For his inexhaustible energy
hungered for action. As soon as his judgment convinced him that a
thing ought to be done he set about doing it. Recently, I asked
one of the most perspicacious members of his Cabinet, "What do
you consider Theodore's dominant trait" He thought for a while,
and then replied, "Combativeness." No doubt the public also, at
least while Roosevelt was in office, thought of him first as a
fighter. The idea that he was truculent or pugnacious, that he
went about with a chip on his shoulder, that he loved fighting
for the sake of fighting, was, however, a mistake. During the
eight years he was President he kept the United States out of
war; not only that, he settled long-standing causes of
irritation, such as the dispute over the Alaskan Boundary, which
might, under provocation, have led to war. Even more than this,
without striking a blow, he repelled the persistent attempts of
the German Emperor to gain a foothold on this continent; he
repelled those snakelike attacks and forced the Imperial Bully,
not merely to retreat ignominiously but to arbitrate.
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