By letter, Hay offered his resignation to Roosevelt while the new president was still in Buffalo, amid newspaper speculation that Hay would be replaced—Garfield's Secretary of State, Blaine, had not remained long under the Arthur administration. When Hay met the funeral train in Washington, Roosevelt greeted him at the station and immediately told him he must stay on as Secretary. According to Zeitz, "Roosevelt's accidental ascendance to the presidency made John Hay an essential anachronism ... the wise elder statesman and senior member of the cabinet, he was indispensable to TR, who even today remains the youngest president ever".