Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
Page 344
| fairly representative specimen in mind, who wrote home from his vacation in Maine, “Tom Reed has seen me twice.” But when at last the privilege was vouchsafed to President Roosevelt, speech and sense forsook our East-sider, and he stood and looked on, gaping, the fine oration he had committed to memory clean gone out of his head. He explained his break after the President was gone. |
| “Why,” he gasped, “he was just like any other plain-clothes man!” |
| A ribbon or sash, at least, with a few stars and crosses, a fellow might have expected. And, when you come to think of it, it is not so strange. Look at the general of the army in gala suit, and at the President, his commander-in-chief. Which makes me think again of Mr. Cleveland, who, when he was governor, togged out his staff in the most gorgeous clothes ever seen, and when heading it on his way to a public function, himself in plain black, was stopped by an underling, who took one glance at the procession and waved it back. |
| “The band goes the other way,” he said. |
| Long years after, Mr. Cleveland had not stopped laughing at the recollection of the look |