* Roosevelt: Thomas H. Benton, 67. American Statesmen Series. Perhaps we ought to infer from this extract that Roosevelt, as an historical critic, strove to preserve an open mind; as an ardent Republican, however, he never wavered in his support of the tariff. Even his sense of humor permitted him to swallow with out a smile the demagogue's cant about "infant industries," or the raising of the tariff after election by the Republicans who had promised to reduce it. To those of us who for many years regarded the tariff as the dividing line between the parties, his stand was most disappointing. And when the head of one of the chief Trusts in America cynically blurted out, "The Tariff is the mother of Trusts," we hoped that Roosevelt, who had then begun his stupendous battle with the Trusts, would deal them a staggering blow by shattering the tariff. But, greatly to our chagrin, he did nothing. His enemies tried to explain his callousness to this reform by hinting that he had some personal interest at stake, or that he was under obligations to tariff magnates. Nothing could be more absurd than these innuendoes; from the first of his career to the last, no man ever brought proof that he had directly or indirectly secured Roosevelt's backing by question able means. And there were times enough when passions ran so high that any one who could produce an iota of such testimony would have done so. The simple fact is, that in looking over the field of important questions which Roosevelt believed must be met by new legislation, he looked on the tariff as unimportant in comparison with railroads, and conservation, and the measures for public health. I think, also, that he never studied the question thoroughly; he threw over Mill's Individualism early in his public career and with it went Mill's political economy. As late as December, 1912, after the affronting Payne Aldrich Tariff Act had been passed under his Republican successor, I reminded Roosevelt that I had never voted for him because I did not approve of his tariff policy. To which he replied, almost in the words of the Benton extract in 1886, "My dear boy, the tariff is only a question of expediency." In this field also I fear that we must score a miss against him. Cavour used to say that he did not need to resort to craft, which was supposed to be a statesman's favorite instrument, he simply told the truth and everybody was deceived. Roosevelt might have said the same thing. His critics were always on the look out for some ulterior motive, some trick, or cunning thrust, in what he did; consequently they misjudged him, for he usually did the most direct thing in the most direct way.