AMERICAN IDEALS [Illustration] AND OTHER ESSAYS [Illustration] SOCIAL AND POLITICAL BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT Author of “The Winning of the West,” “The Wilderness Hunter,” “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman,” etc. WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY GEN. FRANCIS VINTON GREENE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1904 COPYRIGHT 1897 BY G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London The Knickerbocker Press, New York TO HENRY CABOT LODGE _October 1897_ [Illustration] BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Few names are more widely known at the present moment than that of Theodore Roosevelt, so that in one sense any introduction is superfluous. But in this sense he is known chiefly as the “Rough Rider” of the Santiago campaign; whereas those who read these books will see that his experience as a volunteer officer in the war with Spain is only one incident in a life which has been singularly varied in thought and accomplishment and useful in many fields. Roosevelt was born in New York City, October 27, 1858. On his father’s side he is descended from a Dutch emigrant of the seventeenth century and the intermediate generations have been prudent, hard-working, successful merchants, prominent at all times in the commercial and social life of New York. His father’s mother was from Pennsylvania, of Irish stock. His own mother was from Georgia, a daughter of James Dunwoodie Bullock, whose family was of Scotch and Huguenot origin, and had been prominent in public life in the South.