Roosevelt's audience was emotional and
discursive even for a modern American audience. Hence, if he attempted
to lead at all, he had little choice but to adopt, or at least discuss,
every nostrum for reaching an immediate millennium which happened to be
uppermost; although, at the same time, he had to defend himself against
an attack compared with which any criticism to which Hamilton may have
been subjected resembled a caress. The result has been that the
Progressive movement, bearing Mr. Roosevelt with it, has degenerated
into a disintegrating rather than a constructive energy, which is, I
suspect, likely to become a danger to every one interested in the
maintenance of order, not to say in the stability of property. Mr.
Roosevelt is admittedly a strong and determined man whose instinct is
arbitrary, and yet, if my analysis be sound, we see him, at the supreme
moment of his life, diverted from his chosen path toward centralization
of power, and projected into an environment of, apparently, for the most
part, philanthropists and women, who could hardly conceivably form a
party fit to aid him in establishing a vigorous, consolidated,
administrative system.
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