Happy Birthday, T.R.

In the pre-pollution era, agonistic Teddy Roosevelt would no doubt have Australian-crawled to the wooded island in the Potomac that now bears his name. Less energetic visitors these days can get there by boat or pedestrian causeway. Last week, on T.R.'s 109th birthday, his kin and his successor nine times removed walked to the park like ordinary tourists, there to dedicate a memorial to the 26th President.

Lyndon Johnson pulled the wraps from the 17-ft. bronze figure. The late Paul Manship sculpted Roosevelt in a typically animated posture, right hand flung skyward, feet planted solidly, frock coat flared, provocative words unmistakably on the lips. "I do not know what his response would be to the specific problems of our decade," said Johnson. "But we do know that it would not be the easy answer--if he believed the hard answer was the right one." Then Johnson quoted the Republican Roosevelt: "Woe to the country where a generation arises which shrinks from doing the rough work of the world."

There was no rough work in the memorial. The statue, standing in front of a granite tablet in an oval plaza, even won praise from a particularly demanding critic. "I like it enormously," said Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 83, Teddy's daughter. "I think I have a rather mean disposition, but I can find nothing critical to say about it." Because the 88-acre island is out of the way compared with most tourist attractions, the memorial probably will not lure crowds of visitors--which will be just fine with the bird watchers and woods lovers who frequent it. T.R., a staunch conservationist and outdoorsman, would also have approved.

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