tary of the Navy came at a momentous time. He had hardly been sworn into office before the troubles in Cuba assumed a phase which made it seem impossible for the United States to avoid hostilities with Spain. Roosevelt was farseeing enough to appreciate what this meant. He saw that a war with Spain, if it should come, would be a naval war and he devoted all his energies to bringing the naval establishment to a state of complete preparation. For one thing he secured large appropriations to be expended in shot and shell for target practice. It was due in no small degree to this that when war finally broke out the American gunner stood revealed as the most accurate and destructive marksman in the world. He hastened in every conceivable way the work of construction and repair. He provided for the severest tests of the endurance and fighting qualities of ships. He kept the department alive to the neces sity of having ample stores and ammunition constantly on hand in the right places. All this was in the way of regular routine. Then came the blowing up of the Maine. Roosevelt knew on the instant that this tragedy must have only one result. He redoubled his exertions. He gave orders for preparing the navy which involved expense and labor that a timid official would never have dared to authorize. He accepted responsibility without hesitation. He over-rode technicalities. He ignored finespun theories of official precedence and naval etiquette with the result that when war finally broke out the United States had in its navy the most effective fighting machine the world has ever seen.

More than this, Roosevelt looked ahead and saw with true military genius where the first blow would have to be struck. Within ten days after the destruction of the Maine, while many were still confident that war would be avoided he sent a dispatch to Commodore Dewey, in command of the Asiatic squadron, upon which great results were destined to hang. It was dated Washington, Feb. 25, 1898, and read as follows: "Dewey, Hongkong:

"Secret and confidential. Order the squadron, except Monocacy, to Hongkong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war with Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders.

"ROOSEVELT."

It was so up to the time war was declared, and then Roosevelt took a step which everybody except himself believed to be a mistake. He re

signed his place as assistant secretary of the navy in order to go out on the fighting line as a volunteer soldier. The President, the Secretary of the Navy, all his closest friends begged him to stay where he was. They assured him that his opportunities for distinction were greater in the place he held than in any position he might secure in active service. They pointed out that it was to be a naval, not a land war, and that he was throwing away as fine an opportunity as any man ever had. But Roosevelt had made up his mind that his place was at the front and nothing could budge him. He had believed that war was inevitable. He had urged it as a matter of national honor while others held back, and he felt that the least he could do would be to get out on the firing line. With Leonard Wood he recruited the Rough Rider regiment, and when he was offered the place of colonel he declined it in favor of his friend because he knew his own lack of military experience. He accepted the second place in the regiment, and it was due to his untiring zeal and impetuosity that this command of volunteer soldiers was fully armed and equipped and ready to go to the front with the very first detachment of troops that landed on Cuban soil. What the Rough Riders did on San Juan Hill is a matter of recent history which need not be recited here. The hardships Roosevelt underwent, the devotion he showed to his men, the courage he displayed in action, are best attested by the devotion the men he commanded now show him.

He was nominated for governor of New York because the Republicans of the State would not listen to the suggestion of any other candidate. He was elected after one of the hardest and most brilliant of political campaigns, in which he took the lead from the beginning and fought ceaselessly day and night. He has made a record as governor which would have insured his renomination and re-election and which has been marked by honesty of purpose, unflinching courage and administrative ability. He was nominated for Vice-President against his own will because this was the unanimous demand of the party.

Governor Roosevelt lives at Oyster Bay, Long Island, where he has an unassuming house near the sea, filled with books and hunting trophies typical of the man. In 1886 he married Miss Edith Kermir Carow and they have six children, Theodore, Ethel, Kermit, Alice, Archibald, and Quentin. The youngest of them was born soon after the outbreak of the war with Spain.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PRESENT REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION-THE GOLDEN ERA OF PROSPERITY IN PEACE AND IN WAR

In 1896 the Republican party pledged itself to restore prosperity to the country by re-enacting protection legislation and clearly and explicitly establishing the gold standard. The pledge was regarded as extraordinary and beyond the power of redemption by one administration, but it has been fully achieved by the present administration. The Democratic party had been in full power for four years and had had its first opportunity to impress its policies and doctrines on the government since the beginning of the Civil war. Its management of public affairs and its legislation had been followed by the greatest and most appalling period of depression known in this country. From great and universal prosperity in 1892 the Democratic party had plunged the country into unparalleled depression and suffering. The soup house was the most conspicuous institution in our cities and the tramp the most common object in the country. There was panic and suffering in every branch of business and every class of people. The present Republican administration has been associated with the return of prosperity, and it claims to have had an important part in the changed conditions of business and labor. It claims to have redeemed its pledge. Confidence began to return to the people immediately after the election of McKinley. The President had no sooner been inaugurated than he called an extraordinary session of the new Republican Congress, and on March 15, 1897, that Congress met and in less than a fortnight the House had passed the Dingley tariff law. The Senate without a Republican majority passed the bill in July, and the first part of the Republican pledge was redeemed. It brought with it prosperity as well as protection to American industry. It changed the balance of trade in favor of this country and gave to our people the largest share of foreign markets, which had been the dream of free traders, they had ever enjoyed.

The administration has succeeded in doing with a protective tariff and the gold standard everything which the Democrats aspired to do with free trade and free silver coinage. It increased the money in circulation from $1,500,000,000 at the end of the third year of the Cleveland adminis

tration to $2,000,000,000 at the close of the third year of the McKinley administration. It increased the per capita of circulation from $21.53 under Cleveland to $26.12 under McKinley. It increased the gold circulation from $490,000,000 to $786,000,000, and it increased the circulation of silver by $75,000,000. It increased our exports and decreased our imports, giving this country a difference of trade in its favor amounting to $852,000,000 in three years. During the first three years of the Cleveland administration our excess of exports over imports was $679,000,000. During the first three years of the McKinley administration this excess of exports over imports amounted to $1,531,000,000. The measure of the administration's success in helping skilled labor to find markets for its work is shown by the increase in our exports of manufactures which jumped from $568,000,000 in the first three years of the Cleveland administration to $998,000,000 in the first three years of the McKinley administration, an average gain of $143,000,000 a year.

This administration also took up the work of the immortal Lincoln, and when the Spanish oppressor in Cuba became intolerable, it went to war in the cause of humanity, and in two hemispheres within 90 days destroyed the entire Spanish navy and accepted the surrender of the Spanish armies, and added millions of square miles to our territory. In business management, in war and in diplomacy, the administration of McKinley has taken its place with the greatest administrations in American history.

When William McKinley was inaugurated President of the United States on March 4, 1897, he sounded the keynote of his administration by saying: "The best way for a government to maintain its credit is to pay as it goes-not by resorting to loans but by keeping out of debtthrough an adequate income secured by a system of taxation, external or internal, or both. It is the settled policy of the government, pursued from the beginning and fostered by all parties and administrations, to raise the bulk of our revenue from taxes upon foreign productions entering the United States for sale and consumption, and avoiding, for the most part, every form of direct taxation, except in time of war." This has been the motto of the McKinley administration and it has been followed in letter and in spirit from the beginning to the close.

President McKinley in his inaugural address called attention to the depression of the four preceding years, not in partisan criticism, but

as pointing the patriotic course for the Congress which had come into power with him. He said:

"The depression of the past four years has fallen with especial severity upon that great body of toilers of the country, and upon none more than the holders of small farms. Agriculture has languished and labor suffered. The revival of manufacturing will be a relief to both. No portion of our population is more devoted to the institutions of free government nor more loyal in their support, while none bears more cheerfully or fully its proper share in the maintenance of the government or is better entitled to its wise and liberal care and protection. Legislation helpful to producers is beneficial to all. The depressed condition of industry on the farm and in the mine and factory has lessened the ability of the people to meet the demands upon them, and they rightfully expect that not only a system of revenue shall be established that will secure the largest income with the least burden but that every means will be taken to decrease, rather than increase, our public expenditures. Business conditions are not the most promising. It will take time to restore the prosperity of former years. If we cannot promptly attain it, we can resolutely turn our faces in that direction and aid its return by friendly legislation. However troublesome the situation may appear, Congress will not, I am sure, be found lacking in disposition or ability to relieve it as far as legislation can do so. The restoration of confidence and the revival of business, which men of all parties so much desire, depend more largely upon the prompt, energetic, and intelligent action of Congress than upon any other single agency affecting the situation." He further said:

"The condition of the public treasury, as has been indicated, demands the immediate consideration of Congress. It alone has the power to provide revenues for the government. Not to convene it under such circumstances I can view in no other sense than the neglect of a plain duty. I do not sympathize with the sentiment that Congress in session is dangerous to our general business interests. Its members are the agents of the people, and their presence at the seat of government in the execution of the sovereign will should not operate as an injury, but a benefit."

It would be difficult to find in the history of the government an administration that had so carefully marked out its policy in the beginning and adhered to it with happier results.