Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/518

 nature soon covers it up and conceals it from view. To give it undue prominence is, therefore, to be unnatural and in effect is much like the ostentatious array of pins. Even decent people have at times occasion to make use of a jordan, but they put it under the bed where the drapery hides it from sight. Poets like Whitman and novelists like Emile Zola and Thomas Hardy insist on putting it on the parlor table, and they call this offense realism.

I have met Mr. Root on two occasions; at Chicago where he made the speech nominating Roosevelt for the presidency, a speech which could not be heard and, therefore, made little impression on the audience, and again at the Franklin dinner of the American Philosophical Society, where he sat between me and Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, whom he spent most of his time in jibing. A slim, rugged, iron-gray man who gives the impression of will-power and intelligence, which he undoubtedly possesses, he is a living illustration of the old saw, “First get on, then get honor, then get honest.” Beginning life as an associate of Tweed, progressing into a successful corporation lawyer and accumulator, he now, in his old age, proclaims that there are higher motives than the pursuit of money, and he is keen to perceive corruption in politicians outside of New York. He stood manfully by Roosevelt while the latter had power and then promptly dropped him. As a United States Senator, he represented the financial interests of New York City, and, if a choice had to be made between the welfare of the country and the welfare of these interests, always found good or plausible reasons for clinging to the flesh pots. As a statesman he ought never to be forgiven for his part in the surrender of our sovereignty over the Panama Canal. On the whole, he is a man capable of great usefulness, but entirely too shrewd and worldly-wise to be a safe dependence. 498