Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT speaks as he writes. That tells the story. He makes no pretense to being an orator. Critics sometimes say that his books are not “literature,” by which they apparently mean words strung together to sound well. They are not. But what he writes no one can misunderstand, and the style seems to the reader unimportant, though it is notably direct, terse and vigorous. When he speaks, there is not often much applause, and when there is, he often raises his hand with a warning gesture to stop it. Both his hearers and he are much too interested in the thing he says to pay great heed to the way her says it. But when it is |