A nation must think before it acts.
In the spring of 1886, thieves stole a young Theodore Roosevelt’s boat from the banks of his ranch in Dakota Territory. Roosevelt and two ranch hands pursued the men down the Little Missouri River and arrested them after three days, avoiding a shootout. The group nearly froze while waiting eight more days for an ice jam in the river to clear. Hungry and exhausted, Roosevelt then escorted the men to the nearest jail, a 36-hour walk away. He described meeting a settler who “could hardly understand why I took so much bother with thieves instead of hanging them off-hand.”