Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, feats which still required endurance,
although they did not involve danger.

While we think of him, therefore, as dedicating himself to his
literary work--the "Winning of the West" and the accounts of
ranch life--we must remember that he had leisure for other
things. He watched keenly the course of politics, for instance,
and in 1888 when the Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison as
their candidate for President, Roosevelt supported him
effectively and took rank with the foremost Republican speakers
of the campaign. After his election Harrison, who both recognized
Roosevelt's great ability and felt under obligation to him,
wished to offer him the position of an under-secretary in the
State Department; but Blaine, who was slated for Secretary of
State, had no liking for the young Republican whose coolness in
1884 he had not forgotten. So Harrison invited Roosevelt to be a
Civil Service Commissioner. The position had never been
conspicuous; its salary was not large; its duties were of the
routine kind which did not greatly tax the energies of the
Commissioners, who could never hope for fame, but only for the
approval of their own consciences for whatever good work they
did. The Machine Republicans, whether of national size, or of
State or municipal, were glad to know that Roosevelt would be put
out of the way in that office.

They already thought of him as a young man dangerous to all
Machines and so they felt the prudence of bottling him up. To
make him a Civil Service Commissioner was not exactly so final as
chloroforming a snarling dog would be, but it was a strong
measure of safety. Theodore's friends, on the other hand, advised