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Show T. It. DEAD TWENTY-FIVE YEARS When the tempestuous spirit that was Theodore Roosevelt began its long rest on January 6, 1919, just twenty-five years ago, many of his friends felt an inexpressible in-expressible loss and the whole nation was saddened by the death of a great man and patriot. This many-sided man, scholar, writer, naturalist, explorer, politician and statesman, "walked with kings nor lost the common touch." Born an aristocrat he knew, liked and trusted the common people and they liked and trusted him. It is told how late at night, once when on his private train crossing the continent, members of his party saw farm house after farm house lighted. The people had remained up just to catch a glimpse of their hero's train as it sped through the night carrying carry-ing him. This regard for him still lives. It is revealed by the fact that more than 25,000 people, in normal times, annually an-nually visit the little country cemetery at Oyster Bay where he rests in the grandeur of simplicity. New Deals come and go but this "square deal" will live as long as justice lives in the heart of men, justice for rich and poor alike, a justice which seeks equality of economic opportunity, a justice which enables every individual to maintain God's most precious gift to man, his sense of self-respect. Whatever his faults, and he had them, no one ever questioned the purity of Theodore Roosevelt's patriotism, patriot-ism, his fearless courage or his quick, lasting interest in the finest things of the spirit. Truly he was the nation's na-tion's civic conscience during his generation. ', And he was our great administrator in the White House; great because he picked big men for his cabinet cab-inet and other important posts, gave them authority, responsibility and credit. "Yes" men had no place in his administration. The public believed Theodore Roosevelt to have been bull-headed and opinionated. And yet men who worked closest with him and knew him intimately insist that, if one had the facts, he was the easiest man to convince they ever knew. This the great public did not know. But it did know of his wholesome family life, of his instinctive courtesy the surest of all marks of true greatness and his Jove-like wrath over injustive or dishonesty in public life. - While making the most of his own talents he inspired millions of his fellow-citizens to make the most of theirs. Jn doing that he gave his beloved nation a new meaning and a tremendous impulse, the eddies of which will carry to the far reaches of time. |
