rt. It fell to the happy lot of the writer as a cub
editor to reply editorially to Mr. Jerome. I did so with gusto and
with particularity. As Mr. Roosevelt left the office on his way to the
steamer that was to take him to Africa to hunt non-political big game,
he said to me, who had seen him only once before: "That was bully. You
have done just what my Cabinet members used to do for me in Washington.
When a question rose that demanded action, I used to act. Then I would
tell Root or Taft to find out and tell me why what I had done was legal
and justified. Well done, coworker." Is it any wonder that Theodore
Roosevelt had made in that moment another ardent supporter?

Those first years in the political arena were not only a fighting
time, they were a formative time. The young Roosevelt had to discover
a philosophy of political action which would satisfy him. He speedily
found one that suited his temperament and his keen sense of reality.
He found no reason to depart from it to the day of his death. Long
afterward he told his good friend Jacob Riis how he arrived at it. This
was the way of it:

"I suppose that my head was swelled. It would not be strange if it was.
I stood out for my own opinion, alone. I took the best mugwump stand: my
own conscience, my own judgment, were to decide in all things. I would
listen to no argument, no advice. I took the isolated peak on every
issue, and my people left me. When I looked around, before the session
was well under way, I found myself alone. I was absolutely deserted.
The people didn't understand. The men from Erie, from Suffolk, from
anywhere, would not work with me. 'He won't listen to anybody,' they
said, and I would not. My isolated peak had become a valley; every bit
of influence I had was gone. The things I wanted to do I was powerless
to accomplish. What did I do? I looked the ground over and made up my
mind that there were several other excellent people there, with honest
opinions of the right, even though they differed from me. I turned in to
help them, and they turned to and gave me a hand. And so we were able to
get things done. We did not agree in all things, but we did in some, and
those we pulled at together. That was my first lesson in real politics.
It is just this: if you are cast on a desert island with only a
screw-driver, a hatchet, and a chisel to make a boat with, why, go
make the best one you can. It would be better if you had a saw, but you
haven't. So wi