PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7239, 28 October 1901, Page 2

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

HIS OPINIONS ABOUT CASTE. President Roosevelt's action in inviting a negro professor to dine with him does not come as a surprise to those who !have read some of his public utterances. In an interview on "Americanism" in 1893. be said: — "It is an outrage for a man to drag foreign politics into our contests and vote as an Irishman or German, or other foreigner, as the case may be, and there is no worse citizen than, the professional Irish dynamiter or German Anarchist, because of his attitude towardi our social affid political life, not to mention his efforts to embroil us- with foreign powers. But it is no less an outrage to discriminate against one who has become an American in good faith, merely because of his creed or birthplace." Of caste he has written: — "As for tbe upper social world, the fashionable world, it is much as it was when portrayed in. the ' Potiphar" Papers,' save that modern society has shifted the shrine at which, it pays comical but sincere- 'homage- from Paris to London. Perhaps it is rat&er better, for it is less provincial and a trifle more American. But a would-be upper class, based mainly on wealth, in which it is the exception and not the rule for a man to be of any real account in the national life, whether as a politician, a literary man, cr otherwise, is of necessity radically defective and of little moment." SOME OF HIS WORKS. These utteranoes reveal the man. He has written much. The titles of some of his best works are! "Life of Thomas Benton," "Life of Gouverneur Morris," "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," " The Winning of the West," " History of New York City," "Essays on Practical Politics," "The Wilderness Hunter,'.' "Hero Tales from American History," and " Naval War of 1812." He is an intimaite of Jacob Riis, a tenement slums reformer; of Fi-edr dfirick Holls, secretary of The Hague Conference, and Senator Henry Cabot Ledge. His habits are simple, his life most strenuous. He docs not know the meaning of the word " idle," or of " misapplication." He has often been called a "typical American." The phrase fits him. HOME LlfcE SIMPLE. The President's family consists of his wife and six children. They have made their home for years at Oyster Bay, Long Island, a retreat much enjoyed' by fcba President himself, as well as his family. The home life is a simple one. Fashion, social custom, conventions, have had little to do with it. It has been- old-fashioned and delightful. Mrs Roosevelt is essentially part of the President's life. Husband^and wife are heartily in accord with 'one' another, and t&eir purposes are one. The eldest child is a daughter, Miss Alice, aged seventeen, and the next eldest, Theodore, is a boy of fourteen.