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0471
expansionism. Yet in 1905 James supported Roosevelt for the presidency
of Harvard. "Think of the mighty good will of him," he wrote, "of his
enjoyment of his post, of his power as a preacher, of the number of
things to which he gives his attention, of the safety of his second thoughts,
of the increased courage he is showing, and above alI of the fact that he
is an open, instead of an underground leader.... Bless him-and
damn all his detractors!"
U
A naesthesia/'
James wrote on another occasion, "is the watchword
of the moral sceptic....
Energy
is that of the moralist. Act on my creed,
cries the latter, and the results of your action will prove the creed true."
In this sense, Theodore Roosevelt was the pragmatist in politics (as, in
the sense of the word favored by the followers of Robert M. Hutchins, he
was doubtless the "pragmatist" in diplomacy-Panama-and the "prag–
matist" in reform) . The volcanic Rooseveltian energy performed a
magnificent service in its day. "Thousands of innocent magazine read–
ers," said James in 1882, "lie paralyzed and terrified in the network of
shallow negations which the leaders of opinion have thrown over their
souls. All they need to be free and hearty again in the exercise of their
birthright
is
that these fastidious vetoes should be swept away. All that
the human heart wants is its chance." In his brawling and offensive way,
Theodore Roosevelt swept away many fastidious vetoes. The human
heart in America, on the whole, benefited from his violent energy,
though T.R., for whom energy became almost an end in itself, concluded
as his own major casualty.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
THE SHADOW BEFORE
THE AGE OF LONGING.
By
Arthur Koestler.
MlIcmililln.
$3 .50.
Even in the nineteenth century, an era of hope and expecta–
tion, there were premonitory voices like Dostoevsky's and Kierkegaard's
foreshadowing an age of anguish. By the end of the first quarter of
the present century, writing in 1922 in the hour of France's victory
and dominance, Paul Valery could 'not shake off foreboding:
