worldly-wise, who have been too often fooled, were haunted by the
suspicion that perhaps this astonishing young man would turn out
to be only a meteor after all. His six years of routine work on
the Civil Service Commission put this anxiety to rest. That work
could not be carried on successfully by a man of moods and
spurts, but only by a man of solid moral basis, who could not be
disheartened by opposition or deflected by threats or by
temptations, and, as I have before suggested, the people began to
accustom itself to the fact that whatever position Roosevelt
filled was conspicuous precisely because he filled it. A good
while was still to elapse before we understood that notoriety was
inseparable from him, and did not need to be explained by the
theory that he was constantly setting traps for
self-advertisement.

As Police Commissioner of New York City he continued his familiar
methods, and deepened the impression he had created. He carried
boldness to the point of audacity and glorified the "square
deal." Whatever he undertook, he drove through with the
remorselessness of a zealot. He made no pretense of treating
humbugs and shams as if they were honest and real; and when he
found that the laws which were made to punish criminals, were
used to protect them, no scruple prevented him from achieving the
spirit of the law, although he might disregard its perverted
letter.

Ponder this striking example. The City of New York forbade the
sale of liquor to minors. But this ordinance was so completely
unobserved that a large proportion of the common drunks brought
before the Police Court were lads and even young girls, to whom