>From the moment that he had learned this valuable lesson--and
Roosevelt never needed to learn a lesson twice--he had his course
in public life marked out before him. He believed ardently in
getting things done. He was no theoretical reformer. He would
never take the wrong road; but, if he could not go as far as he
wanted to along the right road, he would go as far as he could,
and bide his time for the rest. He would not compromise a hair's
breadth on a principle; he would compromise cheerfully on a
method which did not mean surrender of the principle. He
perceived that there were in political life many bad men who were
thoroughly efficient and many good men who would have liked to
accomplish high results but who were thoroughly inefficient. He
realized that if he wished to accomplish anything for the country
his business was to combine decency and efficiency; to be a
thoroughly practical man of high ideals who did his best to
reduce those ideals to actual practice. This was the choice that
he made in those first days, the companionable road of practical
idealism rather than the isolated peak of idealistic
ineffectiveness.

A hard test of his political philosophy came in 1884 just after
he had left the Legislature. He was selected as one of the four
delegates at large from New York to the Republican National
Convention. There he advocated vigorously the nomination of
Senator George F. Edmunds for the Presidency. But the more
popular candidate with the delegates was James G. Blaine.
Roosevelt did not believe in Blaine, who was a politician of the
professional type and who had a reputation that was not
immaculate. The better element among the delegates fought hard
against Blaine's nomination, with Roosevelt wherever the blows