a real love of public life. He turned to it
late, after he had made his success in the profession of his
choice, and he carried over into it the habits of the law. He
always seemed to be taking cases for the public. He took a case for
Mr. McKinley as Secretary of War because the War Department needed
reorganization and the case promised to be interesting. He took a
case for Mr. Roosevelt as Secretary of State because Mr. Roosevelt
was the most interesting client in the world. He took a case for
New York State, to remodel its constitution, a case that ended
disastrously. He took a case for Mr. Wilson in Russia and another,
the League of Nations, to form its international court for it. He
was willing to take a case for Mr. Harding to make a going concern
of the world for him following the smash-up of the war, something
like the task of counsel of a receivership, the most interesting
receivership of all time.

For a few years Mr. Roosevelt made public life interesting to Mr.
Root who, it looked then, might devote the rest of his career to
national affairs.

It was a sparkling period for America. We have never had an "age"
in the history of this country like the age of Elizabeth or the age
of Louis XIV, or the age of Lorenzo, the Magnificent; time is too
short and democracy too rigid for such splendors; but the nearest
equivalent to one was the "age," let us call it that, of Theodore
Roosevelt. There was the central figure--an age must have a central
figure--a buoyant personality with a Renaissance zest for life, and
a Renaissance curiosity about all things known, and unknown, and a
boundless capacity for vitalizing everyone and everything with
which he came in contact.

Dull moments were unknown. Knighthood was once more in flower,
wearing frock coats and high hats and reading all about itself in
the daily press. Lances were tilted at malefactors of great wealth,
in jousts where few were unhorsed and no blood spilled. Fair
maidens of popular rights were rescued; great deeds of valor done.
Legends were created, the legend of Leonard Wood, somewhat damaged
in the last campaign, the legend of the Tennis Cabinet, with its
Garfields and its Pinchots, now to be read about only in the black
letter books of the early twentieth century, and the legend of
Elihu Root, still supported in a measure by the evidences of his
highly acute intelligence, but still like everything else of those
bright days, largely a legend.

Roosevelt