is as proud of personally bringing down his Spaniard as of slaying his first lion. He played his daring and picturesque part in a way to rehabilitate military glory in the national mind. But for the astonishing skill with which he wrung the last drop of dramatic interest from his troop of college men and cowboys the reverberations of the affair would soon have died away in the popular consciousness. He made the deeds of the Rough Riders a popular classic like Lexington and Bunker Hill. His little war did as much to kindle as Mr. Wilson's big war did to quench the military spirit; for Mr. Wilson went in with the grim determination of a chief of police, and Mr. Roosevelt with the infinite gusto of a big game hunter. His little war, as he himself declared, made him President.
In office, he did not sicken of power as did the Washingtonians of whom Henry Adams speaks. With the vast influence of his position he sought to mould the national mind and feelings into the likeness of his own. He sought to make the national mind virile, daring, imaginative, aggressive, and eager for distinction in the world. He preached to the nation as if it were a rich man of leisure with a splendid opening, made by his war, for the practice of the strenuous life. He set the example by magnifying his own office, concentrating power, teaching the public to look to the Federal Government as the controlling, dynamic, and creative center of American life. His measure for the regulation of
