ROUGH BUT READY had once been favorably considered by President McKinley, and so on. "Thank you," said Mr. Roosevelt, "I have my man selected. His name is Ben Daniels. He has no political backing, but I know him clear through for a soldier who never received an order which he could not execute. He is dead game; and as a marshal, when he goes for a malefactor he will fetch him in, if it takes all the horses and all the ammunition in the Territory." "Daniels is a pretty rough character," argued the politicians. "Are you sure he'll pass muster?" "I've seen smoother persons," responded the President, without wavering; "but it is not exactly a polished gentleman I'm looking for to hunt down desperate murderers and drag professional highwaymen to justice." So in went the name of Benjamin Franklin Daniels to the Senate. The nomination was referred, in the regular order, to the Committee on Judiciary, of which Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts, the most scholarly and refined of Senators, is chairman. The choice for an important Federal office of just such a specimen—an ex-denizen of a Southwestern mining-camp who lacked half an ear as a memento of an encounter with a "bad man"-was not quite the customary thing; but it was allowed to pass till somebody came forward with the charge that Daniels was a hard drinker. This was brought to the notice of the President. "Daniels used to drink hard," he asserted. "He has told me all about that. But he's straight now." Then came an accuser with a story of the candidate's gambling propensities. "Quite true," responded the President, when questioned. "Ben never made any secret of that. He used to have an interest in a game, but it was a square one. The code of manners in the community where he grew up is not quite that of New England. A good many men of first-rate mettle in the pioneer West have drunk out of a bottle and paid their way at times from the proceeds of a poker-pot. These are not practises which we sterner moralists should commend on general principles, but we have to judge such things comparatively, and in the light of the local environment. I never heard that Ben was a 'skin' gambler, and in any event he has promised me that he will not touch a card while he remains in office." A FATAL DISCOVERY Thus matters seemed to be moving fairly for the marshal-elect, when suddenly some one who had been following his life's trail made the startling announcement that a person named Benjamin Daniels had once served a term in the Wyoming Penitentiary for theft. The parallel between the convict Daniels and the Daniels who had been named for marshal of Arizona seemed complete in such particulars as age and appearance. The critics became inquisitive again, and this time their questions found the President perturbed in spirit. The prison record showed that, when the thief Daniels was sentenced, the court had taken cognizance of his youth and made his punishment lighter than it might, because it was plain that he had been led into his criminal escapade by older and more forceful men. But that was not the phase of the question uppermost in the President's mind. His one thought was: "Has Ben Daniels deceived me by holding back this fact when I asked him for a full and honest story of his life?" The telegraph was called into play. Daniels admitted his identity with the former convict. A pathetic letter followed his despatch of confes sion. It told of his effort to live down the past, and the hope he had cherished that his colonel's belief in him would open a new and better chapter in his career. But it was too late. His commission, already signed, was canceled. One thing Theodore Roosevelt can not brook: the discovery of bad faith where he has placed his trust. CHAPTER V PRESIDENT AND CABINET Official families by inheritance-First break in the Roosevelt Cabinet-What led to Mr. Gage's resignation-A quaint tribute —Other changes—A new chair at the table, and how filled. THE relations of Presidents with their Cabinets make an interesting chapter in the political history of the country from the days of Washington down. Mr. Roosevelt's relation to his was unique. It came to him by inheritance, but not as Arthur's descended; for Arthur had become Vice-President through a makeshift move at the conclusion of the national convention of 1880, and represented, then and later, the element in his party antipodal to that which had supported Garfield. Roosevelt, on the other hand, had been nominated for VicePresident by the same united party that had nominated McKinley for a second term as President. He was easily the first choice of his whole party for the second place in the Government, just as he was the second choice |