CHAPTER VI
The President
It is said that killing a man will not prevent him from going to Chicago, and you may be certain that nothing will prevent an American from getting himself elected President of the United States if he can possibly manage it.
The United States Presidency is believed by the patriotic American to be the very finest position that mortal man could possibly desire to occupy, outshining in glory and honour, if not exactly in importance, all “the effete thrones of Yurrup” rolled into one paroxysm of purple. Tremendous and almighty as the United States Presidency may be, however, its real lustre and attraction for the American imagination lies in the fact that it is within the possible attainment of any and every United States citizen who does not happen to be a nigger. Of course, your United States President has sometimes been a very different affair from the United States Presidency. But that is neither here nor there; because a man who can write “President U.S.” after his name is, on the face of it, clearly entitled to think that he casts a large shadow. And he does.
Though the history books will tell you otherwise, astute people—which phrase includes a fair handful of Americans—are of opinion that the Republic of the United States has had only a matter of three Presidents. The first of them was George Washington, who, let it be said, set the fashion of not relishing the job; the second of them was Abraham Lincoln, rail splitter, lawyer, statesman and martyr; and the third American President—one blushes with pride to name him—is none other than Theodore Roosevelt, now more or less happily reigning.
I am no great hand at either history or biography, so that the reader of these pages will be spared the usual entertaining biographical details. I am not even aware if Mr. Roosevelt arrived at the White House by way of the traditional Log Cabin, or whether he took a pleasanter, less stony and less circuitous route. It is sufficient for me to have reasonable hearsay evidence that he is there, and that he has filled up frantically every hour of his time since he got there.
For the ruler of a great state Mr. Roosevelt is, to say the least, an appealing and exciting figure. He may be said fairly to out-rival anything of the kind that has hitherto been offered us this side of the Atlantic—with one diverting and rhetorical Teutonic exception.
In Mr. Roosevelt you have the following popular and captivating elements:
He is:—