Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| came to wish the President a happy New Year were the Civil Service Commissioners, headed by John R. Procter, his old colleague, all men after his own heart. Mr. Procter still laughed at the recollection of that New Year’s greeting when I saw him last. 1 The President drew himself up at their approach and remarked with stiff dignity, loud enough for all to hear: |
| “The moral tone of the room is distinctly lowered.” |
| No one need ever have any fear that Roosevelt will get the country into an undignified position. If unfamiliarity with a situation should lead him off the track, take my word for it he will take the straight, common-sense way out, and get there. The man who in his youth could describe Tammany as “a highly organized system of corruption tempered with malevolent charity,” and characterize a mutual acquaintance, a man with cold political ambitions whom I deemed devoid of sentiment, as having both, but “keeping them in different compartments,” |