We only know they followed wherever his insatiable activity of mind invited them. Men follow also most readily a leader who is always there before them, clearly visible and just where they expect him. They are especially eager to go forward with a man who never sounds a retreat. Roosevelt was always advancing, always struggling to make things better, to carry some much-needed reform, and help humanity to a larger chance, to a fairer condition, to a happier life. Moreover, he looked always for an ethical question. He was at his best when he was fighting me battle of right against wrong. He thought soundly and wisely upon questions of expediency or of political economy, but they did not rouse him or bring him the absorbed interest of the eternal conflict between good and evil. Yet he was never impractical, never blinded by counsels of perfection, never seeking to make the better the enemy of the good. He wished to get the best, but he would strive for all that was possible even if it fell short of the highest at which he aimed. He studied the lessons of history, and did not think the past bad simply because it was the past, or the new good solely because it was new. He sought to try all questions on their intrinsic merits, and that was why he succeeded in advancing, in making government and society better, where others, who would be content with nothing less than an abstract perfection, failed. He would never compromise a principle, but he was eminently tolerant of honest differences of opinion. He never hesitated to give generous credit where credit seemed due, whether to friend or opponent, and in this way he gathered recruits and yet never lost adherents.