We must remember that when History, with steady hand and calm eyes, free from the passions of the past, comes to make up the final account, she will call as her principal witnesses the contemporaries of the man or the event awaiting her verdict.
Lodge discusses the importance of contemporary witnesses in shaping historical narratives about significant figures like Roosevelt.
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No man ever prized sentiment or hated sentimentality more than he.
He was unfailingly attractive, because he was always perfectly natural and his own unconscious self.
He preached unceasingly the familiar morals which lie at the bottom of both family and public life.
His ideal of public service was to be found in his life, and as his life drew to its close he had to meet his ideal of sacrifice face to face.