Some as good citizens as I know are or were prize-fighters.  Take Mike Donovan, of New York.  He and his family represent a type of American citizenship of which we have a right to be proud.  Mike is a devoted temperance man, and can be relied upon for every movement in the interest of good citizenship.  I was first intimately thrown with him when I was Police Commissioner.  One evening he and I—­both in dress suits—­attended a temperance meeting of Catholic societies.  It culminated in a lively set-to between myself and a Tammany Senator who was a very good fellow, but whose ideas of temperance differed radically from mine, and, as the event proved, from those of the majority of the meeting.  Mike evidently regarded himself as my backer—­he was sitting on the platform beside me—­and I think felt as pleased and interested as if the set-to had been physical instead of merely verbal.  Afterward I grew to know him well both while I was Governor and while I was President, and many a time he came on and boxed with me.

Battling Nelson was another stanch friend, and he and I think alike on most questions of political and industrial life; although he once expressed to me some commiseration because, as President, I did not get anything like the money return for my services that he aggregated during the same term of years in the ring.  Bob Fitzsimmons was another good friend of mine.  He has never forgotten his early skill as a blacksmith, and among the things that I value and always keep in use is a penholder made by Bob out of a horseshoe, with an inscription saying that it is “Made for and presented to President Theodore Roosevelt by his friend and admirer, Robert Fitzsimmons.”  I have for a long time had the friendship of John L. Sullivan, than whom in his prime no better man ever stepped into the ring.  He is now a Massachusetts farmer.  John used occasionally to visit me at the White House, his advent always causing a distinct flutter among the waiting Senators and Congressmen.  When I went to Africa he presented me with a gold-mounted rabbit’s foot for luck.  I carried it through my African trip; and I certainly had good luck.

On one occasion one of my prize-fighting friends called on me at the White House on business.  He explained that he wished to see me alone, sat down opposite me, and put a very expensive cigar on the desk, saying, “Have a cigar.”  I thanked him and said I did not smoke, to which he responded, “Put it in your pocket.”  He then added, “Take another; put both in your pocket.”  This I accordingly did.  Having thus shown at the outset the necessary formal courtesy, my visitor, an old and valued friend, proceeded to explain that a nephew of his had enlisted in the Marine Corps, but had been absent without leave, and was threatened with dishonorable discharge on the ground of desertion.  My visitor, a good citizen and a patriotic American, was stung to the quick at the thought of such an incident occurring