Malden High School - Maldonian Yearbook (Malden, MA)

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CLASS BOOK OF I 92 0 A MALDEN HIGH SCHOOL boldness and with that clearness of vision that marked him, he reorganized the department, weeding out the bad from the good, thus creating the best body of police New York has ever had. Not only did he have courage to demand the right but persistency in holding to it in face of opposition. He had been in the New York Assembly a short time when one day he brought charges against a certain Judge Westbrook and demanded his impeachment on the ground that he had prostituted his high judicial office to serve the purpose of unscrupulous stock gamblers. Roosevelt was voted down; but day after day he repeated his demand. Finally, on the eighth day, a vote was taken to decide whether a committee should be appointed to investigate the judge. Roosevelt, by his persistency, won his point by a vote of 104 to 6. He was too straightforward to be a mere politician. “Honor goes before profit,” one of his mottoes, was hardly one for a politician. “Better be right, than be President” was another. Circumstances - fortunate for our country—forced him into the President’s chair. Here, too, difficulties were met with the same honesty, courage and wisdom. Difficult situations that might have involved us with European countries were tactfully and decisively handled. German attempts at encroachment were nipped in the bud. Such was the effort to gain a foothold in Venezuela for an attempt to dominate the Panama Canal. Better under¬ standing with both England and France was attained during his Presidency. Subserviency had no place in Roosevelt’s nature. Just before a State Banquet, the German Ambassador suggested to President Roosevelt that Prince Henry of Prussia, who was visiting the United States, should, as a Hohenzollern, and representative of the almightiest Kaiser, precede Roosevelt to the Banquet hall. The President replied curtly, “No person living precedes the President of the United States in the White House.” Roosevelt was the typical citizen of America, a man who possessed the spirit of youth and pioneering, who was a friend of all honest men and women, and who lived up to his convictions in his private and public life with courage and everlasting faith in humanity. He was a patriot. “To him love of country was as a living fire, as the very heart’s blood of his being.” In one of his speeches he said, “Every true patriot, every man of statesmanlike habits should look forward to the time when not a single European power shall hold a foot of American soil.” His motto was: “One flag, the American flag; one language, the English Page Eleven

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SALUTATORY THE GREAT AMERICAN FREDERIC FLETCHER HOLMES God give us men! A time like this demands Stong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office will not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor, men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty, and in private thinking. For while the rabble with their thumb worn creeds, Their large profession and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps. This pcem, written in 1856, was never more appropriate than at the present day. We do, indeed, need men, men like Washington, like Lincoln, and above all like Theodore Roosevelt, one of the greatest Americans who has ever lived. And Roosevelt was a man such as this poem depicts. In Roosevelt’s own words life is “A battle royal—a battle for the man of clean hands and clean mind ; who can think straight and act square, the man who will stand for the right because it is right, who can say and mean it, that it is hard to fail but worse never to have tried to succeed.” When we picture Roosevelt, we see him in our mind’s eye perhaps only as the Rough Rider. Should we not think of him as the living embodiment of his own statement? Every act of the man was the expression of a strong, virile, mind and soul. Courage was his dominant characteristic. He clearly discerned what was the right and then stood for it because it was right. Fie was too downright to adopt men of expediency. Positive he was in thought, speech and action. When appointed President of the Police Commission of New York City, he found, on taking office, that New York was a den of wickedness. Vice was rampant. The police abetted crime and protected the vicious. Nothing daunted, Roosevelt proceeded to clean up the city. With characteristic energy and Page Ten

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CLASS BOOK OF 1920A MALDEN HIGH SCHOOL language; one loyalty, loyalty to the American people.” Let me close with a tribute paid him by his intimate friend, Jacob Riis: “Roosevelt was a Soldier, Statesman, Scientist, Student of Nature, Scholar, Writer on many subjects, Patriot and Christian Gentleman; a man whose watch¬ word was Duty, and whose guiding stars were Truth and Humanity, whose life was one of Service for the Right, for Country, and for God. Happy we who had such a friend ! Happy the American Republic which bore such a son!” tA.Yi. AW Page Twelve