Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| all the time I have known him, with all the burden and care of such a career as his on his shoulders, he was forever planning some kind act toward a friend, carrying him and his concerns with him incessantly amid the crowding of a thousand things. His memory is something prodigious. I happened once to mention to him that when next I came to Washington I would bring my little boy. |
| “And don’t forget,” I said, “when you see him to ask if he goes regularly to Sunday-school.” To his laughing inquiry I made answer that the lad would occasionally be tempted by the sunshine and some game up by the golf-grounds, whereupon I would caution him to keep his record clear against the day when he would see the President, who, being the boys’ as well as the papas’ President, would naturally ask him if he “went regular.” And of course he must back me up in this; for little boys remember, too. The thing had long since gone out of my head when I brought Vivi to the White House; but not so with him. He took him between his knees and asked him, first thing, if he went to Sunday-school like a good boy; and so the day and my reputation were |