Introduction v 



while to some extent homely, unstudied and uncon 

 ventional in their phraseology, have the quality of 

 permanent literature in a much higher measure than 

 the utterances of almost any other American public 

 man of our time. The traditional American political 

 oratory is highly stilted and artificial overloaded 

 with rhetoric and figures of speech, lacking vernacu 

 lar force and directness. While the orotund and rhe 

 torical method of the past has largely disappeared, 

 there has followed it another method almost equally 

 artificial, in which the stately periods of the old-fash 

 ioned orator have been succeeded by the illustrative 

 amusing anecdote, the highly burnished witticism, 

 and the pointed phrase or apothegm. President 

 Roosevelt's method is wholly different from either 

 of these. Except for being at times a trifle more 

 earnest and hortatory, it is the method of some of 

 the best contemporary English speakers who do not 

 posture, and who do not attempt to be either orators 

 or mere platform entertainers, but who prefer to 

 state in a direct, conversational manner certain 

 things that they wish to say, and whose language is 

 that which they habitually use in conversation, and 

 which naturally and without conscious effort clothes 

 their thoughts as men of culture and mature intellec 

 tual life. President Roosevelt being a man of trained 

 mind, strong conviction, historical knowledge, and 

 wide public experience, combined with great practical 

 energy and executive force, and buoyant physical 



