Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| than to fill pockets and belly while they last! In which case I pity them from the bottom of my heart. For what a meaning to read into life, one little end of which lies within our ken, with the key to all the rest, as far as we are able to grasp it here, in fair dealing with the brother! |
| I have said that I speak for myself in these pages; but for once you may take it that I speak for Theodore Roosevelt too. That is what he thinks. That is the underlying thought of his oft-expressed philosophy, that the poorest plan for an American to act upon is that of “some men down,” and the safest that of “all men up.” For, whether for good or ill, up we go or down, poor and rich, white or black, all of us together in the end, in the things that make for real manhood. And the making of that manhood and the bringing of it to the affairs of life and making it tell there, is the business of the Republic. |
| How, so thinking, could he have taken any other attitude than he has on the questions that seem crowding to a solution these days because there is at last a man at the head who will not dodge, but deal squarely with them as they |