He got valuable
political notoriety as an Assemblyman, but that was, as I have so
often said, because he could not be inconspicuous anywhere. He
took the office of Civil Service Commissioner, although everybody
regarded that as a commonplace field bounded on three sides by
political oblivion; and only a dreamer could have supposed that
his service as Chief Police Commissioner of New York City could
lead to the White House. Only when he became Assistant Secretary
of the Navy can he be said to have come within striking distance
of the great target. In enlisting in the Spanish War and
organizing the Rough Riders, he may well have reflected that
military prowess has often favored a Presidential candidacy; but
even here, his sense of patriotic duty and his desire to
experience the soldier's life were almost indisputably his chief
motives. As Governor of New York, however, he could not disguise
from himself the fact that that position might prove again, as it
had proved in the case of Cleveland, the stepping-stone to the
Presidency.
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