possession of vast power as being necessary to good government. It is a very unhealthy thing that any man should be considered necessary to the people as a whole, save in the way of meeting some given crisis. Moreover, in a republic like ours the vital need is that there shall be a general recognition of the moral law, of the law which, as regards public men, means belief in efficient and disinterested service for the public rendered without thought of personal gain, and above all without the thought of self-perpetuation in office. I regard the memories of Washington and Lincoln as priceless heritages for our people, just because they are the memories of strong men, of men who cannot be accused of weakness or timidity, of men who I believe were quite as strong for instance as Cromwell or Bismarck, and very much stronger than the Louis Napoleon type, who, nevertheless, led careers marked by disinterestedness just as much as by strength; who, like Timoleon and Hampden, in very deed, and not as a mere matter of oratory or fine writing, put the public good, the good of the people as a whole, as the first of all considerations.

"Now, my ambition is that, in however small a way, the work I do shall be along the Washington and Lincoln lines. While President I have been President, emphatically; I have used every ounce of power there was in the office and I have not cared a rap for the criticisms of those who spoke of my 'usurpation of power'; for I knew that the talk was all nonsense and that there was no usurpation. I believe that the efficiency of this Government depends upon its possessing a strong central executive, and wherever I could establish a precedent for strength in the executive, as I did for instance as re

gards external affairs in the case of sending the fleet around the world, taking Panama, settling affairs of Santo Domingo and Cuba; or as I did in internal affairs in settling the anthracite coal strike, in keeping order in Nevada this year when the Federation of Miners threatened anarchy, or as I have done in bringing the big corporations to book why, in all these cases I have felt not merely that my action was right in itself, but that in showing the strength of, or in giving strength to, the executive, I was establishing a precedent of value. I believe in a strong executive; I believe in power; but I believe that responsibility should go with power, and that it is not well that the strong executive should be a perpetual executive. Above all and beyond all I believe as I have said before that the salvation of this country depends upon Washington and Lincoln representing the type of leader to which we are true. I hope that in my acts I have been a good President, a President who has deserved well of the Republic; but most of all, I believe that whatever value my service may have comes even more from what I am than from what I do. I may be mistaken, but it is my belief that the bulk of my countrymen, the men whom Abraham Lincoln called 'the plain people' the farmers, mechanics, small tradesmen, hard-working professional men-feel that I am in a peculiar sense their President, that I represent the democracy in somewhat the fashion that Lincoln did, that is, not in any demagogic way but with the sincere effort to stand for a government by the people and for the people. Now the chief service I can render these plain people who believe in me is, not to destroy their ideal of me. They have followed me for the past six or seven

years, indeed for some years previously, because they thought they recognized in me certain qualities in which they believed, because they regarded me as honest and disinterested, as having courage and common sense. Now I wouldn't for anything in the world shatter this belief of theirs in me, unless it were necessary to do so because they had embarked on a wrong course, and I could only be really true to them by forfeiting their good will. For instance, if they made up their minds that they would repudiate their debts, or under a gust of emotion decided to follow any course that was wrong, I could show loyalty to them only by opposing them tooth and nail, without the slightest regard to any amount of unpopularity or obloquy. But this of course isn't what I mean when I say I do not want to shatter their belief in me. What I mean is that I do not want to make them think that after all I am actuated by selfish motives, by motives of self-interest, that my championship of their cause, that my opposition to the plutocracy, is simply due to the usual demagog's desire to pander to the mob, or to the no more dangerous, but even more sinister, desire to secure self-advancement under the cloak of championship of popular rights. Of course I may be wrong in my belief, but my belief is that a great many honest people in this country who lead hard lives are helped in their efforts to keep straight and avoid envy and hatred and despair by their faith in me and in the principles I preach and in my practice of these principles. I would not for anything do the moral damage to these people that might come from shattering their faith in my personal disinterestedness. A few months ago three old back-country farmers turned up in Washington and

after awhile managed to get in to see me. They were rugged old fellows, as hairy as Boers and a good deal of the Boer type. They hadn't a black coat among them, and two of them wore no cravats; that is, they just had on their working clothes, but all cleaned and brushed. When they finally got to see me they explained that they hadn't anything whatever to ask, but that they believed in me, believed that I stood for what they regarded as the American ideal, and as one rugged old fellow put it, 'We want to shake that honest hand.' Now this anecdote seems rather sentimental as I tell it, and I do not know that I can convey to you the effect the incident produced on me; but it was one of the very many incidents which have occurred, and they have made me feel that I am under a big debt of obligation to the good people of this country, and that I am bound not by any unnecessary action of mine to forfeit their respect, not to hurt them by taking away any part of what they have built up as their ideal of me. It is just as I would not be willing to hurt my soldiers, to destroy my influence among men who look up to me as leader, by needlessly doing anything in battle which would give the idea that I was not personally brave; even though some given risk might seem a little unnecessary to an outsider. However certain I might be that in seeking or accepting a third term I was actuated by a sincere desire to serve my fellow countrymen, I am very much afraid that multitudes of thoroughly honest men who have believed deeply in me (and some of them, by the way, until I consented to run might think that they wished me to run) would nevertheless have a feeling of disappointment if I did try to occupy the Presidency for three

consecutive terms, to hold it longer than it was deemed wise that Washington should hold it.

"I would have felt very differently, and very much more doubtful about what to do, if my leaving the Presidency had meant that there was no chance to continue the work in which I am engaged and which I deem vital to the welfare of the people. But in Taft there was ready to hand a man whose theory of public and private duty is my own, and whose practice of this theory is what I hope mine is; and if we can elect him President we achieve all that could be achieved by continuing me in the office, and yet we avoid all the objections, all the risk of creating a bad precedent."

The President used the utmost exertion for Taft's election consistent with the dignity of his office. Taft's Democratic opponent was William J. Bryan. But he was elected receiving 321 electoral votes against 162 for Bryan and a plurality of over 1,269,000 in the popular vote.

"Toward the end of his term (the second) the relations between Roosevelt and Congress became somewhat strained," wrote Charles G. Washburn, a member of the House at this time and a devoted friend of Roosevelt's. "This was due to a variety of causes. The President was, very properly, constantly pressing an elaborate programme of legislation. Congress could never meet his expectations or the expectations of the people, and the legislative body came to feel that its efforts were not properly appreciated and that the Executive held a place in the confidence of the people that properly belonged to Congress. The President preferred pretty direct