In considering the changes which have been brought about under President Roosevelt's regime, one would like to omit altogether any direct and personal reference to the President himself. This, however, is impossible. His two administrations have afforded an extraordinary example of personal government, and we can not dissociate his official acts from the characteristics of the man who is answerable for them. Throughout these seven years the government of the United States has, to all intents and purposes, been centred in an individual; and therefore, we must reckon with this individual; and therefore, we must reckon with this individual's attributes precisely as though he had been a conscientiously despotic ruler who personally tried to understand every detail and phase of public life, and who felt himself in duty bound to direct those vaguer, subtler, and far-reaching movements which are not political but social.

      What has most puzzled students of recent American history has been the President's unusual and sustained popularity. . . .

      Yet President Roosevelt through seven years, though he has been every moment in the public eye, has managed until very lately not only to keep, but to augment astonishingly, the popular approval first won by him through his exploit at Kettle Hill. He has made some serious blunders. He has more than once ignored the elemental principles of good taste. He has at times disregarded utterly the traditional dignity of his office. Many a statesman has been ruined in the public estimation by incidents far less important than some of those which happened during Mr. Roosevelt's presidency. . . . Nevertheless, the stubborn, concrete fact remains that Mr. Roosevelt has been popular as no other President ever was, and that even his foibles and faults have been exalted into virtues. Americans are supposed to have a keen sense of humour; but in Mr. Roosevelt's case this seems to have undergone paralysis.

      What is the secret of this phenomenon? Many explanations have been given, but I think that the most tenable of all still waits an analyst. Mr. Roosevelt was the youngest of all the Presidents, when he first took office, being then in his forty-third year. A man at forty-three is usually supposed to be mature. Mr. Roosevelt, however, was immature. If not exactly a boy, he was, at any rate, often boyish. He was full of hasty impulses. His character was as yet unformed. As a child, he had been spoiled at home. In politics he had pursued an independent course because he was rich enough to disregard considerations of a material character. Throughout his life he had always done the thing he wished to do. Whenever he succeeded, his amour propre, was flattered. Whenever he failed, as in his candidacy for the mayoralty of New York City, it did not greatly trouble him. He soon found some other means of calling general attention to his existence. . . .

      These and many more things which the public still remembers remind one of an enthusiastic youth. When Mr. Roosevelt first became President, he presented the spectacle of an enthusiastic youth placed in an exalted office. Oddly enough, this caught the people's fancy. From Washington to McKinley, our Presidents had represented a single type of ruler. They had all been dignified, middle-aged, and rather quiet men, who went about their official business in a dignified and quiet way. . . .

      Into the White House came Mr. Roosevelt with a bang. It was huge fun to be really President. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and of the Navy, too, and he could order ships and regiments about at will. He could gratify his curiosity by summoning to luncheon or to dinner all sorts of interesting men--foreign statesmen, distinguished authors, scientists, journalists, cowboys, and "badmen" who had been in prison for robbing trains. When he went anywhere, he could do so, hedged around by cavalry and infantry. If his friends wished to view some men-of-war, Mr. Roosevelt could direct the whole North Atlantic Fleet to rendezvous off Oyster Bay and fire salvos of heavy cannon while the President and his family in launch sailed around the battleships and cruisers. On a still larger scale, he could engage in foreign politics. Great Britain, Germany, and Italy asked him to arbitrate their claims against Venezuela. He assembled the representatives of Russia and Japan at Portsmouth to go through the form of signing a treaty of which the provisions had already been arranged. He gave out freely his opinions on college football and "race-suicide" and strikes, on labour unions and woman's rights, on simple spelling and on literature. His energy was extraordinary; his interests were multifarious.

      Now, after more than a hundred years of the Washington type of President, Mr. Roosevelt came as a somewhat startling but very interesting contrast. His frank relish for the power of office, frankly shown, made people like him. There was something so human, so artless, and so young about all this! Just as all the world is said to love a lover, so most of the world has a kindly, cordial feeling toward the extravagances of youth. It amused Americans much more than it shocked them to read presidential letters addressed to a Cabinet officer and beginning with "Dear Bill." It amused them also to have the President garnish his speech with bits of slang such as a "square deal" and "beaten to a frazzle," and to have him use such picturesque phrases as "the big stick," and to assert that "my spear knows no brother." They rather enjoyed Mr. Roosevelt's enjoyment, whether he was chopping wood or hunting bears or galloping at the head of regiments. Moreover, it gave them an impression that he was an open-minded, generous, frank, candid soul, who knew no guile and who would, in his own phrase, "do things." . . .

      After the ponderous utterances of Cleveland and the bland platitudes of McKinley, the vivid nervous utterances of Roosevelt came like an electric shock. He, the President of the United States, dared to say in plain English the very things which private citizens were saying and had been saying hopelessly for years. It put heart into hundreds of thousands who had begun to feel that the power of money was too great for any one to battle with. At once there began a series of exposures directly inspired by Mr. Roosevelt's public speeches. Municipal corruption was uncovered. The life insurance scandals were dragged to light, and the air and sun were let into many dark and noisome places. President Roosevelt himself called this "muck-raking" and he did so with disapproval. Yet he was actually the first of all the muck-rakers, and the term ought no to be one of reproach. For, as was remarked at the time, had there not been such quantities of muck, there would have been no necessity for raking it.