Roosevelt, they said, was "rash" and "hot-headed" to make
trouble. And they refused to hear him.
But he got up next day, and the next, and the next after that, and
demanded that the dishonest judge be investigated. And on the
eighth day, his motion was carried by a vote of 104 to 6. The
politicians saw to it that the judge escaped, but it was shown
that Roosevelt's charges were true ones. And New York State found
that she had an Assemblyman with a back-bone.
Roosevelt carried some bills for the cause of better government
through the Assembly and they were signed by a courageous and
honest Governor, named Grover Cleveland. Thomas Nast, America's
great cartoonist of those days, drew a cartoon of the two men
together. Cleveland was forty-four and Roosevelt was twenty-three.
One of the most important events while he was in the Assembly
arose from a bill to regulate the manufacture of cigars in New
York City. He had found that cigars were often made under the most
unhealthy surroundings in the single living room of a family in a
tenement. In one house which he investigated himself, there were
two families, and a boarder, all living in one room, while one or
more of the men carried on the manufacture of cigars in the same
room. Everything about the place was filthy, and both for the
health of the families and of the possible users of the cigars, it
was necessary to have this state of affairs ended.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44