“You will know more, sir, later; a good deal more, or I am much in
error. Young? Why, he is just out of school almost, yet he is a force
to be reckoned with in New York. Later the nation will be criticizing
or praising him. While respectful to the gray hairs and experience
of his elders, not one of them can move him an iota from convictions
as to men and measures once formed and rooted. He will not truckle nor
cringe; he seems to court opposition to the point of being somewhat
pugnacious. His political life will probably be turbulent; but he will
be a figure, not a figure-head, in future developments--or if not, it
will be because he gives up politics altogether.”
These opinions from men who knew Roosevelt all his life go to show that
his course to the Presidency was clearly marked for him from the time
he entered New York politics.
Jeremiah Curtin, the historian and philosopher, was another person
who early became impressed with the idea that Roosevelt was a dynamic
force for the highest place in the land. Curtin, in his “History
of the Mongols,” wrote thus of seeing Roosevelt as a Civil Service
Commissioner:
“All at once, in the large room before us, I saw a young man, alert
to his duties and perfectly confident. There was no one else in the
apartment. I told (Congressman) Greenhalge to look at him.
“‘That man looks precisely as if he had examined the building and,
finding it suitable, has made up his mind to inhabit it!’
“‘He is the living picture of that pose,’ replied Greenhalge; ‘but do
you know him? That is Theodore Roosevelt!’”
The assassination of President McKinley, which led Roosevelt to the
White House, simply hastened the goal which was already in sight.
From his early days in politics he took a high moral stand and formed
the habit of going to the people over the heads of the politicians
whenever he thought that the public interest required such drastic
measures. He set for himself a high standard, yet, when he quitted the
Presidency, that standard had been set even higher than when he made
his first campaign for clean politics in the New York Legislature.
Roosevelt’s first notable act on entering the Presidency was to retain
in office all of McKinley’s subordinates. It had been the habit on the
three previous occasions when Vice-Presidents succeeded Presidents
through the death of the President to change the personnel of the
higher offices, especially in the Cabinet. Roosevelt did not think this
a wise course. He asked all of the members of the Cabinet to stay and
help him carry out McKinley’s policies.
Some of his friends told him this would make him only “a pale copy of
McKinley.” He told them that he was not concerned in following or not
following in McKinley’s footsteps. What he wanted to do was to face and
solve the new problems that arose.