SAGAMORE HILL

He is a moose,
Scarred, battered from the hunters, thickets, stones:
Some finest tips of antlers broken off,
And eyes where images of ancient things
Flit back and forth across them, keeping still
A certain slumberous indifference,
Or wisdom, it may be.

—Edgar Lee Masters.

No man in America ever received the backing of so large a personal following as did Theodore Roosevelt in the election of 1912, but owing to the fact that opinion was divided, the Democratic party, although a minority party, was put in power. It has been the habit of some to speak of my brother as having split the Republican party. This has always seemed to me an unfair criticism. It was proved by the actual vote at the polls that the larger half of what up to that time had been the Republican party was in favor of Theodore Roosevelt for President. His majority over Mr. Taft was unquestioned. A minority, not a majority, disrupts a party. Nothing is truer, however, than that a really great man cannot be defeated. He can lose official position, he can see the office which he craved because of its potential power for right doing pass into the hands of another; but in the higher sense of the word he cannot be defeated if his object has been righteousness, if his inner vision has been the true betterment of his country.

And so during the years that followed 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, although holding no official position, became more than ever the leader of a great portion of the people of America. Loyal as he was, he felt that having (as he phrased it) “led a vast army into the wilderness,” he must stand by them through thick and thin.

In 1913, having been asked to make certain addresses in South America, he decided to accept the invitation. But before sailing he went to Rochester, N.Y., to make a speech, and arranged that my husband and I should meet him and have an evening quietly with him. Immediately after that there was a great farewell dinner to him in New York, at the Hotel Astor. The crowd was suffocating. It seemed as if the enthusiasm for him and for Progressive principles was even more poignant than the year before—perhaps the realization that their leader was to leave them, even for a comparatively short time, increased the ardor of the convictions of his followers—and the spirit of that evening was so vital, so dedicated in quality, that it will never fade from my mind. The next day he and Mrs. Roosevelt sailed for the Argentine Republic, and within a few months she returned home, and he again lost himself in a new adventure. The little boy of six in the nursery at 20th Street had read with fervent interest of the adventures of the great explorer Livingston. He had achieved his ambition to follow those adventures as a mighty hunter in Africa; he had achieved many another ambition, but none was more intense with him than the desire to put a so-called “River of Doubt” on the map of the world.

Again Kermit was his companion, and the latter has given, as no one else could give, the most vivid description of that trip in his book called “The Happy Hunting Grounds.” In that book he describes his father’s desperate illness, and his heroic and unflinching courage when, with a temperature of one hundred and five, he struggled on through the mazes of the jungle, weak and weary, unselfishly begging his companions to leave him to die, for he felt that his condition endangered the possibility of their escape alive from their difficulties. As in Africa, so in South America his tireless energy, even when weakened by illness, never failed to accomplish his purpose, and not only did he put the “River of Doubt” on the map—a river which from that time forth was called Rio Teodoro, after Theodore Roosevelt, the explorer—but during those suffering, exhausting weeks he never once failed to keep his promise to his publishers, and to write, on the spot, the incidents of each day’s adventures. Robert Bridges, of Scribners, has shown me the water-soaked manuscript, written in my brother’s own handwriting, of that extraordinary expedition. In several places on the blotched sheets he makes a deprecatory note—“This is not written very clearly; my temperature is 105.” Such perseverance, such persistence are really superhuman; but perhaps it is also true that the human being must eventually pay the price of what the superman achieves.

Theodore Roosevelt returned from that Brazilian trip a man in whom a secret poison still lurked, and although his wonderful vitality, his magnificent strength of character, mind, and body, seemed at times to restore him to the perfect health of former days, he was never wholly free from recurrent attacks of the terrible jungle fever, which resulted in ill health of various kinds, and finally in his death.

True to his loyal convictions, he was determined to give all the aid possible to the candidates on the Progressive ticket for the election of 1914. His wife writes, August, 1914: “Theodore seems really better, although I scarcely think he will have voice for the three speeches he has planned for the last of the month. I asked him if I could say anything from him about the War, and he simply threw up his hands in despair.” This letter was written nine days after the cataclysm of the Great War had broken upon the world. From the beginning he said to his family what he did not feel he could state publicly, owing to the fact that he did not wish to embarrass President Wilson. Having been President himself, he knew it was possible for one in high authority to have information which he could not immediately share with all the people, and he hoped this might be the reason of President Wilson’s failure to make any protest when the enemy troops invaded Belgium.

To his family, however, he spoke frankly and always with deep regret that the President enjoined a neutral attitude in the beginning. He felt, from the very first, that the Allies were fighting our battles; that the British fleet was the protector of the United States as much as it was the protector of Great Britain; that a protest should have immediately been made by the United States when the Germans marched through Belgium. All these views he stated to his family and to his friends, but for the first few months after August 1, 1914, he felt that, as an influential citizen, he might hurt the fulfilment of whatever plan the President might have in view in connection with the Allies were he openly to criticise the President’s course of action. Later in the war he told me how much he regretted that, from a high sense of duty toward the Executive, he had controlled himself during those first few months when we were asked by President Wilson to be neutral even in thought.

In my sister-in-law’s letter, quoted above, she speaks of her doubt as to whether my brother would be strong enough to make the speeches which he had agreed to make. The Philadelphia North American published, about that time, an editorial called “The Amazing Roosevelt,” a few paragraphs of which run as follows:

“On April 30th, there came out of the seething jungles of Brazil to a river port 1000 miles up the Amazon, a man who was heralded by cable dispatches as broken in body and permanently impaired in mind.... On his arrival at home, there were grave dicta from former critics that never again would this man be a force in public life. The solemnity of these pronouncements scarcely concealed the gratification which they gave to some who promulgated them. Unbiassed stories of the hardships suffered in the tropical forests appeared to be cumulative evidence to support the belief that Theodore Roosevelt was ‘done for’ as a factor in public life.

“A sick man had virtually dragged himself through the most obdurate jungle still unmapped.... It had looked as if the entire party might be sacrificed and he had begged his followers to go on and leave him to take care of himself. On his return, he was warned by an eminent specialist that he must eschew speech-making if he hoped to avoid permanent injury to his throat. Another specialist warned him that impaired vital organs necessitated his withdrawing altogether from public activities. This was the Roosevelt who went to Pittsburgh to speak to the Progressives of Pennsylvania this week. What was it the Progressives gathered there to hear? Was it a swan song,—was it the plea of a broken man,—what was the character of the gathering? Was it a congregation of saddened and disheartened people, come to pay a kindly tribute to a passing leader? It was none of these things. The demonstration for Roosevelt and Progressive principles surpassed anything in the 1912 campaign, and the Roosevelt who greeted this great demonstration was the vigorous, fighting Roosevelt who so long had led the people’s battles. He was never received with more enthusiasm. The New York Times, not a paper in favor of Colonel Roosevelt, said: ‘The Pennsylvania Progressives gave Colonel Roosevelt a welcome tonight which must have reminded him of 1912. The demonstration was a remarkable one.’ And The World said: ‘The Colonel enjoyed every minute. Malaria was forgotten and all physical weakness along with it as he stood at the vortex of the night’s enthusiasm.’

“No one can read the speech which Roosevelt made that night without being convinced that the dismal forebodings that came out of that Amazon port last April, have already been discredited, and that the man who in 1912 stood with an assassin’s bullet near his heart, and insisted upon delivering a message which might be his last, is not to be broken or even impaired in 1914 by the hardships of a South American jungle. It is but another example of the amazing Roosevelt.”

That same autumn of 1914 he came to our old home in Herkimer County once more, but this time he was the guest of my son Theodore Douglas Robinson, and stayed at his house, which adjoins the old home. From there Mrs. Parsons and he and I joined the candidate for governor on the Progressive ticket, State Senator Frederick A. Davenport, and former State Senator Newcomb, for a short speaking tour to uphold the candidacy of Senator Davenport. We knew there was very little hope of success, but my brother had recuperated apparently from the Brazilian trip, and we spent two merry days dashing through Herkimer and Otsego counties. In spite of anxiety and a deep sense of distress about Old World conditions, for a brief moment we threw off all care, and in the glorious autumn sunshine, followed by cheering crowds, we enjoyed one of the triumphal processions which were almost always a sine qua non wherever he appeared. One specially merry afternoon and evening was spent at the home of James Fenimore Cooper. My brother was to speak at Cooperstown in the afternoon, and Mr. Cooper invited us to dinner, but I told him that the party must reach Oneonta for dinner, so that we could only take afternoon tea at his house. I had not confided this refusal to Theodore, simply taking it for granted that it would be impossible for us to accept the Cooper invitation and reach Oneonta in time for his evening speech. The Cooper home, full of treasures that had descended from Mr. Cooper’s grandfather, the author of “The Last of the Mohicans,” etc., and equally full of charming people, gave us so warm a welcome, and we had such an agreeable time there, that my brother was very loath to leave, but at 6.30 I insisted that we must start for Oneonta. We were already in the motors when Mr. Cooper, leaning over to say good-by, assured Colonel Roosevelt of his regret that he could not stay to dinner. “Dinner?” said my brother. “I didn’t know I was asked to dinner.” “Yes, you were, of course,” said Mr. Cooper; “but your sister, Mrs. Robinson, refused to let you stay for dinner, saying that you would have to reach Oneonta at 8 o’clock.” “May I ask,” said my brother in a high falsetto, “what business my sister, Mrs. Robinson, had to refuse a dinner invitation for me?” And, with a bound, he leaped from the automobile, shaking, laughingly, his fist at me, and said, “Dinner with the Coopers! Well, of course, I am going to stay to dinner,” and returned rapidly to the house, followed meekly by his party. The hospitable and resourceful Coopers, who naturally, after my refusal, had not expected seven extra people to dinner, turned in, assisted by Theodore himself, and proceeded to scramble eggs and broil bacon, much to the amusement and delight of the cook, who had never had an ex-President in her kitchen before, and of all the merry dinner-parties that I have ever attended, that one, forced upon the delightful Fenimore Coopers, was about the merriest.

Senator Davenport had been in poor health at the time, and my brother called him entirely “Little Eva,” after the angel child of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” both because of his rather transparent appearance and his high-minded principles (upon which the Colonel dilated in his speeches). He called himself “Uncle Tom,” and Senator Newcomb “Simon Legree,” and those cognomens and no others were used throughout the entire trip, which proved a veritable holiday.

But neither that trip nor any other trip could have changed the fate of the Progressive candidates in 1914, and New York State showed at election time, as did various other states in the country, that America was not prepared for a third party, even though that party stood, more than did any other party, for the practical common sense and high idealism of Theodore Roosevelt.

Just before Election day I accompanied him to Princeton, where Doctor John Grier Hibben, president of the university, received him with distinction, and asked him to speak to the body of students there not only on political faiths but on “Preparedness.” Unless I am very much mistaken, the first speech on that subject in the United States during the Great War was that very address made in the auditorium of Princeton in November, 1914, by my brother. His young and eager listeners among the student body applauded him to the echo. The cause of preparedness and true Americanism had no stancher upholder at that time, nor in the difficult years to come, than President Hibben of Princeton University. Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Leonard Wood, John Grier Hibben, Augustus P. Gardner, and other far-seeing patriots, stood from the beginning for the Allies against the Huns, and for “Preparedness” of a thorough kind. Had their advice been followed, Germany would very soon have sensed how formidable an influence in the war America could be. I am convinced there would have been no sinking of the Lusitania, and hundreds of thousands of gallant young men would not have lost their lives on Flanders Fields.

On November 12, 1914, after Election day, my brother writes me: “Darling Corinne:—That is a very dear letter of yours! I shall make no further statement. Did you see my quotation from Timothy II, Chapter 4, verses 3 and 4? It covers the whole situation. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt.”

The verses referred to are as follows:

(3) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

(4) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

He was very apt to sum up a situation in some pregnant verse from the Bible.

The winter of 1915 was trying to him in certain ways, especially on account of the Barnes libel suit. He had made the statement that Mr. Barnes had, politically, a bipartisan attitude, and indeed more than attitude, and Mr. Barnes decided to bring a suit for libel against him. In spite of this annoyance, however, he writes me various letters, some merry, and all dealing with subjects where he or I could be of help to others less fortunate. In one case, in connection with a certain French pastor, to whom I could not be of assistance in the way in which he had hoped, he writes: “I understand perfectly. I felt like a swine when I wrote you, but the poor, dear pastor was such a pathetic figure that from sheer mushy weakness I yielded, and strove to do something for him.” And later, in connection with a penniless poet: “Can you give me any advice? I wish I knew some wealthy creature who was interested in poor struggling poets and could help them, and also help their poor wives and children after their deaths. Lord! how hard life is!” That time I was able to help him, and raised quite a sum for the struggling individual in question, whom I thought truly deserved help.

Just then Mrs. William Astor Chanler arranged a charming play for the benefit of a war charity, a play in which there were scenes depicting Washington at Valley Forge. My little grandson took the part of his many times great-grandfather, Captain Isaac Roosevelt, and my brother, with sympathetic pleasure, came as an honored guest to the performance, and was later photographed with the small actors. He writes from Syracuse, where he had gone to take the defense for himself in the libel suit: “Was little Captain Isaac Roosevelt one of the bewildering number of small Revolutionary leaders who had their photographs taken with me? I have felt a pang that I did not particularly seek him out, but the confusion was so great that I could not identify any one of the constantly revolving small boys and girls behind the scenes; and until we were actually in place I had supposed that they were all to have their photographs taken with me.” In this same letter he says, speaking of the fact that his wife had been ill when he left New York: “I have been so worried about Edith that this libel suit has bothered me very little. Of course I was rather tired by my nine days on the witness stand, but I felt I made my case pretty clear. How the suit will go I have no idea, but in any event I do not feel that my friends have any cause to be ashamed of me.” On May 24, at the end of the suit, in which he scored a great triumph, he writes: “Dearest Corinne and Douglas: It was fine to get your telegrams and letters. You two were among those who I knew would stand by me absolutely, win or lose; but I am awfully glad it is a case of winning and not losing. Just as soon as you get back from Virginia I must see you both and tell you everything.” He did tell us everything, and many were the things that he told!

Twice in his life Theodore Roosevelt took part in libel suits. In the first case he brought the suit against a newspaper which had openly accused him of intoxication. In the second place he was the defendant, as I have already mentioned. Nothing was ever more unfounded than the strange and persistent rumor that Theodore Roosevelt indulged in intoxicating liquors. It has been my great good fortune to have been associated with men of great self-control as regards drink, but of all my intimate contemporaries, no one ever drank as little as my brother. I do not think he ever in his life tasted a cocktail, and he hated whiskey, and it rarely could be found at Sagamore Hill. He occasionally took a glass of sherry or port or champagne, but those, even, only occasionally; and how the report started that he overindulged in drink no one has ever been able to discover; but like many another sinister thing it swelled with its own volume, and after serious thought he chose an occasion when he could make a definite charge, and demanded a trial when the newspaper in question printed the heretofore only whispered untruth. I do not believe that so many distinguished men ever before travelled to a remote Western town, as travelled to give testimony about the sobriety of Theodore Roosevelt. Foreign ambassadors, famous generals, scientists, literary men, artists, all journeyed in an endless trail to give, with ardent loyalty, their personal knowledge of the impeccable habits of my brother. The result was an award of damages which my brother refused to take and the most abject apologies on the part of the editor. The other suit, the Barnes suit, was entirely different, for in that transaction he was the man to make the accusation, and his opponent was a most brilliant and acute individual, and even although my brother’s followers were confident of the accuracy of the statement he had made, for his statements were consistently accurate, still we felt that some apparent lack of proof, even though only apparent, might bring about an unfortunate result. Mr. John Bowers, one of the most able of his profession, was my brother’s lawyer, and he later gave me many an amusing description of that extraordinary case. The counsel for the plaintiff were always averse to allowing my brother to testify, for the effect he produced upon the jury was immediate and startling. The opposing side would object to nearly everything he said, simply because anything he said induced a rapid and favorable response from the jury. In one part of the testimony Mr. Bowers told me that my brother had repeated a conversation between Mr. Barnes and himself, and had gone into accurate detail, which was listened to by the jury with intense and sympathetic excitement, whereupon the lawyer for the plaintiff objected to Mr. Roosevelt’s statement as an “irrelevant monologue.” Quick as a flash my brother turned upon the objector and said that “of course the gentleman in question might call it a monologue, but as Mr. Barnes had had as much to do with the conversation as himself, he, personally, would call it a dialogue.” This retort brought down not only the house but the jury, and the unfortunate opposing lawyer withdrew his objection. That story and many others my brother recounted to us with humorous and sarcastic delight, shortly after the end of the trial, around a family tea-table one Sunday evening at Sagamore Hill.

In September of that year, 1915, we suffered the loss of our beloved friend Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge. Since the early days of 1884, she had shared the joys and sorrows of our lives. Beautiful, brilliant, sympathetic, exquisite in her delicate individuality, in her intellectual inspiration, in her fine humor and sense of values—her beautiful head like a rare cameo, her wonderful gray-blue eyes looking out under dark, level brows, she remains one of the pictures most treasured in the memories of the Roosevelt family. My brother was always at his best with her, and I have rarely heard him talk in a broader and more comprehensive way of politics and literature than in the homelike library at 1765 Massachusetts Avenue, the house where Senator and Mrs. Lodge were always surrounded by an intimate circle of friends. By her tea-table, in the rocking-chair bought especially for him, Theodore Roosevelt would sit and rock when he snatched a happy half-hour after his ride with the senator in those old days when he was the President of the United States. Mrs. Lodge had the power of stimulating the conversation of others, as well as the gift of leading in conversation herself, and the best “talk” that I have ever heard was around her tea-table in Washington. Her sudden death was a great blow to my brother as it was to us all.

All through that year and through the year to come, although severely censured for his criticisms of the President’s policies, my brother worked with arduous determination, shoulder to shoulder with General Leonard Wood and Augustus P. Gardner, to arouse the American people to the danger of non-preparedness, and to the shame of allowing the exhausted Allies to bear without America’s help the brunt of the battle. Those men of vision realized, fully, that in a world aflame, no nation could possibly escape the danger of conflagration. Not only from that standpoint did the apostles of preparedness press forward, but from the love of democracy also. These courageous patriots wished to have their country share spontaneously from the beginning the effort for righteousness for which France, England, and Italy were giving the lives of the flower of their youth.

By pen, and even more by word of mouth, always at the expense of his energy, Theodore Roosevelt went up and down the country, preaching the doctrine of brotherhood and preparedness for self-defense. As early as January, 1915, General Wood had asked me to have a meeting to interest some of the men of New York in his plans for the training-camps, which later developed into the “Plattsburg idea.” Many of the men who in later days were patriotically ardent in their support of that Plattsburg idea spoke to me with amused indifference at the end of that meeting in January, 1915, and asked me why I had made such a point of their coming to it! At the same time, Augustus P. Gardner, in the House of Representatives, struggled to arouse the country from its lethargy. Gradually, however, the force of the truth of the doctrine which was being preached by the few percolated through the minds and hearts of many of the American people, and at the beginning of the year 1916 one could feel a certain response to a higher ideal. In May, 1915, after the dastardly sinking of the Lusitania, the country could have been easily led in the path of duty and high ideals. The psychological moment was at hand when over a hundred women and children, non-combatants, and over whom flew the British flag, were hurled into the sea by the dastardly tactics of Germany,—but this is a digression. In January, 1916, I was chosen a delegate by the National Security League (an organization started during the first year of the war to uphold the policy of “Preparedness”) to its first conference at Washington, and there I was asked to read a letter from my brother, as he could not be present at the conference. He writes me on January 22, 1916: “I was very much surprised and much pleased when I saw in the papers that you had read my letter to the Security League.” And again, two days later, came one of his characteristic little notes (no one ever took such pains to do and say loving and lovely things): “Darling Pussie,” he says this time: “Judge Nortoni and Bob Bacon have been out here to Sagamore Hill separately, and both feel that your speech was the feature of the Washington meeting. I will tell you all that they say next Sunday when you come to us. I was really touched by their enthusiastic admiration of you and the speech. My letter was apparently regarded only as the peg on which the speech was hung. Ever yours, T.R.” Needless to say, my speech was only an insignificant addendum to his letter, but he truly believed that his sister’s speech was the more important of the two things!

In February he gladly lent me his name for the New York advisory committee of “The Fatherless Children of France,” a society started by two magnificent Englishwomen, Miss Schofield and Miss Fell, for which I was privileged to form the New York City committee. “Of course use my name,” he says. I do not remember ever asking him for it that he did not lend it to me—that name which counted more than almost any other name of his time.

In March, 1916, he sailed with Mrs. Roosevelt for Trinidad, and during his absence there began again the rumblings of desire on the part of the people of the United States to have him named as presidential candidate on the Republican ticket in the forthcoming convention. A certain faction of the Progressive party still clung to the hope that it could achieve its heart’s desire and name him on their ticket, but he had come more and more to the conclusion that the Republican and the Progressive parties must amalgamate in their choice of a nominee, for he firmly believed that Mr. Wilson’s policies had been of sinister influence in the country, and he was convinced that nothing was so important as to remove this, from his standpoint, unfortunate influence. More and more he believed that our country should bear a gallant part in the terrible adventure across the sea; more and more he preached the doctrine that we should go to the aid of the war-worn countries who sorely needed America’s help.

I cannot refrain from inserting here a letter written by Colonel Roosevelt to his dear friend and classmate Charles G. Washburn, who had just published his able book called “Theodore Roosevelt—The Logic of His Career.” That book had special interest because, although Mr. Washburn never wavered in his personal, loyal, and devoted attachment to Colonel Roosevelt, his political convictions were such that he had not found it possible to follow the Colonel into the Progressive party. The book in question, having been written during the period between 1912 and 1916, the period when many people felt that my brother was politically dead, was published, strange to say, just as the pendulum swung back again, when the people realized the need of strong leadership in the crisis of the Great War, and Theodore Roosevelt seemed to many to be the man of the hour.

“Dear Charlie:” writes Colonel Roosevelt, “We leave on the 10th of this month [for Trinidad]. I am much amused to think that there is a momentary revival of my popularity or notoriety or whatever you choose to call it, at the very time your book is to appear, for when you started to write it, indeed, while you were writing it, I was down at the very nadir; and only a very devoted friendship—others would call it a very blind friendship—would have made you write it. I, myself, thought that it was not wise for you to publish it, that nobody would take any interest in me, and that they would only laugh at you for your loyalty and affection.”

The following day he writes again: “Just after I had written you, the book came. I am immensely pleased with it, and I am very proud that my children and grandchildren are to have it.... Of course, old friend, you have said of me far more than I deserve, but I am glad you said it.” The book to which he refers shows, perhaps, more than any other book written about my brother, the accurate realization by the author that my brother’s attitude in January, 1912, when he took the step which directly or indirectly brought about the formation of the Progressive party, was in no sense an erratic swerving from the path upon which he had always walked, but, on the contrary, a direct and logical justification of beliefs—and the actions with which he always squared beliefs—held in his early manhood and retained in his later years. On March 27, after his return from Trinidad, he writes:

“Well, here we are, back from our little trip along ‘the path to Nowhere’ [He refers here to some verses I had just published under that title.] We did not get entirely out of the path to Somewhere—thanks to the ‘hurrying, struggling, and striving’ of very kind people who insisted on entertaining us—but we had, at intervals, a number of hours on the path to Nowhere, although, in that latitude, there were no adders’ tongues, and the lilies were less in evidence than palms, bougainvillea, scarlet hibiscus and poinsettia in hedges, and rocks and flowering trees, and little green cities of St. Mary’s (I wish I had seen Masefield)—and the trade wind tossing the fronds of the palms on the white beaches.

“I loved your letter, and read and re-read every word of it. I think as highly of ‘Ordeal by Battle’ as you do; did I show you the letter Oliver sent me with a copy of the first edition? He has just sent me a copy of the second edition. I am very glad you are taking a rest cure. You sorely needed it, but when you leave Nonkanawha, can’t you bring Cortissoz and the Corbins out here for lunch. I am very glad you like my book. My soul was in it. [He had just published “Fear God, and Take Your Own Part.”] ... Well, I don’t see much chance of our doing what is right in politics. The trouble is that we have complacently sagged back for fifty years while Germany has surged forward and has forced her nearest competitors to some kind of forward movement in order to avoid death at her hands.”

Shortly afterward, when in answer to his suggestion I wrote him that I would bring some of the friends he mentioned to luncheon, he writes: “Three cheers—I shall expect you with the Cortissoz, Corbins, and O’Hara.”

That letter was written on April 2, 1916, and shortly afterward I motored those friends to Oyster Bay, and we had a peculiarly delightful luncheon and afternoon, at which I was, as usual, struck with the manner in which he adapted himself to the interest of the individual. Mr. John Myers O’Hara, an American poet of classic and lyric quality, was shown a special poem in which my brother felt that there was similarity between his work and that of the author of the lines in question; Mr. Cortissoz, whose delicious humor was a special delight to my brother, found the Colonel not only sympathetic in those ways, but also in the quality of his artistic thought; he adapted himself to each in turn, and we all motored away from that full and rich environment each more stimulated than before along the line of the special achievement to which he aspired.

On his return from Trinidad, he had been beset by questions as to whether he would consent again to be the presidential nominee. The Progressive party, after its severe defeat in various States in 1914, still showed a grim desire to be at least a strong factor in the nomination for a presidential candidate in the coming election, and various combinations of individuals were already in process of coalition in the happy thought that Theodore Roosevelt might be the combined nominee of both Progressive and Republican forces. A certain number of such citizens formed what they called The Roosevelt Non-partisan League, and the secretary of that league, Guy Emerson by name, wrote, in part, as follows to Colonel Roosevelt:

“Dear Colonel Roosevelt:—The Roosevelt Non-partisan League is a movement inaugurated by citizens of all parties who believe that Americanism is the great issue before the country today, and that you are the strongest available man as leader under that issue. You stated the platform in your Chicago speech, which, in our opinion, is vital for the safety of the country during the four momentous years which lie ahead.”

In answer to the above letter, my brother wrote:

“Because of your attitude, I earnestly approve your work. The safety of this country depends upon our immediate, serious, and vigorous efforts to square our words with our deeds, and to secure our own national rehabilitation. The slumbering patriotism of our people must be waked and translated into concrete and efficient action. The awakening must be to a sense of national and international duty and responsibility.” After going into greater length as to his personal principles and opinions, Mr. Roosevelt continues: “Our citizens must act as Americans, not as Americans with a prefix and qualifications.... Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin. The timid man who cannot fight, and the selfish, short-sighted or foolish man who will not take the steps that will enable him to fight, stand on almost the same plane. Preparedness deters the foe and maintains right by the show of ready might without the use of violence. Peace, like Freedom, is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards, or of those too feeble or too short-sighted to deserve it, and we ask to be given the means to insure that honorable peace which alone is worth having.”

In answering from other sources the same suggestion—namely, that he should take anew the leadership and be himself the nominee against President Wilson—he boldly replied that he doubted if it would be wise to name him, for if he should be named, his followers would have to be in a “heroic mood.”

On May 31 he announced: “I speak for universal service based on universal training. Universal training and universal service represent the only service and training a democracy should accept.... Performance of international duty to others means that in international affairs, in the commonwealth of nations, we shall not only refrain from wronging the weak, but, according to our capacity and as opportunity offers, we should stand up for the weak when the weak are wronged by the strong.”

Every speech by Colonel Roosevelt had again become the subject of national discussion, and as the Democratic policy began to shape itself, each position taken by the Republican party, as well as by the Progressive party, followed the lines laid down in some speech made by Colonel Roosevelt. By this time he had fully come to realize that, if it were possible to defeat the policies which, from his standpoint, were lulling the country into ignoble avoidance of its national and international duty, such defeat could only be brought about by the amalgamation of the Progressive and Republican parties, a result extremely difficult to accomplish.

On April 14 he said: “The Tribune says of the approaching convention, ‘We are choosing which way the country shall go in the era that is now opening, just as our fathers chose the nation’s path in the days of 1860.’ This sentence should be in the mind of every man who at Chicago next June takes part in formulating the platform and naming the candidate. The men at Chicago should act in the spirit of the men who stood behind Abraham Lincoln.... There is one great issue on which the fight is to be made if the highest service is to be rendered the American people. That issue is that the American people must find its own soul. National honor is a spiritual thing that cannot be haggled over in terms of dollars. [He refers to the issue of the tariff which had been prominently brought forward.] We must stand not only for America First but for America first, last, and all the time and without any second.... We can be true to mankind at large only if we are true to ourselves. If we are false to ourselves, we shall be false to everything else. We have a lofty ideal to serve and a great mission to accomplish for the cause of Freedom and genuine democracy, and of justice and fair dealing throughout the world. If we are weak and slothful and absorbed in mere money getting or vapid excitement, we can neither serve these causes nor any others. We must stand for national issues, for national discipline and for preparedness—military, social and industrial—in order to keep the soul of this nation. We stand for Peace, but only for the Peace that comes as a right to the just man armed, and not for the Peace which the coward purchases by abject submission to wrong. The Peace of cowardice leads in the end to war after a record of shame.”

Even the Democratic newspaper, the New York Times, spoke about that time of Colonel Roosevelt’s capacity to rouse a true patriotism. It said: “The passion of his Americanism, his unerring instinct for the jugular vein, make him, in a good cause, an unrivalled compeller of men. He has had his fill of glories, his name is blown about the world;—by preparing America against war, to unite America in patriotism, there are no nobler laurels.” And almost coincident with this unexpected appreciation of a newspaper frequently the enemy of Colonel Roosevelt came a letter from his former attorney-general, William H. Moody, written to their mutual friend Mr. Washburn, the author of the book which I have already mentioned. In the heat of the controversy which was once more beginning to rage around the figure of Theodore Roosevelt, it was interesting to read the calm and quiet words penned by the able man who had served as attorney-general in my brother’s cabinet, but, alas, laid low by the painful illness which later proved the cause of his premature death. “For five years,” writes Mr. Moody, “I was in almost daily association with him in the details of work for a common purpose and in his relation to all sorts and conditions of men. There are some parts of his work as President which I think no one knew better than I did, and there are results of it which ought to receive thorough study and be brought clearly to light. I have here specially in mind, the effect of his acts and preachments upon economic thought, and the development of the constitutional theory of our government. If one contrasts the state of opinion as to the proper relation between capital and labor, and the proper attitude of government toward both as that opinion existed just before the war with Spain, and as it exists today, one cannot fail to see that there has been an extraordinary change. In this change, I believe he was the one great leader in this country.... What was needed was a man with a great genius for leadership, great courage, great intelligence, and the highest purpose. That man came in Theodore Roosevelt. Perhaps, many would scout the idea that he had been a guide in constitutional interpretation. I remember the state of legal thought and the attitude of the Supreme Court in the nineties toward what we called the new internationalism. I believe no one appreciates more clearly than I the great change that has come to both since then. By the legislation which he, Theodore Roosevelt, promoted against great odds, there have been drawn from the Supreme Court decisions which have declared that nationalism which is necessary to our future national life.”

This deliberate decision on the part of a man essentially legal in mind throws interesting light upon my brother’s actions and attitudes, assailed as he was at the time for lack of the very devotion to the Constitution for which Mr. Moody praises him. About the same time, from Kansas City, on May 30, 1916, my brother writes to me: “I hope you will like the speech I am about to make here. I have scrupulously employed the ‘we’ in describing our governmental short-comings!”

Unless I am mistaken, it was about that time that my brother made a speech in Arkansas which—while the quotation which I am about to give has little to do with the issue of the moment—is so characteristic of his own fearlessness that I cannot pass it over.

The strongest theory which I have evolved from the study of the ups and downs of political life consists in the belief that of all factors in permanent success (and permanent success means a place in history), there is none so important as that of moral as well as physical courage. More men have lost their heart’s desire because at the most crucial moment they lacked the courage to barter that very desire for an honest conviction than from any other cause. Theodore Roosevelt believed that he could help not only his country but the countries of the world were he nominated and elected in 1916, just as he firmly believed that should Mr. Wilson be renominated and re-elected to that position, America and the countries of the world would be worse off rather than better off, and yet, no matter before what audience he spoke, were it East, West, North, or South, he spoke with the ardor of conviction, never for one moment withholding one belief, no matter how unpalatable it might be to the section of the country to which he was giving his message, did he feel that that belief should be clearly demonstrated to that portion of the people.

At Little Rock, Ark., the Governor of the State (I was told of this incident by a Methodist minister who was present on the occasion), during a speech in which he introduced Colonel Roosevelt to his stupendous audience, said: “We have an unwritten law in the Southland that when a vile black wretch commits the unmentionable crime, we hang him without judge or jury.” As Theodore Roosevelt rose to make his address, he turned to the governor and said: “Before I make my address to the people, Governor, I want to say to you that when any man or set of men take the law into their own hands, and inflict summary punishment on the ‘vile black wretch’ of whom you speak they place themselves upon the same base level as that same ‘vile black wretch.’” The stunned audience, silent for a moment, burst into vociferous applause. But the governor made no response to Colonel Roosevelt’s interpellation.

It was about this same time that in response to a letter from Mr. Guy Emerson, Mr. Thomas A. Edison wrote of Colonel Roosevelt as follows: “My dear Sir:—Answering your question as to my views of Colonel Roosevelt for our next President, I would say that I believe he is absolutely the only man that should be considered at this crucial period. He has more real statesmanship, a better grasp of the most important needs of this country and greater executive ability to handle the big, international problems that will arise at the close of the war than all the other proposed candidates put together. His energy, capacity, and vast experience in large affairs of state and nation for many years, together with his great patriotism, and his intense Americanism, and his great knowledge in all lines of human endeavor, make him decidedly the most striking figure in American life.”

Mr. Edison voiced the sentiment of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens, and as the time approached for the Republican Convention of 1916, feelings of all kinds waxed almost as hot as in those thrilling days of 1912. In fact, in many ways, there was even a greater excitement in the hearts of the more valiant Americans, who believed that the time was already ripe to make the world safe for democracy. These more valiant Americans also believed that the man most fitted to aid in making the world thus safe was Theodore Roosevelt. On the other hand, the stand-pat Republicans were still smarting from what they considered, I think unjustly, his betrayal of them, and they were not ready to enroll themselves under his banner. The Progressives, on the other hand, were equally opposed to any compromise, and when the great convention met in Chicago, peace between the contending factions seemed an illusive and unattainable ideal, and so it proved. Those were days of tragic excitement in the great auditorium, where sat, tied hand and foot, what seemed to be a mercenary army, so little did true patriotism appear to actuate the delegates to that important congregation of individuals. On the other hand, near by, in a smaller hall, the almost fanatic enthusiasm for the much higher ideal was also to make itself a party to the defeat of its own object, although at that moment of honest and high-minded enthusiasm it could hardly be blamed for any attitude born of that enthusiasm.

Again the battle raged, and again the personality of Theodore Roosevelt became the deciding factor. Conferees were chosen by both the Republican Convention and the Progressive Convention, but they could not find a common ground upon which to agree, and that fateful week in early June ended with the nomination of Charles E. Hughes by the Republican Convention, and, against his wish, with the nomination of my brother on the Progressive ticket. Perhaps there was never a more dramatic moment, a moment of more heartfelt disappointment, than when the convention of the Progressive party received the statement brought to it by John McGrath, secretary of Colonel Roosevelt, which ran as follows (I quote from a contemporary newspaper in Chicago):

“Announcement was made here this afternoon at 4:50 o’clock that Roosevelt has refused to accept the Progressive nomination for President.

“Colonel Roosevelt’s statement was brought to the convention by John McGrath, his secretary. It follows:

“‘To the Progressive Convention: I am very grateful for the honor you confer upon me by nominating me as President. I cannot accept it at this time. I do not know the attitude of the candidate of the Republican party toward the vital questions of the day. Therefore, if you desire an immediate decision, I must decline the nomination. But if you prefer it, I suggest that my conditional refusal to run be placed in the hands of the Progressive National Committee.

“‘If Mr. Hughes’ statements, when he makes them, shall satisfy the committee that it is for the interest of the country that he be elected, they can act accordingly and treat my refusal as definitely accepted. If they are not satisfied they can so notify the Progressive party, and at the same time, they can confer with me and then determine on whatever action we may severally deem appropriate to meet the needs of the country.’

“‘I move,’ said James R. Garfield, ‘that the letter of Colonel Roosevelt be received in the spirit in which it is meant, and that it be referred to the National Committee, with power to act thereon.’

“The motion was carried, and at 5 P.M. the Progressive Convention, the liveliest in the history of politics, came to an end with the playing of the national air.”

The closing scenes of the Republican Convention were as cold and as unemotional as was the reverse in the body sitting in the other hall, so close at hand. I, myself, went from one spot to the other, torn with conflicting emotions. In the Republican Convention there had been no enthusiasm whatsoever for any candidate up to the moment when Senator Fall, of New Mexico, put the name of Theodore Roosevelt in nomination. Then, and then only, did the thousands of people in that great auditorium rise to their feet with one prolonged shout of approval. The delegates—and, alas! it is the delegates to a convention, not the people, who apparently choose the men who are to govern the people—were cold and unresponsive no matter what name was put before them, and, were it possible, they were even colder, even more unresponsive, when Theodore Roosevelt’s name was mentioned than they were at any other time; but the masses—they were neither cold nor unresponsive! How they cheered as that beloved name was heard for the first time in that Republican Convention! Over and over again the chairman tried to bring the convention to order. No blaring bands, no stimulated marchings, were the cause of the great ovation. It was actually and vividly the cry of those who wanted a leader and wanted their leader that was heard in that great hall, but there was no echo in the hearts of those who held the balance of power in their hands. That evening there was printed in one of the Chicago newspapers so exquisite a rhapsody, so loving a swan song, that I can but reproduce it.

AH! TEDDY DEAR

Ah, Teddy dear, and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?

They say you’re gone from off the stage, that strange cold men, whom we respect but love not, must be our meat for all the campaign days to come.

Gray is the prospect; dull is the outlook.

We felt all the while that over in the Auditorium and the Coliseum they were breaking to us the news of a death in the family. They were merciful; they held it back; they did not let us have the shock of it all at once. They meant kindly.

But now that the news has come the kindness of friends can help but little. Our hearts are broke! We need you and we want you every minute.

Ah the fun of you and the glory of you!

Where lies the American whose passion or whose imagination you have not set a-tingling? Who else has meant the savor of life for us? Who but you has taken us and set our feet upon the high places?

Before you came, all in politics was set and regular. Those who were ordained to rule over us did so with that gravity with which stupid grown-ups so oft repress the child. No one ever talked to us as you did. They called us “voters” or “constituents” or such big names as these. They never took us by the hand and laughed and played with us as you did.

They never understood us. They could preach Sunday school and arithmetic. But the good Lord never gave it to them to speak to the heart.

And then you came!

Dancing down the road you came with life and love and courage and fun stickin’ out all over you. How we loved you at the first sight! And how you loved us!

Friends we were, tho’ you were in the White House and we were making mud pies. Friends we were together with nothing to come between us.

Your love would let no harm come near us and we knew it. With your courage you fought for us. With your life and your fun you took us out of the drab grind.

You told us of the birds in the air and of the fishes in the sea. The great tales of the old heroes, the sagas of the past, you spread before our ’stonished eyes. You gave us new words—delightful words—to play with; and jokes—delightful jokes—to make us laugh.

How we wanted you back when you went away! But they stole our right from us and they wouldn’t let you come back. So we followed you. Four million of us, in a fight the like of which we never knew. Joy and religion were in it in equal measure. Hymns and cleanness and color and battle all were jumbled in it. The good of it is set forever into the life of the nation.

But the schoolmaster beat you, and the Great War came to crowd you from our thoughts. We thought only of ourselves because you were no longer there to make us think of our country. At last we turned to you—when it was too late.

So now we are not to have you. We must go stumbling on alone, hoping that the man they’ve given us may show something of that fire and strength upon which you taught us to rely.

It’s our fault, not theirs. It’s our fault, not yours. You warned us that we must be ready to go thru to the end. We weren’t. Fear had come upon us, fear of ourselves. We were split up. We eyed each other with distrust. The spirit of your old sagas had gone from us.

Now we must face it alone, unless you help us. Do not forsake us to sulk in your tent. Make the sacrifice they demand, not for their sake but for ours. Help them win with the cold, good man they’ve chosen. Help that man to hold his courage and fight worthily for the things which you have taught us—tho the real right to fight for them was yours, not his. Don’t let our councils be divided. Don’t let hotheaded friends force their personal claims upon you.

But whatever you do or whatever you don’t do, be sure of one thing—we shall never hold it against you. For all that is gone, you can do no wrong in our sight. The memory of you shall never fade from our hearts.

Ah, Teddy dear—we love you now and always.B