Untitled

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1919, Page 4

THE PASSING} OF ROOSEVELT. By the sudden death of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt America has lost one of her great men, and Britain has an ardent friend the less. Apart from his exceptional personality, he had gifts beyond the average of men in the front rank of world celebrities. A forceful writer, an expert orator, an extremist in many of his views, courageous and lionhearted, his career has been one of mingled popularity and the reverse; yet ho has always stood out as a virile and intellectual force in America and beyond. Had lie been more of a diplomat and less of a man of intense action regardless of what he said and did, and exercised restraint in the press and his views on the platform, there is little doub't he would for a third time have filled the presidential chair by defeating the present holder of that office; but he spared not his opponents, with the usual result—unpopularity and defeat. His strenuous advocacy of American intervention iii the war, after the Lusitania, was the outcome of an intense hatred of tlie Germans, while it proved his firm friendship with Britain and her allies—- ; except Russia. Had he been permitted he would have raised a force of Americans to take part ' *\ie war, but sanction was refused. Two <1 his sons went to the front, one neve. return. Sterling men like Roosevelt all too few, and •general regret wilt ■ felt at liia death. For many years lie has occupied a high place in the world's esteem, in spite of ■lis faults. He was a great man in a'l .respects, and the memory of his efforts 'to arouse lis country to a sense of its duty should be cherished by the people of the British Empire as an act of sincere friendship .grave crisis