclaimed him from a weak childhood and made him a rugged man. As President he

shocked many of his conventional associates by inviting prize-fighters to the White House and openly enjoying the opportunity to box and wrestle with them. He subsequently paid for this devotion with the loss of one of his eyes, a loss that he could ill afford, for his eyes were always weak, as his ever-present spectacles bore witness. As a naturalist he observed both broadly and accurately, and had begun to pick as his friends men whose interests in science and the world outdoors could run with his. As a charter member of the Boone and Crockett Club that was formed in 1887 he paid his tribute to the romance of big game, and tempered his zest as a sportsman with a regard for wild life as a science. The legend of the presidency in frock coat, silk hat, and impenetrable dignity was to be turned upon another course.

When the oath of office was administered to President Roosevelt he immediately announced that it would be his aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policies of President McKinley for the peace, prosperity, and honor of our beloved country." He urged the members of the Cabinet to retain their positions under him, and took up the business on the President's desk with celerity, decision, and confidence in his subordinates.

It was nevertheless the turning-point between two eras. The Republican Party had fulfilled its purpose, and was Two politinot yet pledged to the elements of any new procal eras gram. Before McKinley died the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the Foraker Act, and the colonial government depending upon it. The gold standard was established, and a protective tariff was bringing in adequate revenue from a prosperous country. The next few years under any President must have meant a reshaping of party organization and an accommodation to the new issues that were locally appearing. Under Roosevelt it took a course unbelievable had McKinley lived.

Two theories of representation have struggled to control in the Government of the United States, and these two theories met in the administrations which ended and began

on September 14, 1901. According to one of the theories, for which there is no better example than President McKinley, the will of the people is entitled to instant translation into action when it has manifested itself. It was easy for men who had been Republicans during the Civil War to believe that the party was always right, and that it possessed a monopoly of virtue and patriotism. The natural consequence of this belief was straight party loyalty with an almost complete unwillingness to scratch the party ticket. With this went a strong tendency to be convinced of the correctness of any course toward which the majority was tending or any view which it espoused. When President McKinley shifted with the opinion of his party from a tolerance of free silver to an insistent advocacy of the gold standard, he illustrated this tendency. His honest sincerity was without question, and his reverence for the party was supreme. When on April 11, 1898, he turned the Spanish situation over to Congress, after he had struggled against an entry into war, which he still deplored, he again acted on the theory that the will of the party is the highest law.

The other theory of representation places its emphasis upon the fact that during his period of office it is the duty of the representative to act in behalf of his constituents. Placed in a position where his knowledge of the facts of government is superior to that of any other citizen, this theory holds that the representative has no right to be guided by their clamor, but must shape his course as trustee according to the facts, and stand or fall upon his success in leading his constituents to follow him. The one theory in the hands of shifty politicians leads to the career of a demagogue or to abuse of office; the other tends to develop the personal side of government and the high responsibility of the administrator.

The significance of the change in Presidents as the turning-point in history was apparent as President Roosevelt began to indicate his own attitude on public questions without waiting to ascertain whether the party organi

zation or the people were in agreement with him. He assumed the duty of positive leadership as Andrew Jackson had assumed it, and as Hayes and Cleveland had tried to do it. The President in his administration took a new place in the structure of the party and in the nation.

of President

The position of the President in the party organization has varied according to issues and personalities. By the The office close of the Civil War the standard type of party organization had been evolved. A national party had come to mean the group of citizens who were likely to vote together in a national election. Each party once in four years met in full session through its representatives in the national nominating convention. Here for four or five days delegates fresh from the body of the voters canvassed their party issues and the personalities of leadership. The last ordinary act of a national convention was, and still is, to receive from the delegation of every State its nomination of a member to sit upon the National Committee which during the four-year interval acted as a sort of trustee for the party interests. The chairman chosen by this National Committee was the tactical commander-in-chief of the campaign.

The National Committee

The relations of the candidate to the National Committee and its chairman shifted during the period 1896 to 1904. Throughout the half-dozen campaigns at the end of the last century the national chairman really ran the party. In the Hayes campaign he seems not to have been on speaking terms with the candidate; and the national committeemen who could control their regular reëlection from their States came to regard themselves as constituting the real party, and looked upon a President's attempt to assert himself as insubordination. and trespass.

In the later eighties the custom arose of deferring the selection of chairman until the candidate had had a chance Hanna and to express his wishes. Hanna, as McKinley's manager, was a natural choice as chairman of the National Committee, and brought that post into a

Roosevelt

One of the first practical

position of great influence. questions for President Roosevelt was that of determining his relations with the chairman whom he found in office. Roosevelt had never been a supporter of McKinley, and both he and Hanna knew that the latter had wished to keep him off the ticket in 1900. Both were too well seasoned as campaigners to fight without need, but both were aware of the impending struggle in the party for control. Their differences were political, not personal. The Washington correspondents soon reported the zest with which the President ate Sunday breakfasts with "Uncle Mark" at his home in the Cameron house on LaFayette Square, but no one expected the position of leadership, assumed by the national chairman, to last long without a struggle. The President was somewhat nervous as to the outcome, but did not evade the issue. When in 1902 the friends of Hanna in Ohio were reluctant to endorse Roosevelt for another term, the President stated the matter bluntly as a leader: "Those who favor my administration and nomination will endorse them, and those who do not will oppose them." Since the canvass of 1900 the relative position of the national chairman has steadily declined from commander-in-chief to chief of staff, and thence to political secretary for the candidate. The President has tended to become the responsible leader of his party.

The political situation in 1901 was full of opportunity for a President who was willing to assume responsibility, and whose party possessed a perfected working or- Booker T. ganization, but lacked a specific platform for Washington the future. On the day of his accession Roosevelt wrote to Booker T. Washington, at Tuskegee, inviting him to come to Washington to consult upon Republican appointments in the South. The desire to undermine the one-party system of the South had been the ambition of earlier Republican Presidents, and is still their hope. With Roosevelt it led to an attempt to improve the personnel of federal office-holders in Democratic States. It led also to an unforeseen attack.