PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT romps

with his children and takes an interest in their sports and undertakings, yet he never forfeits their respect, and he enforces strict discipline in his household. The chief executive has been known to postpone the consideration of an important affair of state in order to indulge with his children in their favorite pastime of "playing bear," and on the other hand he has been known to excuse himself to a company of friends spending the evening at his home and, proceeding upstairs, administer punishment in the approved old-fashioned manner to certain of his youngsters who had disregarded repeated admonitions to make less noise. It is this nice commingling of comradeship and authority which has inade the youngest president even more successful as a father than as chief magistrate.

For President Roosevelt to stand in the relation of chum to every one of the junior members of his household requires, as may be imagined, considerable versatility in sympathies, owing to the wide range in the ages of the children. There are half a dozen of the Roosevelt children: Alice, aged nineteen; Theodore, Jr., fifteen; Kermit, thirteen; Ethel, ten; Archibald, seven; and Quentin, five years of age. No two of the lively coterie are near enough of age to have exactly the same interests, and consequently a distinct tribute to the President's ability is found in the fact that he is able to maintain a strong bond of sympathy with each individual child and yet weld all the young people into a group so loyal that the Roosevelt

household has been famous for years for its clannishness and self-sufficiency.

President Roosevelt has a deep in stinctive love for children and an ability to understand them which very likely constitutes the secret of his magnetic influence over his own little folks. When he was police commissioner in New York City he went frequently to the schools of the Children's Aid Society and other similar institutions, principally on the great East Side and on such occasions he gave talks which were remembered and referred to by the little pupils for weeks afterward.

President Roosevelt has repeatedly voiced his disapproval of the "goodygoody" boy. He said on one occasion:

"I do not want any one to believe that my little ones are brought up to be cowards in this house. If they are struck they are not taught to turn the other cheek. I haven't any use for weaklings. I command gentleness and manliness. I want my boys to be strong and gentle. For all my children I pray that they may be healthy and natural."

Adherence to this creed was manifested one day during Mr. Roosevelt's term as governor of New York, when his son Teddy came home with his clothing in tatters and explained that he had avenged an insult offered by a much larger boy who had spoken sneeringly of Teddy's father. The governor listened patiently throughout the recital and then his only comment was, "Well, I 'm glad you licked him.”

Young girls, to fulfil the President's ideal, must be possessed of many of the same qualifications as their brothers.

"In fact," said President Roosevelt in discussing the matter, "I must confess that when girls are small I like them to be tomboys." Judged by the Roosevelt standard the highest compliment which the President ever paid Miss Alice, his eldest daughter, was found in his remark: "Alice is a girl who does not stay in the house and sit in a rocking chair. She can walk as far as I can. She can ride, drive, and shoot-although she doesn't care much for the shooting. I don't mind that, it is not necessary for her health; but the out-door exercise is, and she has plenty of it."

Mr. Roosevelt has never lost an opportunity to impress upon the children, both by example and admonition, the principles by which he wishes them to be governed. On Christmas a few years ago Mr. Roosevelt, in furs and whiskers personated Santa Claus and distributed presents to a small assemblage of young people. He made a short address to his own children and a number of their playmates, in which he said:

"I want you all as you grow up to have a good time. I do not think enough of a sour-faced child to spank him. And while you are having a good time, work, for you will have a good time while you work if you work the right way. If the time ever comes for you to fight, fight as you have worked, for it will be your duty. A coward, you know, is several degrees meaner than a liar is. Be brave, manly and gentle to those weaker than yourselves, hold your own, and at the same time do your duty to the weak and you will come pretty near being noble men and women."

The result of such training has been manifest on many occasions. Soon after the Roosevelts took up their residence at the White House a fawning society woman asked one of the younger boys if he didn't dislike the "common boys" whom he met at the public school. The

little fellow looked at her in wonderment a moment and then said:

"My papa says that there are only tall boys and short boys and bad boys and good boys and that's all the kinds of boys there are." Summed up,

President Roosevelt's theory with reference to the management of children is that parents should neither be too strict nor too indulgent. Said he in discussing the matter:

"In the first case the children grow up sullen, and in the second they often become an offence to themselves and a curse to others. Moreover, all children should have as good a time as they possibly can."

In pursuance of this latter belief very few restrictions have been placed upon the Roosevelt children. Both father and mother have gone on the theory that each child is able, in a considerable degree, to look out for his own safety and welfare, and the constant watchfulness which is the bane of many a child's life has never been manifest in the case of the President's youngsters. So, too, an effort has been made to provide them with all the possessions which would contribute to their health and enjoyment. The Roosevelt's were not always as well supplied with this world's goods as they are at present, but there was never any hesitancy about the purchase of a gun, boat or pony if the happiness of the children was really involved; and assuredly this policy has had its reward, for only on very rare occasions have an of the children known real illness.

The democracy in which President Roosevelt is so firm a believer is reflected in the actions of his children. The youngest boys have as a play-fellow the little son of the negro steward at the White House and when at Oyster Bay attend the same school as the children of John Hall, the family coachman. On one occasion when "Old Tom," an aged negro in charge of the barnyard at the

Roosevelt country house, reported that young Teddy had attempted to lasso some choice spring chickens, Mr. Roosevelt handed him a long-lashed whip and remarked:

"Lay it on, Tom, good and hard. It is about time that Master Teddy recognized your supreme authority in the barnyard."

Love underlies the whole relationship between President Roosevelt and his children; the admiration of the youngsters for their father and their loyalty to him are simply unbounded. When the leader of the Rough Riders returned from the Spanish-American War, he found all his children lined up before a pole from which floated a gigantic flag of their own manufacture, inscribed TO COL. ROOSEVELT. He afterward admitted that the tribute touched him more deeply than any of the more pretentious demonstrations accorded him.

Under the direction of their father and comrade, the junior members of the Roosevelt family lead a really ideal life at Oyster Bay during the summer months. The father rides, rows, walks and sails with his children, constantly encouraging them in all sorts of athletic sports; and that he does not intend to discontinue this practice even when serving as chief executive was attested during his first vacation at Oyster Bay after assuming the presidency, when, on one occasion, he went with three small boys off to the woods, "camping out" over night and sleeping on the ground

as he was wont to do in his ranching days in the West.

Even at the White House the children come in for a considerable share of the president's attention. Very often some one of them will accompany him for a walk and almost invariably one or more of the children accompany him to church on Sunday morning. On one occasion, coming out of the place of worship at the conclusion of the service, one of the youngsters discovered that he had forgotten his hat and the President laughed outright, just as a lad might have done, at the discomfiture which the discovery occasioned. Moreover, the chief magistrate and the other children walked briskly homeward, never pausing, and consequently the forgetful one was forced to run several blocks in order to overtake the others.

The President has endeared himself to his children by his extreme tolerance with reference to their almost innumerable pets. Collectively, the junior members of the household maintain a veritable menagerie and so lenient is the chief magistrate with reference to these furred and feathered friends that he has been known even to regard lightly the action of one of the younger sons coming to dinner with a pet rat in his pocket. The President is also a firm believer in the wisdom of old-fashioned Christmas and Fourth of July celebrations and several minor accidents to junior members of the household on Independence Day have not served to diminish this enthusiasm.

F

TIME

IME was when the pioneer was invariably the poor man who sought a new home in the wilderness. Today the far confines of the frontier are exploited by the rich for profit or pleasure. The millionaire still makes his headquarters in New York, or Chicago, or St. Louis -there are a few of us left even in Boston and Philadelphia-but his address is pretty apt to be William K. Rockefeller, The Earth; and a letter thus mailed would reach his private secretary every time. He exploits the far corners of Arctic Alaska for more gold for his overflowing coffers, but he comes "not as the flying come, in silence and in fear;" nor yet as the miner, on foot with pick, pack and potations on his back; but in mighty steamers the roar of whose steam whistle echoes along the berg-battered beaches, in whose vasty hold is likely to be a young railroad and all the paraphernalia of a full fledged camp; and at his nod a city springs up.

He seeks his pleasure in the same great-pocketed fashion, and at the rub

bing of the lamp palaces rise in lone. lands and palace cars scurry thither with science at the engine throttle and liveried flunkies in attendance on his majesty, lapped in the luxury of a private boudoir. It is thus that of late years the millionaire has sought Florida, the land of midwinter enchantment. When he finds it impossible to buck the blizzards that sweep down Broadway, and the drifts overturn his carriage at the corner of Fourteenth street and dump the footman into the stalled trolley car, he orders his golf sticks and yachting clothes packed and takes the luxuriously appointed train. The blizzard and the snow slip behind him in a few hours.

A night and a day and he is in the land of summer sunshine, the glistening sands of Florida are beneath the ties and the orange trees bloom on either side of the track. To the right and left are the sunny glades and mysterious swamps that have suffered little change since Ponce De Leon sought the fountain of perpetual youth among them, and the