already prepared myself for the question, and citing my authority from the Revised Statutes. "Find out for me whether he is in the city.” With what I fondly fancied was speed, I made my way to Commissioner Wright's office. His secretary told me he was at Marblehead Neck, Mass. "We answered a telephone inquiry of the same sort a few minutes ago," he added. "The President wanted his address, and in haste."

I ran back to the White House only to find that a telegram had already gone to Mr. Wright, calling him to Washington for a conference. Thus quick was Mr. Roosevelt to act upon an idea which appealed to him on its first statement. Mr. Wright's report set in motion the train of events leading up to the arbitration of the strike.

Mr. Roosevelt always seems to be in a hurry, as soon as his mind is made up, to let the world know what he is going to do. But for this very reason I have never agreed with the commentators who describe him as a man of dramatic surprises. A dramatic surprise, as I understand the term, is one in which the curtain is suddenly lifted on a completed fact. The theatrical element is dissipated by long heralding, and Mr.

PREMATURE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Roosevelt often sounds his warning a good while before he acts. His decision in Collector Bidwell's case became public in October, though the change was not to be made till the following spring. The announcement that Pension-Commissioner Evans was to be transferred to some other office was given out about April 1, 1902, though the new place for him was not found till May, and Mr. Ware was not named as his successor till still later. It was as early as July of the same year that news came from Oyster Bay that Augustus T. Wimberley was to retire from the Collectorship of Customs at New Orleans, although his current commission would not expire till December.

These are a few notable instances chosen from a multitude. My own explanation of such premature announcements is that they serve a twofold purpose: they stop empty guessing and gossip, and they head off a great many importunities from professional office-seekers. Once in a while, too, they operate like marriage bans, encouraging all who have anything to say against the proposed change to say it and have done. The advance advertisement of his intentions has thus, to my certain knowledge, saved the President once from giving an important

office to a chronic drunkard, and once from appointing a negro-lyncher in the South.

Now and then we hear stories of Mr. Roosevelt's sudden and impulsive change of purpose, which on analysis lead back merely to one of his tricks of speech. In conversation, if he is at all interested, his mind keeps leaping ahead, and forecasting the conclusions aimed at by his companion before the latter has fairly finished the major premise. This habit, by the way, often gets him into trouble when he is talking with men who are not familiar with his ways. His statement of another's conclusion, even with an indication of interest in it, does not mean that he accepts it himself. When he accompanies it with an ejaculation like, "Just so," or "I see," the comparative stranger is apt to confuse mere quick apprehension with cordial approval.

This will account for the occasional appearance in the press of some announcement that the President purposes doing so-and-so, followed promptly by a refutation, although the original news was evidently published in good faith and on reputable authority. No one is more astonished than Mr. Roosevelt when one of these false reports gets into circulation. He has no conception of his share in its authorship.

TRICKS OF SPEECH

Another of his tricks of speech akin to this, but a trick merely, is that of echoing with assent a remark made by a companion, but inserting into his own version a qualifying word or phrase which, as his speech is very rapid, only an equally rapid sense is likely to catch. For example, "The plan I have suggested is the only one open to us in this exigency," remarks a visiting Congressman. "I quite agree with you," answers the President: "the plan you have suggested is almost the only one open to us in this exigency." Then the Congressman hastens away to spread the news that he has induced the President to adopt his plan. He is astounded when the President denies it. The President is equally astounded that the Congressman should have made such a statement. He had spoken in all sincerity when he indorsed the spirit of the Congressman's remark first and modified its phraseology so slightly afterward.

"Smith is the best man in the whole batch for District-Attorney," remarks a Senator, after going through a pile of application papers at the White House. "You are quite right," assents the President: "in most respects, Smith is the best man in the batch." But later that day the President concludes that "most respects"

do not include the one respect which he is specially trying to meet in that selection; so he decides upon Jones, who does fill the bill in that particular, though he may not in others. The Senator, who has meanwhile informed Smith's friends that their man is sure of appointment, goes about like a roaring lion when he hears of Jones's good fortune, alleging that the President has changed his mind without warning. As a matter of fact, the Senator was simply misled by his own ear, and the wish that was father to the thought.

Some of his critics who lay to his impulsiveness everything in him which excites no responsive thrill in themselves, charged to that trait Mr. Roosevelt's tactics as Governor, in pressing the corporation franchise tax bill. The trouble with this criticism is that it is based on a short memory. For years before he became Governor Mr. Roosevelt had insisted that one of the weak points in our American practise of government was the State's willingness to give away valuable assets which in any private business transaction would command a great price. This fact seems to have been generally forgotten, or else the professional politicians assumed that, like themselves, Mr. Roosevelt had one set