Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| but the friend I love. And if I can make you see him so, as a friend and a man, I have given you the master-key to him as statesman as well. You will never need to ask any questions. |
| For still another reason I am glad that it is to be so: I shall be speaking largely to the young whose splendid knight he is, himself yet a young man filled with the high courage and brave ideals that make youth the golden age of the great deeds forever. And I want to show them the man Roosevelt, who through many a fight in which hard blows were dealt never once proved unfaithful to them; who, going forth with a young man’s resolve to try to “make things better in this world, even a little better, because he had lived in it,” 1 through fair days and foul, through good report and evil (and of this last there was never a lack), sounded his battle-cry, “Better faithful than famous,” and won. A hundred times the mercenaries and the spoilsmen whom he fought had him down and “ruined” in the fight. At this moment, as I write, they are rubbing their hands with glee because at last he has undone himself, |