Just as a cur will follow you with barkings and threatening growls if you run from him, and yet turn tail and run when you boldly face him, so with most men, with society, with the world--flee from them, show your fear of them, and they will harry you, but boldly face them, they gentle down immediately, fawn upon you, lie down, or, to use an expressive slang phrase, "come and eat out of your hand." How politicians straddle the fence, refrain from expressing their opinions, deal in glittering generalities, because of their cowardly fears.

How they turn their sails to catch every breath of popular favor.

How cautious, politic, wary, they are, and how fears worry and besiege them, whenever they accidentally or incidentally say something that can be interpreted as a positive conviction.

And yet men really love a brave man in political life; one who has definite convictions and fearlessly states them; who has no worries as to results but dares to say and do those things only of which his conscience approves.

No matter how one may regard Roosevelt, cowardice is one thing none will accuse him of.