A Grand Beginning

     Few men have ever been called upon to face the glare of the public gaze focused upon him so suddenly and under such trying circumstances. Every eye was watching him and every ear was bent to catch his words during the week that followed his accession to the presidency under the embarassing [sic] circumstances, but by no act or word did he fail in the dignity and wisdom of his course. The principal representative of the nation in the obsequies at Buffalo, Washington and Canton, the beneficiary in a sense of the assassin’s act, he bore himself so nobly that no word of cavil of [sic] criticism was heard in all this broad land.
     The real Roosevelt shone forth.
     Those who knew him only as the impetuous, brave warrior or as the advocate of the “strenuous life” as depicted by the sensational papers were relieved and surprised at his equipose [sic], his breadth and tact. His prompt avowal of his determination to follow McKinley’s policies and his retention of McKinley’s cabinet and McKinley’s private secretary marks a strength, a sincerity and a devotion to public welfare and a modesty and an absence of personal ambition that mark him as a really great man. He proves his patriotism by his self effacement in the grandest way possible.
     Every other vice president who has succeeded to the office has surrounded himself with men of his own personal preference, has formulated new policies and in other ways has effaced his predecessor, and emphasized his own prominence. Roosevelt put away the temptations of egotism and ambition, to be a humble servant of the people and in that he gives proof of his greatness.