Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/183

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 147 through his enemies and opponents. Those remain whose taste has always been offended by him. Un doubtedly his vivacities of phraseology have made him others; and many could not but hate some of the intemperance of his sayings during his de plorable personal rupture with Mr. Taft. Here that headstrong quality of his caused others to draw off from him ; his espousal of those revived mediaeval devices, the initiative, the referendum and the recall especially the recall of judges lost him numer ous adherents. All such machinery is double edged and no machinery ever saved a state; good citi zens alone do this. Those opposed to female suf frage denounce him also. But these are minor enemies and opponents; they serve to draw lesser or external traits and opinions of the man. No body claims for him the dignity of Washington or the patience of Lincoln: but something he has of the far-seeing sagacity of the one and of the humane spirit of the other. He can be magnanimous often, and ruthless sometimes. His true, permanent, worst enemies are the extremists of "capital" and "labor," at whose excesses he has struck. Those who study his chief policies in the future will won der that so much obvious common sense should ever have aroused anything but general acquiescence. But he has rendered one service to this country dis puted by none, and never rendered by any president , before: into the breasts of hundreds and thousands