He was the first political leader of the
American people to identify the national principle with an ideal of
reform. He was the first to realize that an American statesman could no
longer really represent the national interest without becoming a
reformer. Mr. Grover Cleveland showed a glimmering of the necessity of
this affiliation; but he could not carry it far, because, as a sincere
traditional Democrat, he could not reach a clear understanding of the
meaning either of reform or of nationality. Mr. Roosevelt, however,
divined that an American statesman who eschewed or evaded the work of
reform came inevitably to represent either special and local interests
or else a merely Bourbon political tradition, and in this way was
disqualified for genuinely national service. He divined that the
national principle involved a continual process of internal reformation;
and that the reforming idea implied the necessity of more efficient
national organization. Consequently, when he became President of the
United States and the official representative of the national interest
of the country, he attained finally his proper sphere of action.
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