“Mr. President, please attach your signature,” and the President, turning to a small table near by, wrote “Theodore Roosevelt” at the bottom of the document in a firm hand.
The new President was visibly shaken, but he controlled himself admirably, and with the deep solemnity of the occasion full upon him, he announced to those present that his aim would be to be William McKinley’s successor in deed as well as in name. Deliberately he proclaimed it in these words:
“In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement, I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley for the peace and prosperity and honor of our beloved country.”
The great, far-reaching significance of this pledge to continue the policy of the dead President, announced at the very threshold of a new governmental regime, profoundly impressed his hearers, and President Roosevelt’s first step after taking the oath was in line with its redemption. His first act was to ask the members of the Cabinet to retain their portfolios in order to aid him to conduct the government on lines laid down by him whose policy he had declared he would uphold. Such an appeal was not to be resisted, and every member of the Cabinet, including Secretary of State Hay and Secretary of the Treasury Gage, who were communicated with in Washington, have agreed for the present, at least, to retain their several portfolios.
President Roosevelt remained in Buffalo until the funeral cortege started for Washington, when he accompanied it.
Theodore Roosevelt was born October 20, 1858, at No. 28 East Twentieth street, New York City. His father, also Theodore Roosevelt, was a member of an old New York Dutch family, and Mr. Roosevelt is of the eighth generation of the stock in the United States. Mingled with the Dutch in Theodore Roosevelt’s veins are strains of English, Celtic, and French. His mother was Miss Martha Bulloch, and came of a distinguished Georgia family, which had given to that state a Governor, Archibald Bulloch, in revolutionary times. In a later generation a member of the family built the Confederate privateer Alabama.
The father of Theodore Roosevelt was a merchant and importer of glassware. During the Civil War he was a noted figure in New York. He had great strength of character and liking for practical benevolence, which made him foremost in many such charities. Newsboys’ lodging-houses, the allotment system, which permitted soldiers during the war to have portions of their pay sent to their families, and other forms of direct help to the poorer classes found in him a champion. His ancestors had been aldermen, judges of the supreme court of the city, and representatives in the National Congress. In revolutionary times New York chose a Roosevelt to act with Alexander Hamilton in the United States Constitutional Convention. Roosevelt street was once a cowpath on the Roosevelt farm, and the Roosevelt hospital is the gift of a wealthy member of a recent generation of the family.
As a child Theodore Roosevelt was puny and backward. He could not keep up with his fellows either in study or play, and on this account was taught by a private tutor at home. The country residence of the Roosevelts was at Oyster Bay, Long Island, and here the children were brought up. They were compelled by their father to take plenty of outdoor exercise, and young Theodore, soon realizing that he must have strength of body if he was to do anything in life, entered into the scheme for the improvement of his physical condition with the same enthusiasm and determination which has characterized every act of his life. He grew up an athlete, strong and active, and when he entered Harvard in 1875 he soon became prominent in field sports. He became noted as a boxer and wrestler, and was for a time captain of the college polo team. He did not neglect his studies, and when he was graduated, in 1880, he took high honors. During his stay in the university he had been editor of the Advocate, a college paper, and gave particular attention to the study of history and natural history. He became a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Greek letter fraternity.
At the conclusion of his college course he went abroad for a year, spending part of the time in study in Dresden. His love for athletics led him to successfully attempt the ascent of the Jung-Frau and the Matterhorn, and won for him a membership in the Alpine Club of London. He returned to New York in 1881, and in the same year married Miss Alice Lee of Boston. Two years later he had the misfortune to lose his wife and his mother within a week.
Theodore Roosevelt has been an ardent student of history from his college days, and before he was twenty-three years old had entered the field himself as a writer. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. On his return from Europe, and while engaged on his historical work, he entered the law office of his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt, with the design of fitting himself for the bar. He was of too restless a disposition to find content in such a sober calling, and the whole bent of his mind, as shown by his reading, his writing, and the effort to do something extraordinary, something that would mark him above his fellows, which had made him a bidder for college championships and prompted him to tempt the dangers of the Swiss mountain peaks, sent him hurrying into politics before he had settled down to anything like deep study of the law.