which shows what can be done even with an unpopular law, and in
New York City itself, if the will to deal honestly and without
cowardice is there.

So the young man who was "ever a fighter" went on his way,
fighting evil to the death wherever he found it, achieving
results, making friends eagerly and enemies blithely, learning,
broadening, growing. Already he had made a distinct impression
upon his times.



CHAPTER V. FIGHTING AND BREAKFASTING WITH PLATT

>From the New York Police Department Roosevelt was called by
President McKinley to Washington in 1897, to become Assistant
Secretary of the Navy. After a year there--the story of which
belongs elsewhere in this volume--he resigned to go to Cuba as
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough Riders. He was just as prominent
in that war for liberty and justice as the dimensions of the
conflict permitted. He was accustomed in after years to say with
deprecating humor, when talking to veterans of the Civil War, "It
wasn't much of a war, but it was all the war we had." It made him
Governor of New York.

When he landed with his regiment at Montauk Point from Cuba, he
was met by two delegations. One consisted of friends from his own
State who were political independents; the other came from the
head of the Republican political machine.