Q. How did you know that substantial justice was done?
Mr. Roosevelt. Because I did it, because . . . I was doing my best.

Q. You mean to say that when you do a thing thereby substantial justice is
done?

Mr. Roosevelt. I do. When I do a thing I do it so as to do substantial
justice. I mean just that. ¹

This was the essence of Theodore Roosevelt's philosophy, the convic-
tion of righteousness that strengthened him in his moments of inner
doubt. Justice was an essential part of righteousness. But there were men
and women who went to their graves, or still live, convinced that they
had been grievously wronged by Roosevelt. A lieutenant general of the
army, whose bravery had helped to win the Civil War, encountered the
Presidential wrath and retired with his record tarnished. A railroad
magnate was publicly branded an undesirable citizen. An ambassador
was dismissed. A regiment of Negro soldiers, perhaps the victims of a
conspiracy, learned that "substantial justice" did not include the consti-
tutional provision that men are innocent until proved guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.

Lieut. Gen. Nelson A. Miles had suffered Roosevelt's displeasure,
although unaware of it, during the Spanish War. The colonel of the
Rough Riders noted in his diary, when giving vent to his disgust over
the blunders of the High Command, that General Miles was "merely
a brave peacock." ² He felt that Miles was one of those responsible for
the disorder which attended the comic-opera war.

That the commanding general of the army was subsequently indis-
creet and overestimated his hold upon the people is certain. "Miles has
the Presidential bee in his bonnet," Roosevelt told Lodge in August,
1899, "even to the extent of wishing me to run as Vice-president on the
ticket with him." ³ To Roosevelt, under whose broad-brimmed black hat

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