Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
Page 297
| could not run the Dardanelles and beard the Turk in his capital. |
| “Ah,” put in Colonel Grant, who was in the Police Board, “but those forts have guns.” |
| “Guns!” said Roosevelt; nothing more. It is impossible to describe the emphasis he put upon the word. But in it I seemed to hear Decatur at Tripoli, Farragut at Mobile. Guns! The year after that he was busy piling up ammunition at Hong Kong. They had guns at Manila, too. And Dewey joined Decatur and Farragut on the record. |
| I said Roosevelt had learned to use all of his mind. To an extraordinary degree he possesses the faculty of concentrating it upon the subject in hand and, when it has been disposed of, transferring it at will to the thing next in order, else he could not have written important historical works while he was Police Commissioner and Governor. Whether this is all the result of training, or a faculty born in him, I do not know. Napoleon had the same gift. I have sat with Mr. Roosevelt in his room at Police Headquarters and seen him finish his correspondence, dispose of routine matters in hand, and at once take up dictation of some |