* * * * *




PREFATORY LETTER FROM THEODORE ROOSEVELT


_Written after reading Chapter III. when published serially_


WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, October 18, 1902.

_My Dear Mrs. Van Vorst_:

_I must write you a line to say how much I have appreciated
your article, "The Woman Who Toils." But to me there is a most
melancholy side to it, when you touch upon what is
fundamentally infinitely more important than any other
question in this country--that is, the question of race
suicide, complete or partial_.

_An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a desire to be
"independent"--that is, to live one's life purely according to
one's own desires--are in no sense substitutes for the
fundamental virtues, for the practice of the strong, racial
qualities without which there can be no strong races--the