44 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



the New World he gave me from memory an almost complete 

 bibliography of the works discussing the slavery question in the 

 United States, from the books of Anthony Benezet in 1762 to those 

 of Olmsted in 1861. Once, when the then Provost of Oriel called 

 and lunched, and was rather perversely Hellenistic in his lore, 

 Roosevelt, with a twinkle in his eye, turned the subject to the 

 Tatar invasion of Eastern Europe in the thirteenth century, and 

 gave us a really remarkable sketch of its chief incidents and ulti- 

 mate results. 



It would be a great mistake to represent this great man as one 

 who monopolised the conversation in public or in private. On the 

 contrary, he was a rarely good and encouraging listener to anyone 

 who had something to say, and singularly courteous about not 

 interrupting. Indeed, he drew out good conversation in those around 

 him, besides being an exceptionally interesting talker himself. 



As a writer on zoology Roosevelt is best known by his African 

 Game Trails and African Game Animals, but his Outdoor Pastimes 

 of an American Hunter (1908) is well worth reading, both for 

 letterpress and illustrations. Through the Brazilian Wilderness gives 

 a truthful, though not always exhilarating, description of the Bra- 

 zilian forest and grassy plains. But there is another side to Theodore 

 Roosevelt, and many an instance of his versatility, in the five volumes 

 of his " Presidential Addresses and State Papers." Probably no 

 head of a State in history has uttered so much sound sense with 

 so much originality of diction and illustration. In Roosevelt we 

 had for the first (and, so far, the only) time a great ruler who 

 was also an adept in the modern sciences, a student and an exponent 

 of the New Bible, a statesman who was extraordinarily well versed 

 in geography — prehistoric, historical, political, physical, and com- 

 mercial — who was strongly interested in botany, ethnology, zoology, 

 philology, modern history, sociology, and questions of hygiene and 

 the struggle for the supremacy of man over recalcitrant Nature. He 

 gave a great impulse to the research into the causes of yellow fever, 

 and the means of eliminating it from Cuba and Panama. If we 

 only had the luck to acquire a Prime Minister with the learning, the 

 driving force, and the sincerity of Roosevelt, what might not be the 

 after-history of the British Empire, could such a Premier direct its 

 destinies and the education of its governing classes for seven years ? 

 But, alas ! Politics in Britain do not breed Roosevelts.* 



* Reprinted, by permission of Sir Harry H. Johnston, and the Editor, from 

 Nature, Vol. 102, pp. 389-390, January 16, 1919. 



