Roosevelt Does Not Fear Harm

Vice President Goes Unattended and Expresses Faith in the People.
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SHAKES HANDS ON STREET
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Declares McKinley Is Improving Steadily and Will Soon Be Back in the White House.
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SOUGHT BY EAGER CROWDS.

     Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 9.—[Special.]—Vice President Roosevelt continues to go about Buffalo unattended and on foot with implicit faith that there are no more men of the Czolgosz type at large. He believes men of the fiendish ingenuity of Czolgosz are not to be stood off by armed guards and that his own alert eye and quick, athletic readiness for whatever may come is sufficient protection for him.
     A Buffalo headquarters detective has been assigned to guard the Vice President and follows him on a bicycle. As Colonel Roosevelt was walking up Delaware avenue to Mr. Milburn’s house this morning he passed an ancient negro raking leaves out of the grass between the sidewalk and the curb. The negro took off his hat and bowed low.
     “Please, sir, Mr. Roosevelt,” he said, “I’d like to shake hands with you, sir.”
     As he grasped the Vice President’s outstretched hand he added:
     “Look out they don’t get you, Mr. Vice President.”
     “Thank you,” said Colonel Roosevelt and started on.
     Two men in overalls had stopped to watch his meeting with the negro, and as he turned to go on they stepped up to him, too, with their hands stretched out.
     The Vice President shook hands with them both and thanked them for their greetings.

Not Afraid to Meet People.

     “Ain’t you afraid when a fellow comes up to you in the street like this?” asked one of them.
     “Not a bit of it, sir,” replied Colonel Roosevelt, with all his usual energy of utterance, “and I hope the time will never come when an officer of this government will be afraid to meet his fellow-citizens in the street. The people of this country, all the people, are the guardians of the men they have elected to public office. If anything, the lives of the officers of the government are safer now than before that thing was done at the exposition the other day. Tell me,” he asked, with a smile which showed his confidence that he would get a negative answer, “did it ever occur to either of you that violence would do any of our people any good?”

Say President Will Live.

     The men shook their heads. “Have you seen the President this morning?” asked one of them.
     “I have not seen him,” answered Colonel Roosevelt, “but I know that he is getting better all the time, and I have not now the slightest reason to doubt that he will recover and very rapidly, too. He will be back at his duties at Washington before long.”
     “Thank God for that,” said one of the workmen.
     The Vice President nodded his hearty approval and then walked on with Mr. Wilcox. He remained in the Milburn house a few minutes and came out with a broad smile on his face.
     He told all inquirers that he was fully satisfied that the President’s condition was constantly more encouraging.
     From the Milburn house the Vice President returned to Ansley Wilcox’s for luncheon. Secretary of War Root was at the luncheon, and the Vice President and the Secretary sat together for a long time in the shaded veranda of Mr. Wilcox’s house.
     The friendship between Mr. Root and the Vice President, though it is of long standing, has been made apparent to a great many people during their stay here in Buffalo together and where all their meetings and the manner of them have been more or less in the glare of publicity. Late in the afternoon the Vice President, Secretary Root, and Mr. Wilcox walked up to the Milburn home, and, after the usual inquiries as to the President’s progress, the walk was continued to Lincoln Park, a distance of several miles. They returned at dusk and the Vice President had just time to dress for dinner. He dined as usual with Mr. Root at the house of Mr. Sprague.

Roosevelt on “Yellow” Papers.

     There is a story concerning the Vice President going around the Buffalo clubs today which is sufficiently in accordance with Colonel Roosevelt’s general character to need no further verification. Some friend asked the Vice President how much, in his opinion, the “yellow” press was to blame for the attempt to kill the President.
     The Vice President has no particular reason to speak dearly of the particular newspaper to which his friend referred, and the thought that what he said might be attributed to his own personal pique against the newspaper apparently checked him for a moment as he was about to answer. He looked his questioner squarely in the eye for a moment and then there flashed over his face one of the grimmest of his grim smiles.
     “By their works,” he said, “ye shall know them.”
     Colonel Roosevelt has not yet decided when he will leave Buffalo for Oyster Bay. If there should be the slightest unfavorable turn in the reports from the President’s bedside the Vice President’s stay will be indefinitely prolonged.

Annoyed by Hosts of Cameras.

     The great army of Pan-American visitors in Buffalo, now that the gravest apprehensions for the President’s injury are past, have come to regard the Vice President and Mr. Hanna as two of the objects of interest. An astonishingly large number of them who came to see the great Buffalo show are armed with cameras. One man who has been much on the street with both the Vice President and the Senator from Ohio, said he found his nerves pretty well shattered by the constant clicking of all manner and shapes of camera shutters. Not infrequently both of the distinguished visitors have felt it wise to hail a passing carriage in order to escape from the embarrassing attentions of the young men and women who surround them with instruments.

Will Not Go to Cleveland.

     The Vice President has received urgent invitations from the people of Cleveland to attend the Grand Army encampment next Thursday. He has asked Senator Hanna, who is going to the encampment, to express his regrets to the people of Cleveland and the Grand Army men that he does not feel that he ought to accept their invitation.