Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| completes the picture. “Father was,” he said to me, “the finest man I ever knew, and the happiest.” |
| His power of endurance was as extraordinary as his industry. In the last winter of his life, when he was struggling with a mortal disease, his daily routine was to rise at 8:30, and after the morning visit to his mother, which he never on any account omitted, to work at the office till six. The evening was for his own and for his friends until eleven o’clock, after which he usually worked at his desk until 1 or 2 A.M. Several years before, he had had to give up his father’s business to attend to the many private trusts that sought him as his influence grew in the community. A hundred public interests demanded his aid besides. He helped to organize the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural Sciences, and kept a directing hand upon them up to his death. When mismanagement of the American department at the Vienna Exhibition caused scandal and the retirement of the directors, it was Mr. Roosevelt who straightened out things. Were funds to be raised for a charity, he was ever first in demand. His championship |