OCR Text |
Show THEODORE ROOSEVELT. We do not always appreciate the sentinels that are stationed on the heights to give the call: "What of the night?" and the answer, "All is well." Somfc men have first to die before the people, seeing the light that streams back when their souls take flight, give us to see them as they were when they moved among men. That was more true of Abraham Lincoln than of any other man in our history. When the news of his death was flashed to the country, then before men's eyes a colossal figure, supported by the angels of mercy and of love, arose out of that pitiable death chamber and took on a majesty that is paralleled by no American save Washington. Then his last inaugural address smote men's ears like a prophecy, his Gettysburg speech came back and took on all the sweetness and solemnity of a great anthem. Jost now a mighty wave of abuse is breaking against and around Theodore Roosevelt. His acts are lied about, his motives impeached, his integrity integ-rity assailed, his intentions magnified into crimes, his character traduced. All the venomous inventions inven-tions of depraved partisan malice and hate are called up and repeated to disgrace him before the nation and the world, to cause his countrymen to lose confidence in him, and to turn from his high nature to a shadow of Dave Hill and Tammany Hall creation. But suppose a fate such as that which came to Lincoln were to come to Roosevelt, what would be the feelings of the American people? What estimate of him would be forced upon them with all the intensity of a conviction? Would they not be saying to themselves: "Only forty-six and yet with twenty years filled with high work. The scholar, the author, the soldier, the Governor, the President, alert and true at every turn of his great Continued on page ij, THEODORE ROOSEVELTCont. life, and capable beyond the men of his years. One whose ambition was always held In the leash of duty, and whose highest promptings were to gain gldry by tadding new glories to his native land, new splendors to her flag." Edward Arnold's great poem is the story of how Lord Btfddha, nurtured in all the princely luxuries lux-uries which wealth and invention could surround him with, could not lesist the call that was -ever sounding on his ears, and finally, forsaking all, went out to mingle with the world's" por and to seek a balm for all the suffering world's woes. In a little way the life of Theodore Roosevelt is an imitation of that. He grew up dreaming of th possibilities which this free land opened to her young men. He early realized that if ever he should be raised to power, the first essential that would be his need would be to know all his countrymen, coun-trymen, how they lived, and what they most needed, what their hopes were, what their spirit was. So from his home of luxury, instead of making the usual round of the old world, to return, perhaps, with regret at the crudeness of native land, he chose the other course, and going beyond the cities and towns and cultivated fields, joined his life with the lives of those who, on the frontier, fron-tier, wage a constant warfare against the wilds I for an existence. To test his own powers, he I matched himself against them all, until he demon strated that he could ride and shoot and face the blizzard and live on rough fare, as well as the i best of them. "When called to a high place in beautiful Wash- I ington, a place of ease, of responsibility and honor, a place few men can ever attain to and which few men, once there, would ever willingly relinquish, relin-quish, suddenly a cloud of war rose in the Southern South-ern sky and quickly darkened the whole heavens, and a war-horn sounded a call for volunteers. Then again there came a call to this man's soul and the words that seemed to be in that call were: "All that a man hath should be given to his country. coun-try. Listen to the tread of armed men, marching by thousands to the defense of the honor of their country's flag. There is not one of all those thousands thou-sands whose life is not as qweet to him as your life is to you. The war-horn is still sounding, what are you going to do?" He answered without delay. He gave up the luxurious place, raised a company, pushed that company aboard an already crowded transport and was abreast of the foremost when $ie first battle was set in array. When there was no longer a foe in ftvmt, he returned to his native state and a grateful people elected him Governor. There he found a more insidious foe to native land than those who carry arms. He forced the passage of laws to compel them to do their duty, and other laws to draw protection pro-tection around those who toil and to make it possible pos-sible for them to collect their honest wages. Then he was called to a higher station, and a little later to the very highest of all. He has held that place for three years. Has the flag lost any of it3 splendor? Has the nation lost any of its prestige or just renown in those three years? Compare that life with the lives of any of his detractors, de-tractors, either in the purity of the life itself or In its achievements; then measure the worth of that life to native land and think of the void that would be made should that life be suddenly struck down. All through Mr. Lincoln's public career London Punch pursued him with pen and pencil, with a bitterness in which was mixed no grain of charity or appreciation. Its attacks were the theme of two continents. When the news of Mr. Lincoln's tragic death reache.il England, the man who had pursued him with caricatures and bitter and contemptuous con-temptuous words, saw the light that made a trail of supernal whltness as it flashed back over the path up which his high soul had mounted, and in . . . jiiK M remorse and contrition, ho published a poem that i H touched the hearts of two continents. H The men of the United States should all read "H that poem, at least onee a month, and then ask H themselves if it is good to pursue with false and H foul abuse, just to gratify a partisan hate, or to try , H to reap a partisan triumph, one who has signally , H served his country, and no matter how critical or jH difficult' the orlsis, has never failed. C. C. C, in H Helena Record. H |