REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1919. 15 



followed with safety by the new establishment. As an eminent 

 historian he knew well the tangled array of favorable and un- 

 favorable precedents set up by mankind in the slowly upward 

 processes of development; as an accompHshed man of the world 

 he knew well the rules for appUcation of appropriate corrections 

 for personal equation; and to these and other capital qualifica- 

 tions of a counsellor he added an outlook of confident optimism, 

 seldom manifested by a septuagenarian, toward all that makes 

 for rational progress. He lived a long and uncommonly fruitful 

 altruistic life, noteworthy throughout for its happy combination 

 of the enthusiasm of youth with the wisdom of age. 



Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United 

 States, was born at New York City, October 27, 1858, and died 

 at his home at Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, January 6, 

 1919. At the time of his death he was probably the most widely 

 known and the best understood of Americans . He was by nature 

 a public character in the best sense of the phrase. Like Mr. 

 Carnegie, he may be said to have capitalized the more familiar 

 virtues. He was a modern apostle of the golden rule, or of the 

 ''square deal"; and he won his way to public position by the 

 generation of universal confidence in his integrity. He was a 

 bold champion of the ''merit system" and an implacable foe 

 of "invisible government." He was, along with Washington, 

 Jefferson, and Franklin, among the regrettably small number of 

 American statesmen who have shown any considerable acquaint- 

 ance with, or just appreciation for, that sort of learning called 

 scientific. Like Andrew D. White, he was one of those broader, 

 though relatively rare, humanists who have adequately esti- 

 mated the significance of the modern doctrine of evolution. 



Mr. Roosevelt was a member ex officio of the Board of Trus- 

 tees during the years 1902-1904, under the terms of the original 

 charter, which gave to the Institution a quasi-governmental 

 connection. It does not appear from the official records that 

 he found time, in the strenuous hfe he then led, to attend any of 

 the meetings of the Board. His sole but important part in the 

 recorded history of the Institution consists in his official approval 

 of the act of incorporation granted by the Congress of the United 

 States under date of April 28, 1904. 



