Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| McKinley election that we surprised Miss Satterie’s school (in Sullivan Street) at their Christmas-tree. They were singing “Children of the Heavenly King,” and the teacher, with the pride in her pupils that goeth before a fall, according to the proverb, held up the singing without warning, and asked: |
| “Children, who is this heavenly King?” |
| It was not a fair question, with a small battalion of pink-robed dolls nodding from the branches of the tree, and ice-cream being brought in in pails. Heaven enough in Sullivan Street for them just then. There was a dead silence that was becoming painful when a little brown fist shot up from a rear bench. |
| “Well, Vito!” said the teacher, relieved, “who is he?” |
| “McKinley,” piped the youngster. He had not forgotten the fireworks and the flags and the brass bands. Could anything be grander? And all in honor of McKinley. What better proof that he must be the King—of Sullivan Street anyway, where heaven had just found lodgment? |
| When Roosevelt had been elected governor, we went over together for the last time; for |