66 
IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR 
old American position. The Monroe Doctrine is not international law, 
but there is no necessity that it should be. All that is needful is that 
it should continue to be a cardinal feature of American policy on this 
continent. If we are wise we shall strenuously insist that under no 
pretext whatever shall there be any territorial aggrandizement upon 
American soil by any European power, and this no matter what form 
the territorial aggrandizement may take.” 
These extracts serve not alone to indicate President Roosevelt’s 
attitude in certain particulars; they serve also to give some conception 
of his oratorical manner. Fluent as he has shown himself as a speech- 
maker, he has the faculty of dealing mainly with hard facts. It is the 
same with his messages to Congress. Some of them have been so 
expanded that he seemed rather writing a book than a message. But 
his seeming wordiness came from a desire to omit no matter of national 
interest and to leave none without a comprehensive treatment. Yet 
in them all he hammers away with hard facts. Flowery language and 
inconclusive verbosity have no place in his category. 
During Roosevelt’s first term in office he did little in the way of 
proposing radical legislation. He felt that his hands were tied in that 
respect by the way into which he came into the Presidency. But he 
showed his untrammeled character in a dozen other ways. Precedents 
had no sacredness for him; he was always breaking them. One 
instance was that in which he invited Booker Washington to dinner. 
The event raised a stir out of all accordance with its significance, for 
Roosevelt was not the first President to have a colored man at his 
table, and Booker Washington had shown himself a man whose 
presence at their tables would honor kings. The storm broke and the 
thunders of denunciation rolled, but they passed innocuously over 
Roosevelt’s head. 
He never hesitated to step outside the lines of routine and break 
through the cobwebs of red tape. When a coal strike broke out in 
Pennsylvania and went on with such obstinacy as to threaten disaster 
to the people he stepped resolutely into the breach and by his influence 
settled the labor war. The sticklers for precedent cried out in dismay. 
No President has done such a thing before! It is a dangerous stretch 
of the executive power! But those citizens whose fires threatened to 
