Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| And, besides, it is both too early and too late for a life of Theodore Roosevelt. Too late for the mere formal details of his career; everybody knows them. Much too early to tell the whole story of what that strong, brave life will mean to the American people, his people of whom he is so proud, when the story is all told. No one can know him and believe in the people without feeling sure of that. |
| There remains to me to speak of him as the friend, the man. And this is what I shall do, the more gladly because so may it be my privilege to introduce him to some who know him only as the public man, the President, the partisan perhaps–and a very energetic partisan he is–and so really do not know him at all, in the sense which I have in mind. The public man I will follow because he is square, and will do the square thing always, not merely want to do it. With the partisan I will sometimes disagree, at least I ought to, for I was before a Democrat and would be one now if the party would get some sense and bar Tammany out in the cold for its monstrous wickedness. 1 Of the President I am proud with reason, |