Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| other in the palace of the conquered tyrant on the rescued isle. For Roosevelt committees were waiting, honors and high office. The country rang with his name. But when he stepped ashore his concern was for his own at home,—for his wife; and when I told him that I had brought her down to see his triumph, he thanked me with a handshake that told me how glad he was. |
| I see him now riding away over the hill, in his Rough-Rider uniform, to the hospital where his men lay burning up with the fever. Wherever he came, confusion, incapacity, gave way to order and efficiency. Things came round at once. So did his men. The sight of his face was enough to make them rally for another fight with the enemy. They had seen him walking calmly on top of the earth wall when, in the small hours of the morning, drenched by pouring rains, chilled to the bone, and starving in the trenches, they were roused by the alarm that the Spaniards were coming, and the sight made them heroes. They had heard his cheering voice when the surgeons were dressing the wounded by candle-light, after the fight at Las Guasimas: “Boys, if there is a man at home |