CHAPTER THREE

_The President_

The President of the United States is elected by the people every four years. He may be re-elected and, so far as the Constitution provides, he may hold the first position in the land for life, by terms always of four years at a time. A certain unwritten law, however, forbids his holding office for more than two terms. George Washington was elected for two terms, and after him Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley; that is, nine out of twenty presidents have received this distinction. No president has served a third term of office, because since Washington declined to be nominated for a third time the conservative sense of the Americans has cherished the doctrine that no man should stand at the helm of the nation longer than eight years.

At the present day it is urged from many sides that the provisions of the Constitution ought to be changed. It is said that the frequently recurring presidential elections, with the popular excitement which they involve during the months immediately preceding, are an appreciable disturbance to economic life and that the possibility of being re-elected is too apt to make the President in the first term of office govern his actions with an eye to his second election. It is proposed, therefore, that every President shall be elected for six years and that re-election shall be forbidden by the Constitution. Experience of the past, however, hardly speaks for such a plan. The inclination shown by the President to yield to popular clamours or the instances of his party has been very different with different presidents, but on the whole it has not been noticeably greater in the first than in the second term of office. More especially, the disadvantages which come from the excitement over elections are certainly made up for by the moral advantage which the act of election brings to the people. The presidential election is a period of considerable reflection and examination of the country’s condition, and everybody is worked up to considerable interest; and the more changeable the times are so much the more rapidly new problems come up. Therefore there should be no thought of putting the decisive public elections, with their month-long discussions, at further intervals apart.

The most important duties and prerogatives of the President involve foreign as well as domestic affairs, and of the latter the most important concern the administration; a less important, although by no means an insignificant, part of his duties relates to legislation. The President is commander-in-chief of the army and of the navy, and with the approval of a majority of the Senate he appoints ambassadors, consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all the higher federal officials. Subject to the ratification of two-thirds of the Senate, he concludes treaties with foreign powers and regulates diplomatic relations. He has, moreover, the right to send back inside of ten days, with his veto, any bill which Congress has passed, and in this case the bill can become law only by being once more voted on by Congress and receiving in both houses a two-third’s majority. The President has the power to convene both houses in special sessions, and is expected to send messages to both houses when they meet, in which he describes the political situation of the country and recommends new measures. In addition to this he has the right of pardon and the right to afford protection to individual states against civil violence, if they cannot themselves quell the disturbance.

Such are the principal features of the presidential office, and it is clear that here as everywhere in American civil law the spirit of precaution has tried from the outset to limit the possibilities of abuse. Although he is commander-in-chief of the army, the President has not the right to declare war, this right being given to Congress. The President negotiates with foreign representatives and signs all treaties, but these are not valid until the Senate has approved them with a two-thirds vote. He nominates government officials, but once again only with the sanction of the Senate. The President convenes Congress and recommends matters for its legislative consideration, but the President cannot, like the German Government, lay bills before Congress for its ratification. While the President sends his message to Congress his ministers have not, as in Germany, a seat in parliament, and cannot, therefore, in the debates actively support the President’s policy.

The President is authorized to veto any bill that is passed through Congress, but his veto is not final since the bill can still become a law if Congress is sufficiently of one accord to override his veto. Therefore a whimsical or arbitrary president would find small scope for his vagaries so long as he keeps within his powers, while if he exceeds them he can be impeached, like a king under old English law. The House of Representatives can at any time file complaint against the President if he is suspected of treason or corruption or any other crime. In such case the Senate, under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme bench, constitutes a court of trial which is empowered to depose the President from office. Up to the present time but one president, Andrew Johnson, has been impeached, and he was acquitted. The seditionary ambition of a man who should try to gain complete control, to overthrow the Constitution, and at the head of the army, or of the populace, or, as might be more likely, of the millionaires, to institute a monarchy, would have no chance of success. Neither a Napoleon nor a Boulanger would be possible in America.

In spite of these provisions, it is to be observed that tremendous power is in the hands of this one man. Thousands and thousands of officials appointed by his predecessor can be removed by a stroke of his pen, and none can take their places except those whom he nominates. And he can put a barrier before any law such as Congress could only in exceptional cases ride over. Cleveland, for instance, who to be sure made the freest use of his authority in this respect, vetoed more than three hundred bills, and only twice did Congress succeed in setting aside his veto. The President may negotiate with foreign powers up to the point where a loyal and patriotic Congress has hardly any choice but to acquiesce. The President can virtually force Congress to a declaration of war, and if insurrection breaks out in any state he can at his pleasure employ the federal troops on behalf of one or the other faction, and when war has once been declared the presidential authority grows hourly in importance. The army and navy stand under his direction, and since the Constitution makes him responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the country he becomes virtually dictator in case of an insurrection. Bryce says very justly that Abraham Lincoln exercised more power than any man in England since Oliver Cromwell, and the anti-imperialistic papers of America always assert that in their Philippine policy McKinley and Roosevelt have taken on themselves more authority than any European monarch, excepting the Czar, could acquire.

In two respects the President is more important as compared with the representatives of the people, even in times of peace, than the king of England or the President of France. Firstly, his cabinet is entirely independent of the voice of parliament, and it has often been the case that while a majority in Congress sharply opposed the party policy of the President, this has not influenced the composition of his cabinet. The cabinet ministers are the representatives of the presidential policy, and they do not even take part in the doings of Congress.

Secondly, the President is not less but rather more than Congress a representative of the people. A monarch who takes up a position against the parliament thereby antagonizes the people. The President of France is elected by the people, but only through their parliamentary representatives; the chambers elect him, and therefore he is not an independent authority. The President of the United States, on the other hand, is in his own person a symbol of the collective will of the people, as opposed to the different members of Congress, which is of diverse composition and chosen on more local issues. There is moral authority, therefore, vested in the President. He is the true will of the people and his veto is their conscience. It is almost astonishing that a Republican democracy should have put such tremendous power into the hands of a single man. It is the more striking inasmuch as the Declaration of Independence related at length the sins of the English monarch. But we must bear in mind that the framers of the Constitution had to make a new and dangerous experiment, wherein they were much more afraid of that so far unknown and incalculable factor, the rule of the people, than the power of that single person whose administrative possibilities they had, in the colonial days, been able to observe in the governors of the several states. These had been diminutive but, on the whole, encouraging examples. Before all else the great and incomparable George Washington, the popular, dashing, and yet cautious aristocrat, had presided at the deliberations in which the Constitution was discussed, and had himself stood tangibly before the popular mind as the very ideal of a president.

Thus the President stands with tremendous powers at the helm of the nation. Who has sought him out for this position from the hundreds of thousands, whose hot ambition has led them to dream of such a distinction, and who has finally established him in this highest elective office on the face of the earth? The Constitution makes no other provision for the selection of a candidate than that he shall have been born in the land, that he shall be at least thirty-five years old, and shall have resided at least fourteen years in this his native country. On the other hand, the Constitutional provisions for his election are highly complicated, much more so indeed than the circumstances really call for. In fact, while the electoral procedures still comply with the wording of the original Constitution, actual conditions have so changed since the establishment of the Union that the prescribed machinery is not only partly unnecessary, but in some cases even works in opposition to what had been originally intended, and inconsistently with itself. The law requires, merely to mention the main point, that every state shall elect by popular vote a certain number of men who are called electors, and that a majority of the electors shall choose the President. For each state the number of electors is the same as that of the representatives which it sends to both houses of Congress together; it depends, therefore, on the number of inhabitants. Out of the 447 electors, 36 come from the State of New York, 32 from Pennsylvania, 24 from Illinois, 23 from Ohio, 15 from Massachusetts, but only 4 from Colorado, Florida, or New Hampshire; and only 3 from Delaware, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, and several others. In case the vote of the electors should give no absolute majority to any candidate, the House of Representatives has to elect the President from among the three candidates who have received the greatest number of electoral votes.

The intention of the men who framed the Constitution in making these roundabout electoral provisions is clear enough; the election was not meant to be made directly by the people. When in the first discussions of the Constitution it was suggested that the President be elected directly by the people, some of the framers called the scheme chimerical and others called it impracticable. Indeed, some even doubted whether the people would be competent to choose the electors since, it was said, they would know too little about the persons and so would be liable to grave errors. This mistrust went so far, it is said, that leaving the election of the highest executives directly to the people seemed as unnatural as asking a blind man to match colors. The first plan which was at all approved by the Assembly was that Congress should elect the President; and not until later did it adopt the system of electors. It was hoped that for the electoral college the people would select the best, most experienced, and most cautious men of the country, and that these men should be left quite free to choose the highest executive as carefully and conscientiously as possible: and so it really happened when the electors met for the first time and fixed unanimously on George Washington.

But the situation is somewhat changed to-day: for a hundred years it has been the case that the electors have inevitably been deprived of all free choice. They are as passive as a printed ballot. They are no longer elected in order to come to a decision as to the best President, but merely to vote for this or that special candidate as designated, and for a hundred years not a single elector has disappointed this expectation. Thus the election of the President is practically accomplished on the day in November when the electors are voted for. McKinley defeated Bryan for the Presidency on the ninth of November, 1900, although no elector had officially voted for either one or the other; nor would he have a chance to vote until the first day of January, when he was mechanically to deposit his ballot.

The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has therefore become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole machinery of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be said to have become contradictory in itself.

Since the original intention to make an electoral college of the best citizens has been frustrated by the popular spirit of self-determination, the electoral apparatus can have to-day no other significance than to give expression to the voice of the majority. But now just this it is in the power of the electoral system completely to suppress. Let us suppose that only two candidates are in question. If the election were simply a direct one, of course that candidate would win who received the most votes; but with electors this is not the case, because the number of electors who are pledged to vote for these two candidates need not at all correspond to the number of ballots cast on the two sides. If in the State of New York, for instance, three-fifths of the population are for the first candidate and two-fifths for the second, the three-fifths majority determines the whole list of 36 electors for the first candidate, and not an elector would be chosen for the other. Now it can very well happen that a candidate in those states in which he secures all the electors will have small majorities, that is, his opponent will have large minorities, while his opponent in the states which vote for him will have large majorities; and in this way the majority of electors will be pledged for that candidate who has received actually the smaller number of votes. It is a fact that both Hayes in 1877 and Harrison in 1889 were constitutionally elected for the Presidency by a minority of votes.

While in form the voters choose only the electors from their state, nevertheless these ballots thus actually count for a certain candidate. At the last election 292 electors voted for McKinley, and 155 for Bryan, while for the McKinley electors 832,280 more votes were cast than for the Bryan electors. We have already seen how it is that the best man will no longer, as in Washington’s time, be unequivocally elected by the people, and why, although a unanimous choice of President has not taken place since Washington’s time, nevertheless no more than two candidates are ever practically in question. It was for this that we have discussed the parties first. The parties are the factor which makes it impossible for a President to be elected without a contest, and which, as early as 1797, when the successor of Washington had to be nominated, divided the people in two sections, the supporters of Jefferson and of Adams. At the same time, however, the parties prevent the division from going further, and bring it about that this population of millions of people compactly organizes itself for Presidential elections in only two groups, so that although never less than two, still never more than two candidates really step into the arena.

For both great parties alike, with their central and local committees, with their professional politicians, with their leaders and their followers, whether engaging in politics out of interest or in hope of gain, as an ideal or as sport—for all alike comes the great day when the President is to be elected. For years previous the party leaders will have combined and dissolved and speculated and intrigued, and for years the friends of the possible candidates have spoken loudly in the newspapers, since here, of course, not only the election but also the nomination of the candidate depends on the people. Although the election is in November, the national conventions for nominating the party candidates come generally in July. Each state sends its delegation, numbering twice as many as the members of Congress from that state, and each delegation is once more duly elected by a convention of representatives chosen by the actual voters out of their party lists. In these national conventions the great battles of the country are fought, that is, within the party, and here the general trend of national politics is determined. It is the great trial moment for the party and the party heroes. At the last election McKinley and Bryan were the opposing candidates, and it is interesting to trace in their elections by the respective conventions two great types of party decision.

McKinley had grown slowly in public favour; he was the accomplished politician, the interesting leader of Congress, the sympathetic man who had no enemies. When the Republican convention met at Chicago, in 1888, he was a member of the delegation from Ohio and was pledged to do his utmost for the nomination of John Sherman. The ballots were cast five different times and every time no one candidate was found to have a majority. On the sixth trial one vote was cast for McKinley, and the announcement of this vote created an uproar. A sudden shifting of the opinions took place amid great acclamation, and the delegations all went over to him. He jumped up on a stool and called loudly through the hall that he should be offended by any man who voted for him since he himself had been pledged to vote for Sherman. Finally a compromise was found in Benjamin Harrison. At the convention in Minneapolis four years later McKinley was chairman, and once more the temptation came to him. The opponents of Harrison wished to oppose his re-election by uniting on the Ohio statesman, and again it was McKinley himself who turned the vote this time in favour of Harrison. His own time came finally in 1896. In the national convention at St. Louis 661 votes were cast in the first ballot for McKinley, while 84 were cast for Thomas Reed, 61 for Quay, 58 for Morton, and 35 for Allison. And when, in 1900, the national convention met in Philadelphia, 926 votes were straightway cast for McKinley, and none opposing. His was the steady, sure, and deserved rise from step to step through tireless exertions for his party and his country.

Bryan was a young and unknown lawyer, who had sat for a couple of years in the House of Representatives like any other delegate, and had warmly upheld bimetallism. At the Democratic national convention at Chicago in 1896 almost nobody knew him. But it was a curious crisis in the Democratic party. It had been victorious four years previous in its campaign for Cleveland against Harrison, but the party as such had enjoyed no particular satisfaction. The self-willed and determined Cleveland, who had systematically opposed Congress tooth and nail, had fallen out with his party and nowhere on the horizon had appeared a new leader. And after a true statesman like Cleveland had come to grief, the petty politicians, who had neither ideas nor a programme, came to their own. Every one was looking for a strong personality when Bryan stepped forth to ingratiate himself and his silver programme in the affections of his party. His arguments were not new, but his catch-words were well studied, and here at last stood a fascinating personality with a forceful temperament which was all aglow, and with a voice that sounded like the tones of an organ. And when he cried out, “You must not nail humanity to a cross of gold,” it was as if an omen had appeared. He became at once the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and six months later six and one-half million votes were cast for him against the seven million for McKinley. Nor did the silver intoxication succumb to its first defeat. When the Democrats met again in 1900, all the endeavours of those who had adhered to a gold currency were seen to be futile. Once again the silver-tongued Nebraskan was carried about in triumph, and not until its second defeat did the Democratic party wake up. Bryanism is now a dead issue, and before the next Presidential election the programme of the Democratic party will be entirely reconstructed.

Thus the presidents of the nation grow organically out of the party structure, and the parties find in turn their highest duty and their reward in electing their President. The people organized in a party and the chief executive which that party elects belong necessarily together. They are the base and the summit. Nothing but death can overthrow the decision of the people; death did overthrow, indeed, the last decision after a few months, in September, 1901, when the cowardly assassination accomplished by a Polish anarchist brought the administration of McKinley to an end. As the Constitution provides, the man whom the people had elected to the relatively insignificant office of Vice-President became master in the White House.

The Vice-Presidency is from the point of view of political logic the least satisfactory place in American politics. Very early in the history of the United States the filling of this office occasioned many difficulties, and at that time the provisions of the Constitution referring to it were completely worked over. The Constitution had originally said that the man who had the second largest number of votes for the Presidency should become Vice-President. This was conceived in the spirit of the time when the two-party system did not exist and when it was expected that the electors should not be restricted by the voting public in their choice of the best man. As soon, however, as the opposition between the two parties came into being, the necessary result of such provision was that the presidential candidate of the defeated party should become Vice-President, and therefore that President and Vice-President should always represent diametrically opposed tendencies. A change in the Constitution did away with this political impossibility. Each elector was instructed to deposit separate ballots for President and Vice-President, and that candidate became Vice-President who received the largest number of votes for that office, both offices being thus invariably filled by candidates of the same party.

In spite of this the position has developed rather unsatisfactorily for an obvious reason. The Constitution condemns the Vice-President, so long as the President holds office, to an ornamental inactivity. It is his duty to preside at sessions of the Senate, a task which he for the most part performs silently, and which has not nearly the political significance enjoyed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. On the other hand, men still in the prime of life are almost always elected to the Presidency; the possibility is therefore almost always lost sight of that the President can die before the expiration of his four years’ term of office. The result has been that less distinguished men, who have, nevertheless, served their parties, are usually chosen for this insignificant and passive rôle. The office is designed to be an honour and a consolation to them, and sometimes for one reason or another their candidacy is supposed otherwise to strengthen the outlook of the party. It is not accident that while in the several states the Lieutenant-Governor is very often the next man to be elected Governor, it has never so far happened that a Vice-President has been elected to the Presidency.

Now in the unexpected event of the President’s death a man stands at the helm whom no one really wants to see there; and it has five times happened that the chief executive of the nation has died in office, and four times, indeed, only a few months after being installed, so that the Vice-President has had to guide the destinies of the country for almost four years. When Tyler succeeded to the place of Harrison in 1841, there arose at once unfavourable disputes with the Whig party, which had elected him. When, after the murder of Lincoln in 1865, Johnson took the reins, it was his own Republican party which regretted having elected this impetuous man to the Vice-Presidency; and when, in 1881, after the assassination of Garfield, his successor, Arthur, undertook the office, and filled it indeed by no means badly, considerable consternation was felt throughout the country when people saw that so ordinary a professional politician was to succeed Garfield, on whom the country had pinned its faith.

On the death of McKinley a Vice-President succeeded him toward whom, in one respect at least, the feeling was very different. If ever a man was born to become President that man was Theodore Roosevelt. Nevertheless, he had not been elected in expectation of becoming President, and at first the whole country felt once more that it was a case which had lain outside of all reasonable calculations. Roosevelt’s friends had asked him to make a sacrifice and to accept a thankless office because they knew that his name on the ballot of the Republican party—for his Rough Rider reputation during the war was still fresh—would be pretty sure to bring about the election of McKinley. The opponents also of this strong and energetic young man, against his stoutest protestations, upheld his candidacy with every means in their power. Firstly because they wanted to get rid of him as Governor of the State of New York, where he made life too hard for the regular politicians, and secondly because they relied on the tradition that holding the Vice-Presidency would invalidate him as a Presidential candidate in 1904. Neither friends nor enemies had thought of such a possibility as McKinley’s death. Roosevelt’s friends had rightly judged; the hero of San Juan did bring victory to his party. His enemies, on the other hand, had entirely missed their mark not only on the outcome, but from the very beginning. Odell became Governor of New York, and quite unexpectedly he stood out even more stoutly against the political corruptionists. And, on the other hand, Roosevelt’s impulsive nature quickly found ways to break the traditional silence of the Vice-President and to keep himself before the eyes of the world. There is no doubt that in spite of all traditions his incumbency would have been a preparation for the presidential candidacy. But when, through the crime committed at Buffalo, everything came out so differently from that which the politicians expected, it seemed to the admirers of Roosevelt almost like the tragic hand of fate; he had done his best to attain on his own account the Presidency, and now it came to him almost as the gift of chance. Only the next election may be expected to do him full justice.

The successive moments in his rapid rise are generally known. Roosevelt was born in New York in 1858, his father being a prosperous merchant and well-known philanthropist, and a descendant of an old Knickerbocker family. The son was prepared for college and went to Harvard, where he made a special study of history and political economy. After that he travelled in Europe, and when he was still only twenty-four years old, he plunged into politics. He soon obtained a Republican seat in the state legislature of New York, and there commenced his tireless fight for reform in municipal and state administration. In 1889 President Harrison appointed him Commissioner of the Civil Service, but he resigned this position in 1895 in order to become Chief of Police in New York. Only two years later he was once more called from municipal to national duties. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. All this time his administrative duties did not interrupt his literary, historical, and scientific work. He had begun his career as an author with his studies in the history of the navy and his admirable biographies of American statesmen. When he was thirty years old he wrote the first part of his great work, “The Winning of the West,” and often between the publication of his scientific works he published lesser books, describing his adventures as huntsman in the primeval wilderness, and later on volumes in which his social and political essays were collected.

Then the Spanish War arose and the Assistant Secretary could not bear to sit at his desk while others were moving to the field of battle. He gathered about him a volunteer regiment of cavalry, in which the dare-devil cow-punchers of the prairie rode side by side with the adventurous scions of the most distinguished families in Boston and New York. Roosevelt’s friend, Wood, of the regular army, became Colonel in this soon-famous regiment, and Roosevelt himself Lieutenant-Colonel. A few days after they had successfully stormed the hill at San Juan, Wood became General and Roosevelt Colonel.

His native State of New York received him on his home-coming with general rejoicing, and he found himself a few months later Governor of the State. At Albany he showed tremendous energy, put through popular reforms, and fought against the encroachments of the industrial corporations. It had been his personal wish to be Governor for a second year, but this was denied him by the admirable doings of his Eastern enemies and Western admirers at the national convention of June, 1900, held in Pennsylvania, where he was forced to become candidate for the position of Vice-President. On the 14th of September, 1901, in Buffalo, he took the Presidential oath of office.

At that time a quiet anxiety for the future was mingled with the honest sorrow which the whole land felt for the death of McKinley. A nation which had been sunning itself in peace suddenly found itself under the leadership of an impulsive colonel of cavalry, who carried in his hand the banner of war. The nation was in the midst of an economic development which needed before everything else to have a mature and careful leader who was honoured and trusted by all classes, and who would be able to effect some work of reconciliation between them; when suddenly there stood in the place of a most conservative statesman an impetuous young man who was not intimately connected with industrial life, who had for a long time made himself unpopular with party politicians, and whom even his admirers in the land seemed hardly to trust on account of his hasty and determined impetuosity. Roosevelt had been envisaged by the masses, through the cinematograph of the press, in campaign hat and khaki uniform, just in the attitude of taking San Juan hill. Nearly everybody forgot that he had for a long time quietly carried on the exacting labours of Police Commissioner in the largest city of the country; and forgot how, from his first year of study at Harvard on, every day had been given to preparing himself for public service and for acquiring a thorough understanding of all the political, social, and economic problems which the country had to face; they forgot also that he had wielded the sword for only a few months, but the pen of the historian for about two decades. Roosevelt’s first public utterance was a pledge to continue unchanged the peaceful policy of his predecessor and always to consider the national prosperity and honour. Still, people felt that no successor would be able to command that experience, maturity, and party influence which McKinley had had.

There have been differences of opinion, and, as was to be expected, complaints and criticisms have come from the midst of his own party. Yet anyone who looks at his whole administration will see that in those first years Roosevelt won a more difficult and brilliant victory than he had won over the Spanish troops.

He had three virtues which especially overcame all small criticism. The people felt, in the first place, that a moral force was here at work which was more powerful than any mere political address or diplomatic subtlety. An immediate ethical force was here felt which owned to ideas above any party, and set inner ideals above merely outward success. Roosevelt’s second virtue was courage. A certain purely ethical ideal exalted above all petty expediencies was for him not only the nucleus of his own creed, but was also his spring of action; and he took no account of personal dangers. Here was the keynote of all his speeches—it is not enough to approve of what is right, it is equally necessary to act for it fearlessly and unequivocally. Then he went on to his work, and if, indeed, in complicated political situations the President has had at times to clinch some points by aid of compromise, nevertheless the nation has felt with growing confidence that at no serious moment has he wavered a hair’s breadth from the straight line of his convictions, and that he has had the courage to disregard everything but what he held to be right. And, thirdly, Roosevelt had the virtue of being sincere.

McKinley also had purposed to do right, but he had hardly an occasion for displaying great courage since so incomparably discreet a politician as he was could avoid every conflict with his associates, and he was ever the leader on highways which the popular humour had indicated. Thus the masses never felt that he was at bottom lacking in courage or that he always put off responsibility on others. The masses did, however, instinctively feel that McKinley’s astute and kindly words were not always sincere; his words were often there to conceal something which was locked up behind his Napoleonic forehead. And now there succeeded him an enthusiast who brimmed over with plain expressions of what he felt, and whose words were so convincingly candid and so without reservation that every one had the feeling of being in the personal confidence of the President.

There was a good deal more besides his moral earnestness, his courage, and his frank honesty which contributed to Roosevelt’s entire success. His lack of prejudice won the lower classes, and his aristocratic breeding and education won the upper, while the middle classes were enthusiastic over his sportsmanship. No President had been more unprejudiced or more truly democratic. He met the poor miner on the same footing as he met the mine owner; he invited the negro to the White House; he sat down and broke bread with the cow-boys; and when he travelled he first shook the sooty hand of the locomotive engineer before he greeted the gentlemen who had gathered about in their silk hats. And, nevertheless, he was in many years the first real aristocrat to become President. The changes in the White House itself were typical. This venerable Presidential dwelling had been, up to Roosevelt’s time, in its inner arrangements a dreary combination of bare offices, somewhat crudely decorated private dwelling, and cheerless reception-halls. To-day it is a very proper palace, containing many fine works of art, and office-seekers no longer have access to the inner rooms. His predecessors, the Clevelands and Harrisons and McKinleys, had been, in fact, very respectable philistines. They had come from the middle classes of the country, which are in thought and feeling very different from that upper class which, up to a short time ago, had bothered itself less about practical politics than about general culture, literature, art, criticism, and broadly conceived industrial operations, combined with social high-life. This class, however, had begun at length to feel that it ought not to disdain to notice political abuses, to walk around the sea of troubles; but had begun to take up arms and by opposing end them. Aristocracy had too long believed in political mercenaries.

Roosevelt was the first to lift himself from these circles and become a great leader. Not alone the nobility of his character but also of his culture and traditions was shown in his entire habit of mind. Never in his speeches or writings has he cited that socially equalizing Declaration of Independence, and while his speeches at banquets and small gatherings of scholarly men have been incomparably more fascinating than his strenuous utterances to the voters, which he has made on his public tours, it has been often less the originality of his thoughts and still less the peculiarly taking quality of his delivery, than the evidences of ripe culture, which seem to pervade his political thought. Thus the smaller the circle to which he speaks the greater is his advantage; and in speaking with him personally on serious problems one feels that distinction of thought, breadth of historical outlook, and confidence in self have united in him to create a personality after the grand manner.

The impression which Roosevelt has made on his own country has not been more profound than his influence on the galaxy of nations. At the very hour when the United States by their economic and territorial expansion stepped into the circle of world powers, they had at their head a personality who, for the first time in decades, had been able to make a great, characteristic, and, most of all, a dramatic impression on the peoples of Europe. And if this hour was to be made the most of it was not enough that this leader should by his impulsiveness and self-will, by his picturesque gestures and effective utterance, chain the attention of the masses and excite all newspaper readers, but he must also win the sympathies of the keener and finer minds, and excite some sympathetic response in the heads of monarchies. A second Lincoln would never have been able to do this, and just this was what the moment demanded. The nation’s world-wide position in politics needed some comparable expansion in the social sphere. Other peoples were to welcome their new comrades not only in the official bureau but also in the reception-room, and this young President had always at his command a graceful word, a tactful expedient, and a distinguished and hospitable address. He was, in short, quite the right man.

Any new person taking hold so firmly has to disturb a good many things; busied with so much, he must overturn a good deal which would prefer to be left as it was. The honest man has his goodly share of enemies. And it is not to be denied that Roosevelt has the failings of his virtues, and these have borne their consequences. Many national dangers, which are always to be feared from officials of Roosevelt’s type, are largely obviated by the democratic customs of the country. He lives amid a people not afraid to tell him the whole truth, and every criticism reaches his ear. And there is another thing not less important: democracy forces every man into that line of activity for which the nation has elected him. A somewhat overactive mind like Roosevelt’s has opinions on many problems, and his exceptional political position easily betrays one at first into laying exceptional weight on one’s own opinions about every subject. But here the traditions of the country have been decisive; it knows no President for general enlightenment, but only a political leader whose private opinions outside politics are of no special importance. In this as in other respects Roosevelt has profited by experience. There is no doubt that when he came to the White House he underestimated the power of Senators and party leaders. The invisible obstructions, which were somehow hidden behind the scenes, have no doubt given him many painful lessons. In his endeavour to realize so many heartfelt convictions, he has often met with arbitrary opposition made simply to let the new leader feel that obstructions can be put in his way unless he takes account of all sorts of factors. But these warnings have really done him no harm, for Roosevelt was not the man to be brought by them into that party subserviency which had satisfied McKinley. They merely held him back from that reckless independence which is so foreign to the American party spirit, and which in the later years of Cleveland’s administration had worked so badly. Indeed, one might say that the outcome has been an ideal synthesis of Cleveland’s consistency and McKinley’s power of adaptation.

For the fanatics of party Roosevelt has been, of course, too independent, while to the opponents of party he has seemed too yielding. Both of these criticisms have been made, in many different connections, since everywhere he has stood on a watch tower above the fighting lines of any party. When in the struggles between capital and labour he seriously took into account the just grievances of the working-man he was denounced as a socialist. And when he did not at once stretch out his hand to demolish all corporations he was called a servant of the stock exchange. When he appointed officials in the South without reference to their party allegiance, the Republicans bellowed loudly; and when he did not sanction the Southern outrages against the negro the Democrats became furious. When everything is considered, however, he has observed the maxim of President Hayes, “He best serves his party who serves his country best.”

In this there has been another factor at work. Roosevelt may not have had McKinley’s broad experience in legislative matters, nor have known the reefs and bars in the Congressional sea, but for the executive office, for the administration of civil service and the army and navy, for the solution of federal, civil, and municipal problems his years of study and travel have been an ideal preparation. Behind his practical training he has had the clear eye of the historian. The United States had their proverbial good luck when the Mephistos of the Republican party prevailed on the formidable Governor of New York to undertake the thankless office of Vice-President. If this nomination had gone as the better politicians wished it to go, the death of McKinley would have placed a typical politician at the helm instead of the best President which the country has had for many years.

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The President is closely associated with the Cabinet, and he is entirely free in his choice of advisers. There is no question here of the influence of majorities on the composition of the ministry, as there is in England or France. In this way Cleveland, in his second term, had already announced by his choice of cabinet ministers that he should go his own ways regardless of the wire-pullers of the party. He gave the Secretaryship of War to his former private secretary; the position of Postmaster-General to his former partner in law; the Secretaryship of Justice to a jurist who had never taken any interest in politics. His Secretary of the Interior was a personal friend, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs a man who shortly before had left the ranks of the Republican party to become a Cleveland Democrat. The Secretaryships of Commerce and the Treasury were the sole cabinet positions which were given to well-known party leaders. The very opposite was to have been expected from a man of McKinley’s disposition. Even when he became the chief executive of the country he remained the devoted servant of his party, and just as his success was owing in large part to his sympathetic relations with all the important factions in Congress, so the success of his Cabinet was due to his having chosen none but men who had enjoyed for a long time the confidence of the party.

Roosevelt did at the outset an act of political piety when he left the Cabinet, for the time being, unchanged. It was at the same time a capital move toward reassuring public opinion, which had stood in fear of all sorts of surprises, owing to his impetuous temperament. Slowly, however, characteristic readjustments were made and a new cabinet office was created under his administration, the Secretaryship of Commerce and Labour. This was entrusted to Cortelyou, who had been the private secretary of two presidents, and who, through his tact, discretion, and industry, had contributed not a little to their practical success.

The highest minister in order of rank is the Secretary of State, who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and who, in the case that both the President and Vice-President are unable to complete their term of office, assumes the Presidency. He is responsible for the diplomatic and consular representation of the United States and he alone negotiates with representatives of foreign powers at Washington; moreover, it is through him that the President treats with the separate states of the Union. He publishes the laws passed by Congress and adds his signature to all of the President’s official papers. He is, next to the President, so thoroughly the presiding spirit of the administration that it is hardly a mistake to compare him to the Chancellor of the German Empire. It happens at the moment that the present incumbent makes this comparison still more apt, since John Hay, the present Secretary of Foreign Affairs, resembles Count von Bülow in several ways. Both have been in former years closely affiliated to the national heroes of the century, both have gotten their training in various diplomatic positions, both are resourceful, accommodating, and brilliant statesmen, and both have a thoroughly modern temperament, intellectual independence bred of a broad view of the world, both are apt of speech and have fine literary feeling. Hay was the secretary of President Lincoln until Lincoln’s death, and has been secretary of the embassies in France, Austria, and Spain, has taken distinguished place in party politics, has been Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to England, and in 1898 was placed at the head of foreign affairs. His “Ballads,” “Castilian Days,” and “Life of Lincoln,” call to mind his literary reputation.

How far foreign affairs are really conducted by the President and how far by the Secretary of State is, of course, hard to say, but, at any rate, the representatives of foreign powers treat officially only with the Secretary, who has his regular days for diplomatic consultation, so that the relations of foreign representatives to the President, after their first official introduction, remain virtually social. Yet all important measures are undertaken only with the approval of the President, and on critical questions of international politics the whole cabinet deliberates together. Hay’s personal influence came clearly before the public eye especially in his negotiations regarding the Central American canal, and in his handling of the Russian and Asiatic problems. Particularly after the Chinese imbroglio he came to be generally reputed the most astute and successful statesman of the day. It will probably not be far wrong to ascribe such tendencies in American politics as are friendly toward England chiefly to his influence. On the other hand, he is supposed to feel no special leanings toward Germany.

The Secretary of the Treasury is next in rank. He administers the Federal finances to all intents and purposes like a large banker, or, rather, like a bank president who should have Congress for his board of directors. Since customs and international revenues are levied by the Federal Government, and not by the several states, and since the expenditures for the army and navy, for the postal service, and for the Federal Government itself, the national debt and the mints come under Federal administration, financing operations are involved which are so extensive as to have a deciding influence on the banking system of the entire country.

The third official in rank is the Secretary of War, while the Secretary of the Navy holds only the sixth place, with the Attorney-General and the Postmaster-General in between. The General Staff of the Secretary of War, which was organized in 1903, is composed of officers of high rank, although the Secretary himself is a civilian. In the case of the army, as well as of the navy, the functions of the secretary are decidedly more important than those, say, of a Prussian Minister. They concern not only administration, but also, in case of war, are of decisive weight on the movements of all the forces, since the President as commander-in-chief has to act through these ministers. Elihu Root was for almost five years Secretary of War; and on his retirement in January, 1904, Roosevelt declared: “Root is the greatest man who has appeared in our times in the public life of any country, either in the New World or the Old.”

The position of Attorney-General is less comparable with a corresponding office in the German state. This minister of the President has no influence on the appointment of judges or the administration of the courts. The official representative of justice in the Cabinet is really an exalted lawyer, who is at the same time the President’s legal adviser. So far as appointments to office go, the Secretary of the Post Office Department has practically no influence regarding those who are under him, since the tremendous number of postal officials of any considerable importance have to be confirmed in their appointments by the Senate, so that the appointing power has virtually gone over to that body. On the other hand, the whole postal service is under his direction; but it is here not to be forgotten that the American railroads and, what the German may think more extraordinary, the telegraph lines, are not government property.

The Secretary of the Interior is merely a name for a great many unrelated administrative functions. In the long list of duties which fall to this office comes education, although this seemingly most important responsibility is really rather slight, since all educational matters fall to the separate states and the Federal Government has nothing to do but to give out statistics and information, to collect material, and to offer advice. The national Bureau of Education is not empowered to institute any practical changes. A much more important function, practically, of the Secretary of the Interior is the Pension Bureau, since the United States pay yearly about $138,000,000 in pensions. Other divisions are the Patent Office, which grants every year about 30,000 patents, the Railroad Bureau, the Indian Bureau, and the Geological Survey. The Secretary of Agriculture has not only certain duties connected with agriculture, but is also in charge of the Weather Bureau, and of zoölogical, botanical, and chemical institutes, and especially of the large number of scientific departments which indirectly serve the cause of agriculture. Last in rank comes the recently created Secretary of Commerce and Labour, who has charge of the Corporation Bureau, the Labour Bureau, the Census Bureau, and the Bureaus of Statistics, Immigration, and Fisheries.

There are some 240,000 positions under the direction of these ministers; and all of these, from ambassadors to letter-carriers, are in the national service and under the appointment of the President, and are entirely independent of the government of the separate states in which the offices are held.