THE COLONEL KILLS THREE ELEPHANTS 155 
some that I had received from home. He answered 
that he had not seen any and really didn’t want to 
see any. 
“I don’t believe in clinging to the tattered shreds 
of former greatness,” he said, laughing. 
He had not heard that Governor Johnson, of 
Minnesota, had died, and when we told him he said 
that Johnson would undoubtedly have been the 
strongest presidential candidate the Democrats 
could have nominated the next time. He wanted to 
know where he could address a note of sympathy to 
Mrs. Johnson. 
Later, in speaking of a prominent public man 
who loudly disclaimed responsibility for an act 
committed by a subordinate, he said: 
“It would have been far better to have said noth¬ 
ing about it, hut let people think he himself had 
given the order. Very often subordinates say and 
do things that are credited to their superiors, and it 
is never good policy to try to shift the blame. Do 
you remember the time Root was in South Amer¬ 
ica? Well, some president down there sent me a 
congratulatory telegram which reached Washing¬ 
ton when I was away. Mr.-of the state depart¬ 
ment answered it in my name and said that I and 
c my people’ were pleased with the reception they 
were giving Mr. Root. Well, the New York Sun 
took the matter up and when the fleet went around 
the world they referred to it as ‘my fleet,’ and that 
‘my fleet’ had crossed ‘my equator’ four times and 
‘my ocean’ a couple of times. It was very cleverly 
