e true not only when, with a whole public following and
two or three nations besides, and all the newspapers, he goes off on an
orgy of righteousness, makes the grand tour of Europe, and has the time
of his life. It is the steady-burning under enthusiasm with him all the
while. The spectacle of a good man doing a tremendous good thing affects
Theodore Roosevelt like one of the great forces of nature, like Niagara
Falls, like the screws of the _Mauritania_, or any other huge, happy
thing that is having its way against fear; against weakness, or against
small terrified goodness.

Mr. Roosevelt in doing right conveys the sense of enjoying it so himself
that he has made almost an art form of public righteousness. He has
found his most complete, his most naive, instinctive self-expression in
it, and while we have had goodness in public men before, we have had no
man who has been such an international chromo for goodness, who has made
such a big, comfortable "He-who-runs-may-read" bill-poster for doing
right as Roosevelt. Other men have done things that were good to do, but
the very inmost muscle and marrow of goodness itself, goodness with
teeth, with a fist, goodness that smiled, that ha-ha'd, and that leaped
and danced--perpetual motion of goodness, goodness that reeked--has been
reserved for Theodore Roosevelt. We have had goodness that was bland or
proper, and goodness that was pious or sentimental and sang, "Nearer My
God to Thee," or goodness that was kind and mushy, but this goodness
with a glad look and bounding heart, goodness with an iron hand, we have
not had before. It is Mr. Roosevelt's goodness that has made him
interesting in Cairo, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. He has been conducting a
grand tour of goodness. He has been a colossal drummer of goodness,
conducting an advertising campaign. He has proved himself a master
salesman for moral values. And he has put the American character, its
hope, its energy, on the markets and on the credits of the world.

With all his faults, those big, daring, yawning fissures in him, he is
news about us, faults and all. Though I may be, as I certainly am much
of the time, standing and looking across at him, across an abyss of
temperament that God cut down between us thousands of years ago, and
while he may have a score of traits I would not like and others that no
one would like in any one else, there he is storming out at me with his
goodness! It is his way--God help him!--God be