He was the first to realize that an American statesman could no longer really represent the national interest without becoming a reformer.

Mr.Grover Cleveland showed a glimmering of the necessity of this affiliation; but he could not carry it far, because, as a sincere traditional Democrat, he could not reach a clear understanding of the meaning either of reform or of nationality.

Mr.Roosevelt, however, divined that an American statesman who eschewed or evaded the work of reform came inevitably to represent either special and local interests or else a merely Bourbon political tradition, and in this way was disqualified for genuinely national service.

He divined that the national principle involved a continual process of internal reformation; and that the reforming idea implied the necessity of more efficient national organization.

Consequently, when he became President of the United States and the official representative of the national interest of the country, he attained finally his proper sphere of action.