horoughly fit for the position I desire to fill, it
gives me the greatest pleasure to appoint him. When Platt proposes to me
a man like Hamilton Fish, it is equally a pleasure to appoint him."

This high-minded and common-sense course did not, however, seem to
please the politicians, for dyed-in-the-wool politicians are curious
persons to whom half a loaf is no consolation whatever, even when the
other half of the loaf is to go to the people--without whom there would
be no policies at all. Strangely enough, Roosevelt's policy was equally
displeasing to those of the doctrinaire reformer type, to whom there is
no word in the language more distasteful than "politician," unless it
be the word "practical." But there was one class to whom the results of
this common-sense brand of political action were eminently satisfactory,
and this class made up the third group that had a part in the selection
of Theodore Roosevelt for the Vice-Presidency. The plain people,
especially in the more westerly portions of the country, were
increasingly delighted with the honesty, the virility, and the
effectiveness of the Roosevelt Administration. Just before the
convention which was to nominate Roosevelt for the Presidency to succeed
himself, an editorial writer expressed the fact thus: "The people at
large are not oblivious of the fact that, while others are talking and
carping, Mr. Roosevelt is carrying on in the White House a persistent
and never-ending moral struggle with every powerful selfish and
exploiting interest in the country."

Oblivious of it? They were acutely conscious of it. They approved of
it with heartiness. They liked it so well that, when the time came to
nominate and elect another President, they swept aside with a mighty
rush not only the scruples and antagonisms of the Republican politicians
and the "special interests" but party lines as well, and chose Roosevelt
with a unanimous voice in the convention and a majority of two and a
half million votes at the polls.

As President, Theodore Roosevelt achieved many concrete results. But his
greatest contribution to the forward movement of the times was in the
rousing of the public conscience, the strengthening of the nation's
moral purpose, and the erecting of a new standard of public service in
the management of the nation's affairs. It was no little thing that when
Roosevelt was ready to hand over to another the responsibilities of his
high office, James Bryce, America's