WHO DID OBJECT

mand and the substitution of the single name of Grover Cleveland. Some of the parties present expressed a doubt whether the ex-President would take kindly to the idea of settling the strike by such means; but Mr. Roosevelt showed them a letter in which Mr. Cleveland expressed his hearty approval of the course proposed. The operators present then refused to consider the suggestion at all. The President nevertheless was so persistent that telephonic communication was opened with the companies' offices in New York, so that the committee in Washington could ascertain positively whether they were carrying out the wishes of their principals. No argument or plea had the slightest effect upon the capitalists; they would not accept Mr. Cleveland as an arbitrator on any pretext; and with intense reluctance the President had to let go the most valued feature of his plan.

It is too bad to spoil so pretty a story as the one quoted, especially its picture of Secretary Root rubbing his chin and the President grabbing a lead-pencil in his feverish haste to retrieve an error of thoughtlessness which might have given Mr. Cleveland so much prestige as a candidate against him in 1904; but

pencil and chin, rubbing and grabbing, will have to go, as the President's plan did. With them, I fear, must be sacrificed on the altar of historic truth a bevy of other pleasing and dramatic fictions concerning Mr. Roosevelt's treatment of possible competitors in the coming campaign.

The simplest form of statement to cover the whole case is that, if two courses were open to the President, one of which would rule all his rivals out of the contest while the other would double their multitude, he would choose the latter. This he would do partly from an instinct of generosity which makes him sometimes appear almost quixotic, and partly to gratify a taste that comes near being a mania with him-the love of matching his strength and cleverness against those of other men.

Even the characteristic despatch concerning his indorsement by the Ohio convention was sent without a moment's deliberation, and merely in the quaint phrase of one of his intimates "for the fun of taking a fall out of Uncle Mark." If there had been no talk about it, he would not have cared a snap of his fingers whether the platform touched on 1904 or let it alone. Mr. Hanna lacked his usual

TASTE FOR CONTEST

shrewdness in letting the issue be raised; for he must have known that as surely as he did so he would rouse in Mr. Roosevelt a spirit which would not be appeased till a battle had been fought out and one side or the other routed.

CHAPTER XI

A FIGHTER AND HIS METHODS

Love of matching skill and strength A generous adversaryThe census spoilsmen's grievance-Harun-al-Raschid and the police-How a demonstration failed.

THE subject of this chapter naturally grows out of certain incidents mentioned in the last, which have shown us how Mr. Roosevelt bears himself toward competitors and antagonists in the larger field of politics. Elsewhere have appeared specimens of his manner of meeting the criticisms passed upon the work of the Civil-Service Commission while he was connected with it. Other illustrations are needed, however, to complete his portrait as a fighter.

From his boyhood-at least from that point in it at which he resolved to make himself strong and take his share in the active sports of other boys he appears to have most enjoyed those forms of exercise which matched him against his mates. He did not always defeat his opponents in such struggles; he did not

TYPICAL METHODS

expect to. It was enough for him to get the enjoyment of the contest; and he was ready to "let the best fellow win," and accept the fortunes of war in good part whichever way they went.

At college boxing was always his favorite amusement. A classmate who remembers well his exercise with the gloves says that, although Roosevelt was a light-weight, not naturally muscular, and suffered from a handicap of imperfect vision which would have checked most other men, he was keen for the sport, and used to spar with a pair of large spectacles literally lashed to his head. He risked the total loss of his sight with every bout, as an unlucky blow from the other party might have smashed his glasses and driven them into his eyes; but in spite of that he was always the attacker. He aimed to offset his own weak point by leading swiftly and heavily, so that his adversary should be kept too busy with defensive tactics to gather his wits and put in any offensive work.

Some one else I think it is Owen Wister -describes his first glimpse of Roosevelt as a college pugilist, when, in the midst of a rattling exchange of blows, the umpire called "time." Roosevelt at once dropped his hands, but just