PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7238, 26 October 1901, Page 4

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

« . THE BEST POSSIBLE SUCCESSOR TO MR M'tLNLEY. (By HENRY XORiMAX M.P., in the "Daily Mail.") The American people have such a President as they have never had before. sides the public fact that every bod j- knows, my memory gives me some private data for comparison. The lirst American Chief Magistrate I ever spoke to was President 'Hayes. I was as undergraduate then, visiting) Washington for the iirst time, and a Xcw York friend had given me a letter of introduction to tho President and told me to call at the White -House. President Hayes was a courteous gentleman of high personal character, but there was nothing whatever great about him. He owed his position to the facl that irreconcilable, sections compromised upon him, and 'the historian will have nothing to say about him except that he was upright and dignified. " You arc an Englishman, Mr Xorman," lie said to me, " although you arc at Harvard?" "Yes, Mr President." "Then," he replied, and I well remember how he traced the pattern of the carpet with his foot as he spoke, "you escape one danger which hangs over every American boy — you will never have to come here !"' The second President I had the honour of meeting was Mr Cleveland during his first term of office. I was older then, aud I brought him a letter from a prominent man in ]S T ew York to whom he was under great- political obligations — whose support, in fact, had done more, than anything" else to win for him the " mugwump " vote, so he received mo with special courtesy. The third time I was received by an American President was under veiy different circumstances. I had been in Washington for six weeks fighting hard, by a cabled colmun every day, for the principle of arbitration in the Venezuelan dispute. My despatches were copied widely at home, thye were reproduced daily in every American paper, Mr Curzon in reply was making in Parliament the best of a bad case, and a certain London newspaper was accusing me of anti-patriotism and declaring, through its American correspondent, that President Cleveland would not receive me. Needless to say that as I was occupied with such a, delicate international controversy I had never dreamed of even attempting to see the President, whose position would havo made such an interview, at such a time, highly improper. But when the fight was over, and it was clear that Mr Olney had won, and that Lord Salisbury had completely reversed his policy and agreed to submit the Schomburgk Line to arbitration, it was conveyed to me the day before I was leaving Washington that Mr Cleveland would be pleased to receive me if I called to take leave of him. That interview was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and it left upon my mind an ineffaceable impression of the President's inflexible character and iron will. A TRUE DEMOCRAT. This is the point at which a comparison naturally suggests itself with President Roosevelt. I was at college with him at Harvard, but we were not thrown much together, although we had many frineds in common, for he was in his last year and I was in my first. In later years, however, I have had the opportuity of following his remarkable career pretty closely, and its one chief aspect is that he has been " ever a fighter." Of powerful physique, overflowing with nervous energy, tireless in conversation, inexhaustible in ideas, he also possesses in a high degree that invaluable quality "which is often' disparagingly calied obstinacy. In Mr Cleveland's character there is an element of brutality ; in Colonel Roosevelt's the same metal is of finer temper. He is a man of birth and breeding, and a scholar — in fact, lie became tliu latter by force of circumstances. The strong Democratic President is a man of colossal bulk, whose armchair has to be specially made for him, who is averse from exercise, whose one sport it is to sit still and shoot ducks, whose strength of will lies chiefly in' his confident and phelgmatic indifference ; the strong Republican President has no superfluous flesh, he is the horseman, the hunter, the boxer, the roughrider, whose difficulty is to sit still and not to care. When he was wanted to be told of the unexpected collapse of President M'Kinley, ho was found deer-hunting on tbe top of a mountain 1 . But so far Irom his birth and training giving him che mind of the aristocrat, I should say that of the rwo strong men Colonel Roosevelt is at heart the truer Democrat, the more entirely satisfied by conviction with a Republican form of government, the .surer in- confident, reliance upon the will and wisdom of the people. Mr Cleveland, under other skies, might- havu been a despot ; Colonel Roosevelt never. He would never have been able to resist his natural impulse to mix freely and equally with his fellow-men. It is within the bannds of possibility that President Roosevelt may quarrel with the Senate or even with, his Cabinet ; it is «;i fe to prophesy that lie will nevtr quarrel with the American people. He is the urnst popular man in the United States to-day, fur the .simple reason that the people havo learned of late that he is sincerely one >>f themselves. I know enough of his character and) aims, and have faith enough in his wisdom, to believe that his popularity today is nothing to what it will be three years hence. TWO ADVAXTAGES. President Roosevelt comes to the Whi'.o House with two important advantages over his predecessors in his high office. Fii.it. hi 1 hits a most unusual knowledge of his own country and people. He knows t-asr .vi.i west equally well— -the rough sense, the primitive prejudices, the sentimental heart of the West ; the traditions, the fear?, the deeper experience of the E;im. And lie knows Europe, too. But it is as the cosmopolitan of his own vast and multifi>r:i)us> country that he is rare among Americans. I was once sitting n>:xt to him at lunch at a club in Xtw York where hnlf ;i dozer, men of unusual influence- and position v.cro gathered round the table. Two of them were discussing affairs in a certain parr of the West where I happened to have bce:i. Sir Roosevelt listened, as 1 could see, with stupefaction. At last he turned and whispered 'to me, "If yen hadn't lie.u'.l it, could you have believed tlmfiwo such iron could be so ignorant of their own country? ' To have been Governor of 2\e\v York Sta'i: is also, of course, an invaluable- training, but it. is not unique for a President. To have been Chief Comnit.'-si'iiier of Pohco <'£ "Xew York, however, is to liave. conic ir.t" personal and 7-e. c pon?ib]e contact wii-3i mon and problems in a. manner "which no oihpr position could have affonUd. Problems c.( l"><i]ioo, as we in Europe- should oall them, are likely enough to arise in' serious shape in the United StotFs before long, ami no m.in cfiul'l- be b?ttor fitted to de.'il with thfm so f;ir ns iln?y call for federal action. In the s-coond pl.iro, President Roosevelt ocmes to office unpledged-.-the representative cf nr> interests, the nominee of in> ffotion. lieynnd loyalty to his parly— arid party divisions are very thin in America to-day — he has no servicts to reward, nu election promises to keep, lm political bills to meet. It is well known, that he did hi? best, to avoid becoming Vice-President, for that office is usually thf- end cf a man's public career. Tt leads to nothing, and vet it is too big for a m:).-n to mire fri.ni it to anything t'lsp. And Vice-President? iKvr-r bat-cmc Prcst<ifnls execs jit- via tmUistiophe. It was. thvii-t i;p..i\ iiiiu f,, r two renNr.ns : Fir-i, liial the Rrpub'.ii.-iui "lickrl " might, enjoy the almost indi.speii.Niliie a:lvi»nt;tire «-■!' hi* personal ponul:uj(y ; and, s<.T<.<nd. that he

misrlit in future be nut of the pcliticnl path <if his enemies. Fate has hoisted tnem wiili their own petard. 11 IS ATTITUDE TOWARDS ENGLAND. Evmbudy here will be as-kin g what are the ni'w i'Vehident's feelings toward our-s-clvcs. The question ia easily ai).->w<died. it is idle, and worse, to discuss whether he i.-. by sympathy pro -Hot r or pro-Brite-n. lie is assuredly nut the former, and hardly more the latltY. lie is, and will bo, first, last, and all the time, as they smy, proAiuerkau. He will cuitainly take a strong and hank line in fonigu affairs, but it will bs on that basis alone. I am sure that lie will be delighted for his country to be on the best ct terms with mir own, but those terms will certainly include what we may regard as essential American rights. To play the bully would be as foreign to him in international relations as in private life. With Mich a man, a straightforward, honest, definite foreign policy, if we are fortunate enough to secure it in the future, gladly yielding to America what is essential to her own security and dignity, and asking of her only what is equally necessary to ourselves, should have an t'asy and pleasant task. We have no desire to infringe- American rights or desires in any way, and so far as other nations occupy the same position they will find no -difficulty in dealing with the administration of President Roosevelt. If they have other aims, I do not envy them their attempts to realise them. For my own part, kur.wing the man and the c:uritry <vtr which in such tragic circumstances lie- is culled to preside, I ! do not believe tlmt among all the millions ■of Americans a better man could have baen found to succeed the third martyred President than the' av.o upon whom Providence has unexpectedly laid the heavy responsibility, whether r.s regards the- welfareof 'his own land or its influence among the nations. ■