xvi Introduction 



Companion," at an earlier date, but not published 

 until after Mr. Roosevelt had become President. It 

 has a certain fitness of a prefatory sort. There fol 

 lows a series of occasional addresses made in the first 

 half of 1902. Then we have ten speeches on fore 

 most public topics delivered on a trip to New Eng 

 land in August and September of that year. Other 

 briefer talks were made at that time, but some of 

 them reiterated points made in the longer ones; and 

 it may be said here, as respects this entire collection, 

 that in the process of preparing the material for the 

 press that which was chiefly or wholly repetition was 

 authoritatively omitted. 



Several brief trips in the autumn of 1902 were 

 productive of speeches in Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, 

 and other States of the Middle West, as well as in 

 New York and Pennsylvania. 



With the beginning of April, 1903, the President 

 started upon the itinerary that gave occasion for a 

 majority of these speeches. His first objective point 

 was the Yellowstone Park; and he made a number 

 of addresses beginning at Chicago on the route. 

 He sojourned in the Park for about three weeks, and 

 then started to St. Louis (speaking on the way) to 

 make a formal address on the Louisiana Purchase at 

 the dedication of the Exposition. He then started 

 immediately for California, to visit the Yosemite 

 Park and to fulfil numerous engagements to speak, 

 both on the way and also in the Pacific Coast States. 



