CHAPTER XV HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT In my chapter on the growth of Presidential power I have shown that the headship of the United States of America is not inferior, so far as actual power and direct authority go, to that held by any of the monarchs of Europe. It has already given employment to the pens of many ingenious and enthusiastic Transatlantic writers to trace a parallel between the German ruler, or Emperor, William II., and the American ruler, or President, Theodore Roosevelt. Both of these illustrious personages, we are told, boast a "superabundant vitality, fearlessness, seeming disregard for public opinion, and many-sidedness." Nor does the parallel end here.' The versatility of the Kaiser includes war, politics, art, science, and literature; and the same may be said of the President. William is forty-four years old; Theodore is precisely the same age. Both have been previously credited with rashness, impetuosity, and imprudence; both have, as rulers of great nations, lived to stultify their traducers. Names and titles do not 1 Sir W. Laird Clowes, a personal friend of the President's, points out that, on the other hand, "he has no love for state or ceremony, and is in no sense a poseur." This may well be. Mais-l'appetit vient en mangeant ! signify actual power. Call the one, President Hohenzollern of the United States of Germany, and the other, Emperor Theodore of the Empire of America, and you need not be at the pains of adding to the one or subtracting from the other one jot or tittle of the power which each now possesses as an actual, if not an inalienable, appurtenance of his high office. Let us pursue the resemblance, apart from character or the potentiality of office, into their respective situations. Both came into power as the legal successor of two men in whom all the world had confidence-men who represented wisdom, caution, and the personal love of the people. William's predecessor had died "crowned by the aureole of success, having created a nation, and having emerged victorious from a campaign that amazed the world." For a moment, when his successor took the oath of office, there was experienced a feeling of distrust, of national uncertainty, of apprehensiveness for the character and policy of his youthful successor. The same is true of Theodore Roosevelt. All fourpredecessors and successors in Germany and Americawere soldiers, and Theodore and William were to prove how groundless were the fears of their people; they were to show that both were men of peace and political sagacity, although both believed in the sword, and "longed for an opportunity to show how finely tempered was the blade. Theodore Roosevelt is the youngest President who has ever ruled America. He is a notable exception in being a gentleman by birth, and a scholar who knows his own country and Europe, who knows much of foreign languages. Moreover, he is the only President T who ever sat in the chair of State who has served an apprenticeship in one of the great departments of State. Can there be any who will say that all this does not betoken an entirely new order of things? If there were no other fact from which we were able to deduce that a change has come over American politics it would be this. If another and cognate fact alone were needed, it would be that the head of the Cabinetvirtually his Prime Minister-is John Hay, a scholar and a poet, a man who, on visiting England a few years ago, was neither afraid nor ashamed to write such lines as these: "ON LANDING IN ENGLAND.1 "Once more, hail, England! Happy is the day Go over the roll of American Secretaries of State since Hamilton, and see if you can find amongst all those mediocrities one with the ability to write such lines, the sentiment to prompt them, the courage to publish them! 1 Pall Mall Magazine, December, 1894. It was said of the late President McKinley that, without being a great man, he had a "marvellous capacity for hearing and interpreting the murmur of public opinion, which he thought it the duty of his life to obey." "This mode of governing," observes a writer in the Spectator, "has one advantage only half perceived, that it increases the force of the State to an almost indefinite degree. Guidance may be wanting when the head of the State is always listening; but the march can never be undecided, and the weight of the marching myriad, thus kept at one with its foremost files, must always be prodigious."1 Mr. Roosevelt is in many ways the most robust and vigorous personality in the politics of the world. He has the gifts which democracy adores-courage, magnetism, strength. His determination and decision cannot be questioned. There is no more profound error, even from the point of view of more electoral tactics, than that of the politicians who think that a democracy prefers its statesmen to echo the supposed sentiments of the average man. Democracy is conscious of its own shortcomings, it sighs for leadership, and the man who shrinks from leading cannot hope for a full measure of popular trust. Demos may be king, but like any other monarch he cannot do without advisers, men wiser than he. Amid the besetting sense of perplexity and lack of independent knowledge, which always paralyze the mind of a democratic people when 1 I might also call attention to the fact that the leading and most brilliant member of the Senate is not a "millionaire," nor a party "boss," but Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, a scholar and a cultivated writer. abandoned to their own devices, what they crave for and admire above all, is the touch of masterful leadership, which brings great questions to an issue. Whatever may be the issue, no living man, not even the German Emperor, has shown more of this quality than President Roosevelt. He is in some respects a more remarkable and important occupant of the White House than any of his forerunners, scarcely excepting General Washington and Mr. Lincoln, both of whom were specially deputed by the American nation, the one at its inception, the other in its gravest crisis, to do the work they accomplished. The most fortuitous accident in Mr. Roosevelt's singularly fortunate career was that which placed him in the presidential chair, for which he was only vaguely regarded as a remotely possible occupant. Had he asked for the presidency he would certainly have been rejected by the fickle and disorganized constituencies that three years ago were at fever-heat in the angry rivalry between McKinleyites and Bryanites. McKinley's untimely end raised Roosevelt from the vice-presidency, in which nothing was expected of him but that he should cause no trouble, and be a mere nobody-to the position in which he has so notably distinguished himself by an honesty of conduct which would never have recommended him to the wire-pullers and the dupes of either the Democratic or the Republican party. There is something singularly attractive, even about the fearless isolation and dramatic novelty of a presidential candidate appealing to the suffrages of the whole people without the support and in spite of the wishes |