IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR 65 



McKinley stood for certain principles, certain promises to the people 

 made in the platform of the year before. Could an impulsive man like 

 Theodore Roosevelt, a man full of ideas and views of his own, be 

 expected to carry out his predecessor's policy? There was a distinct 

 feeling of relief in the community when he came out with a declaration 

 that this was what he proposed to do. 



Yet McKinley's policy did not cover the whole range of legisla- 

 tion, and the remembrance of Roosevelt's radical reform administra- 

 tion in New York was not altogether agreeable to the hide-bound 

 conservatives or the class of shady politicians who had axes to grind. 

 They felt that a man like this in the Presidential chair might prove 

 like the proverbial bull in the china shop. 



Roosevelt's last speech as Vice-President gave some indications of 

 his attitude. It was given at Minneapolis on September 2d, three days 

 before the tragedy at Buffalo, and gave strong indications of his 

 mental attitude. Some quotations from it may not be amiss. 



*'Our interests are at bottom common; in the long run we go up 

 or go down together. Yet more and more it is evident that the state, 

 and if necessary the nation, has got to possess the right of supervision 

 and control as regards the great corporations that are its creatures; 

 particularly as regards the great business combinations which derive 

 a portion of their importance from the existence of some monopolistic 

 tendency. The right should be exercised with caution and self- 

 restraint; but it should exist, so that it may be invoked if the need 

 arises." 



In these few words we have the keynote of much of Roosevelt's 

 Presidential career. Throughout his nearly eight years of office he 

 hammered away at the monopolies that had arisen in the land, and to 

 some degree succeeded in fettering them. 



A strong advocate of America for Americans, this is what he had 

 to say about the Monroe Doctrine: 



"This is the attitude we should take as regards the Monroe Doc- 

 trine. There is not the least need of blustering about it. Still less 

 should it be used as a pretext for our own aggrandizement at the 

 expense of any other American state. But, most emphatically, we 

 must make it evident that we intend on this point ever to maintain the 



