have learnt their business thoroughly, hold all the strings
of policy in their hands."

Opinions will differ as to the impress McKinley has left on the
presidential office. It is the judgment of two men of large knowledge of
American history and present affairs that no President since Jefferson
has been so successful in getting Congress to adopt the positive
measures he desired.

Of the administration of Theodore Roosevelt it would be neither proper
nor wise for me to speak in other terms than those of expectation and
prophecy. But of Mr. Roosevelt himself something may be said. His birth,
breeding, education, and social advantages have been of the best. He
has led an industrious and useful life. As an American citizen we are
all proud of him, and when he reached the presidential office by a
tragedy that nobody deplored more than he, every one wished him success.
His transparent honesty and sincerity are winning qualities, and in the
opinion of Burke especially important in him who is the ruler of a
nation. "Plain good intention," he wrote, "which is as easily discovered
at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say,
of no mean force in the government of mankind." To these qualities, and
to a physical and moral courage that can never be questioned, Mr.
Roosevelt adds a large intelligence and, as his books show, a power of
combination of ideas and cohesive thought. Moreover, he has had a good
political training, and he has the faculty of writing his political
papers in a pregnant and forcible literary style. He is fit for what Mr.
Bryce calls "the greatest office in the world, unless we except the
Papacy." His ideals are Washington and Lincoln. "I like to see in my
mind's eye," he said, "the gaunt form of Lincoln stalking through these
halls." "To gratify the hopes, secure the reverence, and sustain the
dignity of the nation," said Justice Story, "the presidential office
should always be occupied by a man of elevated talents, of ripe virtues,
of incorruptible integrity, and of tried patriotism; one who shall
forget his own interests and remember that he represents not a party but
the whole nation." These qualities Theodore Roosevelt has. Whether he
shall in action carry out the other requirements of Justice Story may
only be judged after he shall have retired to private life.

Mr. Roosevelt merits the encouragement and sympathy of all lovers of
good government, and he is entitled, as indeed is e