Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| Roosevelt for what he is and does, even if he disagrees with him; whereas the other never can. He can only “see Platt.” Verily, between the two, give me Platt. If he had horns and a spike-tail painted blue, and all the other parlor furnishings of the evil place, I think I should take my chances with him and a jolly old fight rather than with the shivering visions of my correspondent who is so mortally afraid of the appearance of evil that by no chance can he ever get time to do good. |
| See Platt! Governor Roosevelt saw no end of people during his two years’ term, and from some of them he learned something, and others learned something from him. The very first thing he did when he was in the Capitol at Albany was to ask the labor leaders to come up and see him. There were a lot of labor laws, so called, on the statute-books, designed to better the lot of the workingman in one way or another, and half of them were dead letters. Some of them had been passed in good faith, and had somehow stuck in the enforcement; and then there were others that were just fakes. |
| “These laws,” said the Governor to the labor |