Listen to an
anonymous writer in the Saturday Evening Post:
It was on April 6, 1882, that Roosevelt took the floor in the
Assembly and demanded that Judge Westbrook, of New bury, be
impeached. And for sheer moral courage that act is probably
supreme in Roosevelt's life thus far. He must have expected
failure. Even his youth and idealism and ignorance of public
affairs could not blind him to the apparently inevitable
consequences. Yet he drew his sword and rushed apparently to
destruction--alone, and at the very outset of his career, and in
disregard of the pleadings of his closest friends and the plain
dictates of political wisdom. That speech--the deciding act in
Roosevelt's career--is not remarkable for eloquence. But it is
remarkable for fear less candor. He called thieves thieves,
regardless of their millions; he slashed savagely at the judge
and the Attorney General; he told the plain unvarnished truth as
his indignant eyes saw it.*
* Riis, 54-55.
Astonishment verging on consternation filled the Assemblymen,
who, through long experience, were convinced that Truth was too
precious to be exhibited in public.
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