.. of
Roosevelt, who invited him to dinner at the White House ... and of how,
at that dinner attended by many prominent men ... by several Senators
... Roosevelt had unlimbered his guns of attack on many men in public
office.... "Senator So-and-so was the biggest crook in American public
life.... Senator Thing-gumbob was the most sinister force American
politics had ever seen ... belonged to the Steel Trust from his shoes to
his hat...."
"Suppose, Mr. President," Baxter had put to him, at the same time
expressing his amazement at the president's open manner of speech before
men he had never even met before ... men perhaps of antagonistic shades
of opinion, "suppose I should go out from here and give to the
newspapers the things you have just said! How would you protect, defend
yourself?"
"Young man, if you did--_as you won't_--" smashed Roosevelt, with his
characteristic of clenched right fist brought down in the open palm of
the left hand--"if you did--I'd simply brand you as a liar ... and shame
you before the world."
"And so it was that Roosevelt expressed himself freely ... and at the
same time protected himself."
* * * * *
We stood on the top of Azure Mound. Baxter was puffing heavily, for it
had been a hard climb.
At our feet extended a panorama of what seemed like a whole State.
The wide-spread fields of wheat, of corn, exalted us.
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