Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| fellows. He passed them, and now he led in their games. The horse was his; the gun loomed in the prospect. College was at hand, and then—life. The buffaloes yet roamed the plains. One might unite the calling of a naturalist, a professor, with the interest of a hunter. So ran his dreams. It is the story of one American boy who won against odds, and though he did not become professor he became President; and it is a good story for all American boys to read. For they can do the same, if they choose to. And if they do not all become Presidents, they can all be right, and so be like him in that which is better still. |
| I said he had his dreams. Every boy has, and if he does not stop at that, it is good for him. Into young Theodore’s there had come a new element that spoke loudly for the plains, for the great West. The Leatherstocking stories had been added to his reading. It was with something of fear almost that I asked him once if he liked them. For I loved them. I had lived them all in my Danish home. They first set my eyes toward the west, and in later years, when I have heard it said, and read in reviews that Cooper is out of date; that he |