the strength of an ox, but quick in movement, and tough in
endurance. A rapid thinker, his intellect seemed as impervious to
fatigue as was his energy. Along with this physical and
intellectual make up went courage of both kinds, passion for
justice, and a buoying sense of obligation towards his fellows
and the State. His career thus far had prepared him for the
highest service. Born and brought up amid what our society
classifiers, with their sure democratic instincts, loved to call
the "aristocratic" circle in New York, his three years in the
Assembly at Albany introduced him to the motley group of
Representatives of high and low, bank presidents and farmers,
blacklegs and philanthropists, who gathered there to make the
laws for New York State. There he displayed the preference,
characteristic of him through life, of choosing his intimates
irrespective of their occupation or social label. Then he went
out on the Plains and learned to live with wild men, for whom the
artificial distinctions of civilization had no meaning. He
adapted himself to a primeval standard in which courage and a
rough sense of honor were the chief virtues. But this experience
did still more for him than prove his personal power of getting
along with such lower types of men, for it revealed to him the
human extremes of the American Nation. How vast it was, how
varied, how intricate, and, potentially, how sublime! Lincoln,
coming out of the Kentucky back woods, first to Springfield,
Illinois, then to Chicago in its youth, and finally to
Washington, similarly passed in review the American contrasts of
his time. More specific was Roosevelt's training as a Civil
Service Commissioner. The public had been applauding him as a
youthful prodigy, as a fellow of high spirit, of undisputed
valor, of brilliant flashes, of versatility, but the