meeting passed off without disturbance; Ahlwardt stormed in vain
against the Jews; the audience and the public saw the humor of
the affair and Jew-baiting gained no foothold in New York City.
Although Roosevelt thoroughly enjoyed his work as Police
Commissioner, he felt rightly that it did not afford him the
freest scope to exercise his powers. Much as he valued executive
work, the putting into practice and carrying out of laws, he felt
more and more strongly the desire to make them, and his instinct
told him that he was fitted for this higher task. When,
therefore, the newly elected Republican President, William
McKinley, offered him the apparently modest position of Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, he accepted it.

There was general grieving in New York City--except among the
criminals and Tammany--at the news of his resignation. All sorts
of persons expressed regrets that were really sincere, and their
gratitude for the good which he had done for them all. Some of
them protested that he ought not to abandon the duty which he had
discharged so valiantly. One of these was Edwin L. Godkin, editor
of The Nation and the New York Evening Post, a critic who seldom
spoke politely of anything except ideals which had not been
attained, or commended persons who were not dead and so beyond
reach of praise.

Since Roosevelt himself has quoted this passage from Godkin's
letter to him, I think it ought to be reprinted here: "I have a
concern, as the Quakers say, to put on record my earnest belief
that in New York you are doing the greatest work of which any
American today is capable, and exhibiting to the young men of the
country the spectacle of a very important office administered by