The Days of a Man 1:1898 



Civil time appeared to concern the Civil Service in Alaska, 

 Wf^7n ^ matter I had incidentally discussed in an article 

 for The Forum. There I had dwelt on the sufferings 

 of the Alaskan natives, due to the dishonesty or 

 inefficiency of certain government officials as well 

 as to the wanton destruction by greedy poachers of 

 the sea otter, on the skins of which most of the 

 coastwise Aleuts depended for maintenance.^ In 

 this connection I asserted that Russia had the same 

 right to complain of our mistreatment of the Alaskans 

 as we to protest against Spain's treatment of the 

 Cubans, the chief difference being that the Alaskans 

 were much fewer in number and farther away. In 

 his report as governor, Brady himself had written 

 that the officials of Alaska as a whole acted "like a 

 school of hungry codfish." 

 The tennis As President, Roosevelt held his own opinions 

 somewhat in abeyance, being ready to take advice; 

 and men of progressive temper — Gifford Pinchot, 

 James R. Garfield, and others — constituted his 

 inner or "tennis" cabinet. For economics and juris- 

 prudence he had scant regard, but in foreign rela- 

 tions he was fortunately steered by his eminent and 

 eminently conservative Secretary of State, of whom 

 he once said, "Root is one-eighth human." Knox, 

 his Attorney General, short of stature, hairless, and 

 with an impassive face, he designated as a "sawed- 

 off cherub." 



During his administration it was my fortune to 

 visit Washington on fur seal or fishery business once 

 every year, and I was each time a guest at luncheon 

 in the White House. To these singularly interesting 

 midday functions a great variety of people were in- 



^ See Chapter xxiii, page 581. 



C 310 3 



cabinet 



