EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE RULERS OF UGANDA, AFRICA.

An excellent photograph of the dignitaries of the province of Uganda, taken at the Provincial Commission House at the Kampala, Uganda, on December 22, 1909. In the front row from left to right are Bishop Tucker, Colonel Roosevelt, King Dandi, hereditary ruler of Uganda, who reigns under a British protectorate, and Provincial Commissioner Hanlon. In the background are seen other members of the King's court and the provincial government.

A common garden bench was firmly fastened on the pilot of the engine of the East African Railway which took the distinguished hunting party from Mombasa on the coast up through the interior. By this arrangement the hunters overlooked none of the big game which throngs the country near the railroad and fully enjoyed the wonderful scenery of the regions traversed in their long journey. Col. Roosevelt is seen at the left of the picture adjusting his helmet strap just before the train started.

Instantly his right hand shot out, taking the man on the point of the jaw. The left followed. Down went the culprit with a crash. The unfair blow had stirred up all the Roosevelt fighting blood, and it is a hot grade of blood when it is up.

Other things than games and exercise attracted the college boy s attention. His father had been active in the work of public aid. He died while the boy was at college, and young Theodore sought to walk in his footsteps. He became Secretary of the Prison Reform Association and acted on several committees. In addition he became a teacher in a Sunday-school. His family faith was the Dutch Reformed, but he found no church of that denomination at Cambridge, and drifted into a mission school of the high church Episcopalian faith.

He did not stay there long. One day a boy came to his class with a black eye. When questioned, he acknowledged that he got it in a fight, and that, too, on Sunday. The class was scandalized and the teacher questioned him sternly. The fact came out that "Jim," the other boy, had sat beside the lad's sister and had pinched her all through the school hour. A fight followed, in which Jim got soundly punched, the avenger of his sister coming out with a black eye.

"You did just right," was Roosevelt's verdict, and he gave the young champion a dollar.

This pleased the class highly. It appealed to them as justice. But when it got out among the school officers they were scandalized. And Roosevelt was a black sheep among them in other ways. He did not observe the formalities of the high church service as they thought he should. They asked if he had any objection to them. None in the world, but he was Dutch Reformed. This was too much. Some words followed and Roosevelt got out and entered a Congregational Sunday-school near by, where he taught during the remainder of his college term. Just what he taught we are not aware, but it seems. rather amusing to think of Theodore Roosevelt as a Sunday-school teacher.

What now about the real work for which one goes to college, the studies, the diligent pursuit of knowledge? That he was an earnest student of those subjects which especially interested him we may be sure from what we know of the man. His tastes turned toward the

study of living things, men and animals. As the years went on he grew deeply interested in the study of human life, history and institutions. Political principles attracted him and he read the "Federalist" with deep absorption. To become lost in a book, indeed, was common with him. The story goes that, when visiting a fellow-student, he would be apt to pick up a volume, and immediately become so buried in its contents that a cannon would hardly have awakened him to the social duty of the hour.

Before leaving college he had gone beyond reading to the task of writing a book. Reading the extant histories of naval battles in the War of 1812, he found them unfairly partisan. William James's history, an English work, was full of one-sided statements. The American histories he examined seemed as much on the other side. An impartial history appeared to be needed, and he set out to write one. He studied the official files, and "The Naval History of 1812," his first work, is an acknowledged authority. Its fairness led to his being complimented by an invitation to write the chapter on this war for the monumental British work, "The Royal Navy."

We cannot go further into the details of Roosevelt's college life. It must suffice to say that when, in 1880, graduation day arrived, he stood among the first twenty of the one hundred and forty of his class; not at the top, but at a very respectable distance from the bottom.

His college career ended, he went abroad to get a glimpse of the world outside America. But he did not stay long. His love of walking led him to take a tramp afoot through Germany. The sight of the Alps inspired him to climb the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn. He halted for a period of study at Dresden. His journey reached as far east as Asia. But he was back in New York in the year after his graduation, prepared to take his part in the battle of life.

CHAPTER III.

Exposing Graft in New York State

HE career of a lawyer, which was the first idea of the college graduate, did not long hold the ambitious young man. Engaging in legal study in the office of his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt, at the age of twenty-three, he at once took part in the political affairs of his district, and with such energy and effect that he was elected as a State representative before the year ended. It happened, as he tells us, in this way:

"After leaving college I went to the local political headquarters, attended all the meetings and took my part in whatever came up. There arose a revolt against the member of Assembly from that district, and I was nominated to succeed him and elected."

A rapid beginning this for so young a man. His innate power must have been very evident to meet with the sudden recognition. His legal studies ended then and there, for from that time on he was too deeply engaged in public duties to be able to devote time to so exhausting a pursuit as the law.

It was in the fall of 1881 that he was elected, and when he entered the State House at Albany in 1882 he was the youngest member of the Assembly. Yet he was full of ideas, overflowing with energy, and instead of keeping in the background, as such youthful legislators are expected to do, he soon made himself a storm center in the House.

Beginning with a study of his colleagues, within two months he had classified them all, dividing them into two classes—the good and the bad. The former were decidedly in the minority, but the young Assemblyman lost no time in identifying himself with them, and this with such force and ability that he was soon their undisputed leader. There was corruption, abundance of it, deep and intrenched, corruption much of which had slept serene and undisturbed for years, and it was against this that he couched his lance.