Everywhere we see smart, clever, longheaded, shrewd men, but how
comparatively rare it is to find one whose record is as clean as a
hound's tooth; who will not swerve from the right; who would rather
fail than be a party to a questionable transaction!

Everywhere we see business men putting the stumbling-blocks of
deception and dishonest methods right across their own pathway,
tripping themselves up while trying to deceive others.

We see men worth millions of dollars filled with terror; trembling lest
investigations may uncover things which will damn them in the public
estimation! We see them cowed before the law like whipped spaniels;
catching at any straw that will save them from public disgrace!

What a terrible thing to live in the limelight of popular favor, to be
envied as rich and powerful, to be esteemed as honorable and
straightforward, and yet to be conscious all the time of not being what
the world thinks we are; to live in constant terror of discovery, in
fear that something may happen to unmask us and show us up in our true
light! But nothing can happen to injure seriously the man who lives
four-square to the world; who has nothing to cover up, nothing to hide
from his fellows; who lives a transparent, clean life, with never a
fear of disclosures. If all of his material possessions are swept away
from him, he knows that he has a monument in the hearts of his
countrymen, in the affection and admiration of the people, and that
nothing can happen to harm his real self because he has kept his record
clean.

Mr. Roosevelt early resolved that, let what would come, whether he
succeeded in what he undertook or failed, whether he made friends or
enemies, he would not take chances with his good name--he would part
with everything else first; that he would never gamble with his
reputation; that he would keep his record clean. His first ambition
was to stand for something, to be a man. Before he was a politician or
anything else the man must come first.

[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt]

In his early career he had many opportunities to make a great deal of
money by allying himself with crooked, sneaking, unscrupulous
politicians. He had all sorts of opportunities for political graft.
But crookedness never had any attraction for him. He refused to be a
party to any political jobbery, any underhand business. He preferred
to lose any position he was seeking, to let somebody else have it, if
he must get