100 years ago this month, future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into his first political office, as a new member of New York’s State Senate. The Sunday Magazine ran this flattering profile of the young politician, just shy of his 30th birthday.

Those who looked closely at the law-maker behind desk 26 saw a young man with the finely chiseled face of a Roman patrician, only with a ruddier glow of health on it. Nature has left much unfinished in modeling the face of the Roosevelt of greater fame. On the face of this Roosevelt, younger in years and in public service, she has lavished all her refining processes until much of the elementary strength has been lost in the sculpturing.

Senator Roosevelt is less than 30. He is tall and lithe. With his handsome face and his form of supple strength he could make a fortune on the stage and set the matinée girl’s heart throbbing with subtle and happy emotion. But no one would suspect behind that highly polished exterior the quiet force and determination that now are sending cold shivers down the spine of Tammany’s striped mascot.

It’s a great read, especially since we know what became of him. And, as a bonus, if you download the PDF you’ll also receive an article about morris dances, the popular dance of yore that was just now reaching the States.

SENATOR F. D. ROOSEVELT, CHIEF INSURGENT AT ALBANY: He’s a Fifth Cousin of the Colonel, and He Stepped Into the spotlight the First Day He Took His Seat as Leader of the Independent Democrats. (PDF)

From January 22, 1911