THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 440, 10 January 1919, Page 1

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

( Written specially for the " Times.") The death of Mr Roosevelt removes the ujosr forceful mid striking pers >atility the United Urates tins prod iced since the greatest of her Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated in a theatre by a crazed actor fifty-five years ago. Vigorous and alert, both in mind and body, ''Teddy" (as he was affectionately called) bestrode the somewhat narrow stage of American politics like a Colossus, and did more to make the United States loom large in the eyes of tin world than any of hiscoun ry men, except the Lincoln aforesaid, have done since the Di-claration of Independence was signed. Kojsevelt was a direct descendant of oie of the Dutch patroons (landowns rs) from whom the English took what is now the State of New York nearly three hundred years ago. He had the heavy build of his ancestors, Couped with the characteristic sprightly briskness of the Yankee. Full of what his countrymen term "hurtle," he crowded into a year more than most people manage to get iato ten. Kapid in both thought and action, yet usually managed to think and act with sound judgment, and if he was a little too outspoken aud sincere to be a shining success as a party politician these verj qualities earned him the re;p'-ct even of those who did not give him their votes Essentially a man of action, Koosevelt when in offi'.e .never spared either himself or his subordinates. His activities were amaziug, and as the President is 11 continual mark for the newspaper paragraphist, it is little wonder that many people looked upon them as a species of po3e ; but they wero as much part of the man himself as the characteristic humourous anecdotes which Lincoln had pat for every occasion were of him. And if ho never rose to the heights of perfervid eloquence to which Lincoln on occasions soared, he yet possessed a fair share of that felicity of expression which perhaps Lloyd George alone of all living men possesses in perfection -the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time ia the happiest of all possible words And thus the cartoonist and the lampoonist, though they did not spare to make use of him, yet treated him with a tenderness in which there was plenty of mirth but no bitterness, as witness Harry Graham's delightful sketch of him in his inimitable " Misrepresentative Men '' : 11 At 6 am he'd shoot a bear At 8 he schooled a restive horse, From 10 to 4 he took the air, (He did not take it all of course) ; And then at 5 o'clock, maybe, Some coloured man dropped in t > tea. " Despite the sneers that foes have huiled, No problems can his soul perp! x ; He lectu'es women of the world Upon h" duties of their sex, Aud wi:ii unfailing c-.Uiajjfl thrus.!His spike within the wheels of Trusts " Had Roosfvelt been President of the United Sr*'P.i wh-n db'ltl'iuv plunged the worl i int > the greatest struggle in iiis'urv, we should have been spared the spectacle ul a nation hovering for two ja-irs up;,-, the biitik of an iv ti-> , whi-li even instinct of to'ii it -i'-tir ami s It preset vc.'ii n o'al! ' i ; ":' citizen-; '■ 110 wire worth c-i..-i-i-.aii ••■ p.-t>mp>d her to take «torsi.v He was tin very «utith6*is i f lb 1 vVii.-nn, an I with him to see the rijxht co ise whs instantly to swing into it. Had ho been in office the bieach of He yiutn'.-n-uiralitv, which Gesmmy let I pledged heiself to iivqi'ct, irou'd '■xve been tiie s jjnal foi tlm Am ncan fle-'t to sail to the North Si a, to be followed by the Aniejicui soldiers as fast as they could be muster d and. armed and the lives of c aimless thousands of the ilovier 01 Europe would have been saved. Statesman, soldier, man of letters, hunter and explorer, a warm and sincere friend, and a gonorous and magnanimous foe, Teddy will not be soon forgotten by his countrymen. With many triumphs, both tor himself and his country, to his credit, aud a few good honest blunders also, he will bo remember d as the sharpest spur America had to urge hev '0 j cast oil her indecision an 1 throw ! her weight upon tie-side of liberty and civilisation.