Roosevelt, at first, refused to consider an office which has more
dignity than usefulness about it. Another utterance of Secretary
of State John Hay is interesting. He wrote to a friend:

"Teddy has been here: have you heard of it? It was more fun than a
goat. He came down with a somber resolution thrown on his
strenuous brow to let McKinley and Hanna know once for all that he
would not be Vice-President, and found to his stupefaction that
nobody in Washington, except Platt, had ever dreamed of such a
thing." [Footnote: Thayer, p. 148.]

Mr. Hay was one of the wisest of our statesmen; one of the most
polished and agreeable men in public life. Yet this letter shows
how the older men often mistook Roosevelt. For, in less than a
year after Mr. Hay had gently poked fun at "Teddy" for thinking
that he might be made Vice-President, and said that there was not
the slightest danger of such a thing happening, Roosevelt had been
elected to that office. His enjoyment of his work, his bubbling
merriment, his lack of the old-fashioned, pompous manners which
used to be supposed proper for a statesman, made many older men
inclined to treat him with a sort of fatherly amusement. They
looked at his acts as an older man might look at the pranks of a
boy. And then, suddenly, they found themselves serving under this
"youngster," in the Government! It was a surprise from which they
never recovered. I have said that the reporters, the makers of
funny pictures in the newspapers, and others, exaggerated
Roosevelt's traits, and created a false idea about him. This is
true. But it is also true that there was a great deal of real and
honest fun poked at him throughout his life, and that it added to
the public enjoyment of his career. The writers of comic rhymes,