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Home  »  Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen  »  Page 330

Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.

Page 330

maintains that the poorest service one can render his neighbor is to carry him when he ought to walk.
  As for the St. Hilda circle, its measure was full last summer when Mrs. Roosevelt took it out in a body on the Sylph to the naval review in the Sound, and the great ships gave them the Presidential salute,—or the Sylph, anyway, which was the same thing. Were they not on board, its honored guests?
  The same simple way of living that has always been theirs at home, they carried with them to the White House. I do not know how other Presidents lived, for I was never there before, but I imagine no one ever led a more plain and wholesome life than the Roosevelts do. I cannot think that there was ever a family there that had so good a time. The children are still the mother’s chief care. They have their hour that is for them only, when she reads to them or tells them stories in her room, and at all other hours they are privileged to intrude except when, on Tuesday, their mother entertains the cabinet ladies in the library. She is never too busy to listen to their little stories of childish pleasure and trouble, and they bring