PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IN li) )04 \ Theodore Roosevelt Patriot and Statesman THE TRUE STORY of an IDEAL AMERICAN Youngest President of the United States A Complete Account of his Ancestry; Home Training; F.ducation— College Life; Political Career— As Member New York State Assembly, Civil Service Commis- sioner, Police Commissioner of New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York, Vice-President and Presi- dent of the United States; His Military Career — Organizing the Famous Rough Riders, His Spanish War Record; His Literary Work. By ROBERT C. V. MEYERS Author of "World-Famous Women," "Victoria Queen and Empress,' " The Story of South Africa," " The Colonel's Christmas Morning, Etc., Etc. BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED P. W. ZIE(;i,ER & CO. PHILADEI-PHIA, PA. LIBMRYM CONGRESS I Tvw) OoolBS Received | AUG 3 1904 n Cooyrtght Entry iUAS^ O-XXi. No. ^^'^- ^ / ' COPY B Copyright by Robert C. V. MEVERS, 11)02. y PREFACE THEODORE ROOSEVELT, the twenty-sixth President of the United States, occiupies a unique position in the countrv over which he presides. The youngest man who has ever occupied the chair of chief magistrate of the Union, his personaHty makes him the most prominent figure in the Western hemisphere. The man and his individuality are spoken of, but after all little is known about him by the general mass of readers. He has been before the public of his native city and State since his twenty-second year when he became assemblyman, while his services as colonel of the regiment of Rough Riders during the Spanish war made him a popular hero. But what of the man, his life, and the trend of affairs that led to his nomination for the Vice-Presidency in 1900, with strong indications that 1904 would see him chosen for the Presi- dency? The terrible crime that deprived the country of William Mc- Kinley while at the zenith of his fame and placed in Theodore Roosevelt's hands the reins of government could hardly make him an accidental President, for he was on the way, fully equipped, to a highly probable assumption of the office four years later, the whole political aspect pointing in his direction. That he was the organizer of the Rough Riders and is now President is largely what the majority of the people know about him, and they wish to know more. J PREFACE. Every item concerning him is eargerly read in the newspapers, and stories of him are Hstened to with avidity. He is endeared to the people for the Httle that is known of him, his bravery in battle and liis thorough Americanism as the head of his party. But there are other sides to his character which go to make up a man perhaps the most remarkable the country has ever produced — a student, an author, a political reformer, a statesman of unquestionable ability, the exposition of all this must prove interesting reading to Ihe millions who know so few facts concerning the man. The srope of :his book is to present a full and authentic exposition of the varied parts that go to make up a character that is plain, strong, unaffected and fearless. Born to wealth, of exceptional abilities, from his earliest manhood he has gone onward with a steadiness of purpose that has proved in his case that wealth is no bar to action, that an American citizen should drop all prerogatives of social prestige and stand before his fellows for what he is himself, and not for what he lias of material well being. In his sho.rt life of a little over two score years Theodore Roosevelt has had an experience varied as few other lives can boast of. The statesman of old is a statesman only, or at best a cultivated, gifted man who has developed his talents upon certain lines that have finally made for his oratory, his logic and his philosophy. A brave soldier may have as much said of him, or a politician, a reformer, and any other leader of men. But in the sub- ject of this volume we see first a student and author, whose writings stamp him as an original man in whom are excellences that lead to fame. Then there is the politician understanding to the fullest the complexities of party faction and the clarification of party spirit. PREFACE. 7 Again the statesman expounding statecraft and the relation of nation to nation with a simplicity and power that are rarely surpassed. Also the reformer, energetic in crusades against corruption in office and bad legislation that hamper the freedom of the citizens and keep the poor and defenseless in subjection. Together with these, there is the man of war, insisting upon his country's honor being upheld, patriotic in his love for the fiag, and doing deeds of daring and bravery with the single impulse to actuate them — the duty he owes to the land of his birth. At the same tinne this man of many parts is a hunter, a plainsman in the great West, bringing down big game and teaching the meaning of civilization in explorations of the wild country. The life of such a man must mean much to those who study it. Such a biography as is here presented must point a lesson of im- portance to ■:'s all — that in no man are the limitations of character, if in the man are the incentives to excel in whatsoever his hand finds to do. The history of an exceptional man, the narration here set forth should impress every loyal c'.*-i?en with the signal w^orth of the first magistrate of the United States — Theodore Roosevelt, the typical American of strong manly attributes. What his early years promised has been fulfilled, and he stands before the world to-day as one of the foremost worthies that ever shaped a nation's destiny. Un- affected, incorruptible, as statesman and ruler; brave and loyal as politician and soldier; upright and gentle as husband and father, and always, and preeminently so, an American of the best and highest type. That this biography of our President, from his youth down to the present day, will be of wide interest cannot be doubted. The g PREFACE. history of the man is woven closely with the history of his times and the i>olitical parties of the country, and this history is here told with many facts heretofore not set forth in print. The book is placed before you; Theodore Roosevelt tells his own life in his acts ana deeds, and the faithful narration of these acts and deeds comprise the ccnitents of a volume which it is believed wall prove as entertaining as a story as it is valuable as a creed for true American thoug^ht and feeling-. coisrTEisrTS CHAPTER I. Heredity — Progenitors — Eight Generations of the Family Residents of New York City — Family of Americans — Great-Grandfather and the Revolution — Grand- father one of the Wealthiest Men in New York — Theo- dore Roosevelt, Sr., one of the Leading Men of his Day — Early Training and Outdoor Life — Harvard — Athlete and Student— College Men and Politics— Duty of Educated Men ^7 CHAPTER H. Graduated at Harvard— Entrance into Political Life — Mem- ber of New York Assembly — At Albany — Reform Char- ter for New York — Married — Various Honors as Assemblyman — Death of his Mother and his Wife — State Legislation — Duties of Citizens to Attend Primaries— Bribe-taking— "Bosses" — Corrupt Politics the Fault of Citizens at Large— Machine Politics — Leaving the Assembly — Literary Work 37 CHAPTER HL In the West— Ranch Life— Horse Hunting— A Roundup- Enjoyment of the Freedom of Outdoor Life — Activity on the Ranch— Stampede of Cattle— Writer on the Plains— Terrible Cold— Arduous Duties of the Ranchman — Line Riding— "Hamlet" in the Ranch- house— Winter of 1886-87— Fine Descriptive Powers— News from the East — Out of Public Life, but Studying the Questions of the Day 5/ CHAPTER IV. Americans and Mexicans on the Plains— The "Bad Man" of the West— Claim-jumpers — Horse-thieves — A Noted Desperado— Opening a Cowboy Ball— The Frontier n 10 CONTENTS. and Women— Character of the Cowboy— Indians — An Indian Adventure — Organizing a Troop — Loss of Boat— Capture of Boat-thieves and Taking them to the Sheriff — Dogged Determination a Character- istic - CHAPTER V. Antelope and the Manner of Hunting Them — The Black-tail of the Mountains — Still-hunting — Deer Hunting with Hounds — Coursing Jack-rabbits, Swifts and Foxes — Round-horn Elks — A Hunt of Elks — Big-horn Sheep — Experiences with Them — Wonderful Speed- Habits of Bighorn Sheep — White Goats of the Rockies — Praise of Hunting — Instincts of Born Hunter — Adaptability of Character — Back to Politics 97 CHAPTER VI. Republican Candidate for Mayor — Largest Republican Vote for Mayor ever Polled in New York— Civil Service Com- mission — How he "Ruined Himself" — Duties of Civil Service Commission — Abolishment of Abuses in Politics— Paper on Civil Service Reform — Case before LHI. Congress— In Office Six Years— Resignation to Accept Office as Police Commissioner of New York. . 1 13 CHAPTER VII. Department of Police— Augury of Defeat— No Sentiment for Professional Politicians— Enforcement of Laws— Im- provnig Police Force— Gaining Respect— Opposi- tion— Strike Leaders— Abuse Stopped— At- r^^^ ^l ?.^'^^^" Newspapers— Adverse Criticisms- Methods Reviled— Forging Ahead 133 CHAPTER VIII. '^'u.lT ""! ^^^^^"^-Blackmailing Tarifif-Detectives- Methods of Restormg Order-Rewards and Punish- ments-Police and Citizens-Sunday Liquor 1.^^- views w" H^r' ^""n Politicians-Report of Inter- -l7crlas o^ Corruption-Sunday Law Enforced increase of Police Force-Examinations— Best Merit Tr'rn-r''^"-'' Elections-Premiums for 153 CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER IX. Assistant Secretary of Navy — Foresees Spanish War — Per- sonnel Bill in Navy — Pushing Repairs of Ships— $800,000 and $500,000 for Powder and Shot — Story of Old-time Buffalo Hunting — Washington's Maxim — Address Before Naval War College— War of 18 12 Recalled— Need of a Reconstructed Navy — Necessary to Proceed at Once — Stirring Peroration — War Actually Declared — Resignation from Naval Department — "Roosevelt's Rough Riders" Organized 1 75 CHAPTER X. The Rough Riders — Mustering Places of Regiment — Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt — Men from Colleges, Clubs, Police Force, Cowboys, Miners, Indians — Personnel of Some of the Men — Appre- ciation of Colonel Roosevelt — "Remember the Maine" — Trouble in Getting Matters Organized — Drilling- grounds — Uniform of Rough Riders — Impatient to go into Action — Orders to Move I99 CHAPTER XL From San Antonio — For Tampa — On the Way — Off to Cuba — On Landing at Daiquiri — On the March — "Forward" — General Young's Fight — Rough Riders in Battle for the First time — "Don't Swear, Shoot" — Death of Fish and Capron — Colonel Roosevelt Charges — Incidents — Colonel Roosevelt in Command — Army Food — Money for Food out of Colonel's Pocket — In Camp — Waiting for Santiago 219 CHAPTER XII. On to Santiago — El Poso Hill — General Wheeler — El Caney — Through the Lane— Kettle Hill — A Ruse to get to the Front — The Colored Troops — The Catlings — In Charge of Parts of Six Regiments— -Taking the Trenches — San Juan Hill Taken — Only Forward Move- ment of the Spanish — Acts of Gallantry — Digging Trenches — Opposing Forces — Waiting to Take Santiago 239 II CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIIL Before Santiago— Men in the Trenches— Continuous Firing —Spanish Guerrilla Warfare— Lack of Medicine and Food Red Cross Kindness — Cessation of Hostilities — Devotion of Rough Riders to their Colonel — Fort Roosevelt— Sharp-shooters— End of Truce— Fighting On —Storm and Privation— The Refugees — Surrender of Santiago — Stars and Stripes over the City — Return of Refugees— Helped by the Rough Riders 257 CHAPTER XIV. Suffering of the Soldiers — Bad Commissariat — Yellow Fever Scare — Troops not to go Home — Meeting of Officers — Famous Letter to General Shafter — Troops Or- dered Home— On the "Miami"— Talk to Men— At Home — Regiment Mascots — Present for the Colonel — Festiv- ities before Disbanding — Farewell to the Rough Riders — Incidents of the Campaign — Colonel Roosevelt's Estimate of his Men 275 CHAPTER XV. Governor of New York — Exciting Campaign — Takes the Stump — Speeches — In Office — Appointments — Final Day of Legislature, 1899 — Pressing Measures — Original Methods — Tenement Houses — Needs of the Poor — Charities — Labor Unions — Labor Leaders — Self Help — Philanthropic Work — Young Men's Christian Associa- tion — Public School Teachers — College Settle- ments — Governor in Fullest Sense 295 CHAPTER XVI. Convention of 1900 — Senator Hanna and Mr. Quay — Senator Depew— Governor Roosevelt Seconds the Motion Nom- inating Mr. McKinley for President— McKinley and Roosevelt— "In the East we call him Teddy"— "For Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt"— Colonel Young Nommating Roosevelt— Enthusiasm and Excitement— For the Campaign— Speeches— the Countrv Knows the Man— His Work and his Christian Manline<5S— \ Tribute— Vice-President of the United States 3 1 ■; CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER XVII. The Office of Vice-President Unique — History of the Office — Electoral College — Distrust of Party Government — The Vice-President's Theory of Vice-Presidency — Examples Cited — List of Books Written by Roose- velt — Address in Minnesota — Life of Effort — Right Start — Law and Prosperity — Amassing Fortune — Say what you Mean — Dealings with Cuba — Essential of Civili- zation — President McKinley Shot 337 CHAPTER XVIIL President McKinley at Buffalo — At the Zenith of His Fame — His Popularity — His Hopes — The Address at the Pan- American Exposition — A Famous Speech — A Farewell Benediction — At Niagara Falls — The Reception at the Exposition, September 7th — "The President is Shot!" — Forgiving his Assassin — Hopes of Recovery — A Turn for the Worse — "It is God's Way" — Last Scenes —The Whole W^orld Anxious— The End not Far Off- September 14th — President McKinley is Dead! 361 CHAPTER XIX. In the Adirondacks — Start for Buffalo — Ride Through Storm — At Buffalo — Crowds Silent — Dismisses Military Escort — Visit to Mrs. McKinley — The Oath of Office — Funeral of Mr. McKinley — Christian Manliness of Mr. McKinley — President Roosevelt's First Cabinet — Cabinet to Remain — An Estimate of Chances Made by a Change of Presidents — First Proclamation of Presi- dent Roosevelt — Young Rulers of the World — Roose- velt the Youngest President — No Doubt of Him 383 CHAPTER XX. Home Life — "Tranquillity" on Oyster Bay — Rule of Simplic- ity — Mrs. Roosevelt — A Gracious and Good Woman — Ideal Wife and Mother — "$300 a Year Enough for a Woman to Dress On" — The Roosevelt Children — "Swashbuckler Americanism" — Honors conferred at Yale College — Resume — The Country is Assured — The Good Work will Go On— The President's Attitude on Affairs of State — The Country will Continue to Speak with Pride the Name of Theodore Roosevelt 4^7 14 CONTENTS CHAPTER XXI. The Negro Problem in America — President Roosevelt's First Message to Congress — An Era of Peace and Good Feeling — Anarchy — Business Interests — Trusts — Exclusion of Cheap Labor — The Tariff — Reciprocity — Gold Standard — Hawaii. Porto Rico, Cuba — The Philippines — Monroe Doc- trine — Army and Navy — Merit System — Indian Tribes — Postal Service — "Open Door" 431 CHAPTER XXII. Schley Court of Inquiry — The Miles Incident — President Roosevelt's First New Year's Reception — German Emperor Wishes Miss Roosevelt to Christen Yacht — Changes in the Cabinet — Admiral Schley's Appeal — President's De- cision — Moody Succeeds Long — Opening of the Charleston Exposition — Unveiling of Monument in Arlington Ceme- tery — New England Tour — Accident to the President — Southern Trip — Tlie President Adjusts the Strike of the Miners — Completion of First Year of the Presidency 487 CHAPTER XXIII. President's Idea of tli,e Presidency — Answer to Criticism of Negro Appointments— Message of 1902— "Open Door" in the Philippines — Panama Canal — Journey of 14,000 miles — Speeches During Journey — Tribute to Lincoln — Signing- of Canal Treaty— Secretary Root Succeeded by W. H. Taft — Ratification of Panama Treaty — War between Russia and Jajxin— Death of Senator Hanna— Estimate of His Character— Death of M. S. Quay— Decoration Day Speech- at Gettysburg 1-27 CHAPTER XXIV. The Convention of 1904— President's Address at Valley Forge June 19th— Convention Opens June 21st — The Hall First Day— Speech of Elihu Root— Second Day— The Platform— Third Day— Foreshadowing of the Vice Presi- dential Nominee— Sketch of Mr. Fairbanks— The Morning of the Day— Speech of Mr. Black— Nomination of Roosevelt— The Enthusiasm— Mr. Beveridge's Speech- Speech of H. S. Cummings— Nomination of Senator Fair- banks— Cortelyou, Chairman— Incidents of the Nomina- f u*'°xf~^^^ Parades— How Mr. Roosevelt Received Word ot His Nomination— Congratulations— November to Decide. . 571 UST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Theodore Roosevelt Frontispiece Roosevelt as a Boy 21 Mrs. Edith Carow Roosevelt 44 Vice-President Roosevelt and President Milburn at Buffalo. ... 53 President Roosevelt's Church and his Pastor 64 Roosevelt in Hunting Costume, taken in 1885 73 Mr. Roosevelt at Twenty-eight 84 Roosevelt in "Cow-Boy" Costume 93 The First Cougar Killed 120 Mr. Roosevelt in his Garden at Oyster Bay 129 Mr. Roosevelt Campaigning in New York 140 Mrs. Roosevelt and Baby Quentin 149 Night Inspection 160 At the Convention, Philadelphia, 1900 169 Yale Bi-Centennial Procession 196 The Roosevelt Children in 1898 205 Mr. Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy 216 A Roosevelt Family Group, taken in 1895 225 Colonel Wood and Lieut. Colonel Roosevelt 236 Colonel Roosevelt and his Officers 245 Colonel Roosevelt and his Favorite Mount 272 President Roosevelt at his Desk in the White House , . . 281 Mrs. Roosevelt's Church and her Pastor 292 Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roosevelt 301 15 J,, LIST OF ILIvUSTRATIONS. Mr. Roosevelt arriving at the Capitol, March 4, 1901 312 Colonel Roosevelt at Montauk Point 321 Lieut. Colonel Roosevelt and Capt. Downes 348 The Gubernatorial Notification Committee, 1899 357 Campaigning, in 1900 3^8 Vice-Presidential Notification Committee 377 President McKinley and Vice-President Roosevelt at the Mc- Kinley Home, Canton, 404 George B. Cortelyou 413 The Wilcox Residence, Buffalo 424 President Roosevelt and his First Cabinet 433 Governor Roosevelt at Home 444 President Roosevelt Jumping a Hurdle 453 Henry C. Payne 496 Leslie M. Shaw 496 Miss Alice Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., 1900 505 William H. Moody 518 Miss Alice Roosevelt 523 Governor Roosevelt in 1900 535 The Panama Canal Commission ^46 Senator ]\L S. Quay ^^6 Senator M. A. Hanna rcg President Roosevelt and His Cabinet, 1903 565 William H. Taft 1-75 Charles Warren Fairbanks cgr The Chicago Convention rg^ Paul Morton 5q:- Victor Howard Metcalf 505 CHAPTER L Airtdhy Progenitors — Eight Generations of the Family Residents of New Yo>-^ rjity Family of Americans — Great-Grandfather and the Revolution — Gta^xi- father one of the Wealthiest Men in New York— Theodore Roosevek, Sr., one of the Leading Men of his Day — Early Training and Outdoor Liie — Har- vard—Athlete and Student— College Men and Politics— Duty o^ Educated Men. T HE training cf a man, according to Oliver vVerdell Holm,es, should begin with his grandfather. If this lormula be correct, then the training of the Twenty-sixth President of the United States began at the right period of time. I he office of the head of a Republic has been said to be largely an accident, the political aspect of the season actuating the choice of the man, party principle pre- dominating over the personal exce'derLce of the proposed executive, and desire to defeat the opposition making the choice of a candidate not so much his innate strengdi as that of his ability to carry out the lines of his party. Also, it has^ been asserted that the happiest accident of all has been in the cas^ of the United States, for that in nearly every instance the man elected to the Presidency has been a man of singular ability, which in times of stress has come to the fore irrespec- tive of party measuies or party prognostications. Once more, it has been advanced as an incontrovertible fact that no American can refuse the office of President once he is assured of his election, that assimilation with the idea of assuming the position preeminent above all others in the political arena of the country causes a striving of every moral fiber toward such a consummation; and that, though weak men may have been once or twice nominated, the mere fact of their nomination has made them stronger, 17 18 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. In the case of Theodore Roosevelt the fallaciousness of moje than one of these premises is made apparent. He was not the choice of any party — except as an expedient; for, on the death of a President the \'ice-President assumes the chair; and at the time of his election as Vice-President he was not unduly impressed with an honor that mij^ht be his were direful accident to call upon his energies to assume the reins of government. That the formula of Oliver Wendell Holmes holds good in his case is another thing. Heredity, environment, education, experience in political office in many fields; intellectual study of the history of his country and that country's institutions; residence in the East and in the West; affilia- tion with the South through his mother, who was a native of Georgia; association with men of all sorts and conditions of life — these go to form the basic qualifications of Theodore Roosevelt as President of the United States. In him is mingled the Dutch, the Scotch, the Irish, and the French Huguenots. From the Dutch he should get solidity and stability; from the Scotch, acuteness; from the Irish blood in him, aggressiveness and generosity; from the French, vivacity, imagination and audacity. The mingling of the blood of so many races surely means virility, originality, candor, in- telligence, integi-ity, daring and even balance. Eight generations of the family have resided in New York. From 1652, back in the days of John DeWitt, as the head of the Dutch republic, when Klass Martenson Roosevelt left Holland and landed in New Amsterdam, down to the present time, the contemporary records of New York City under its different designatioais and political connections haxe contained the names of one or more Roosevelts. For two and a half centuries they have been conspicuous I'ffures m the busmess. social and political affairs of the American iMetropolis. The life and environment of all these generations of PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 19 Roosevelts must form a part of the mental and moral equipment of the man, who was born in New York City October 27, 1858. His miOther was of the Bonhills, and had relatives of the name of Lukin and Craig — thus, the Irish and the Scotch. The Lamontaigne family is in his ancestry, as are also the Devoes, of Georgia and South Carolina. His maternal uncle, James D. Bullock, built the noted privateer Alabama; and another of the Bullocks fired the last gun aboard her. As to the Roosevelts, a number of them came into marked prominence during the Revolution. They were men of importance and the traditions of their ancestor, who had left the Netherlands so' long ago to establish himself in the new world, abided with them. They had been British subjects, they were American citizens; they had accepted the form of government provided by the Crown, but when the mother country usurped her rights and became a tyran- nical despot, they were among the first to resist injustice and to insist upon fair treatment. The history of their family told of hardship in the earlier days, when Klass Roosevelt entered New Amsterdam and made his way; and now, wdien time and industry had rooted deep their belongings and they were an integral part of the new land, they, with the other colonists, rebuked the efforts of the British Crown to reduce them from the estate of free men, with a voice in the affairs of their land, into mere vassals of a country thousands of miles away, and which insisted upon their subserviency to the most ob- noxious forms of rule. The Roosevelts were foremost in being called "rebels" to the authority of King George. They were men of sub- stance; they had succeeded in what they had undertaken; they were of authority; and in a moment they were to be unduly taxed; they were to be made puppets to the Crown; they were to be brought down farther than any of the family had ever been. They resisted; .^ THEODORE ROOSEVELT. they were pleased to be called "rebels;" they were Americans, and America was for the Americans, and should no longer be tnbutary to a country and a King that knew no fair treatment as far as the colonies were concerned. Just previous to the War for Independence, and during its earlier years, Isaac Roosevelt was a member of the New York Provincial Congress. His showing in that body was to his credit, he having espoused the causes that should lead only to the good of the Colonies. Later, he sat in the State Legislature and was a member of the New York City Council. The measures for the advancement of the prosperity of what the colonists were now beginning to call "our country" received his support, and he was not chary of con- tributing from his goodly share of this world's wealth with which Providence had blest him toward any advancement of the success of New York and her sister colonies. He enjoyed the confidence of his friends and the friends of the colonies, and his name was not confined to any district; and v/hen he was President of the Bank of New York he was recognized as an astute man of business who had his country's honor at stake and sought to preserve that honor. Jacobus J. Roosevelt, great-grandfather of the subject of this volume, was born in 1759, and he gave his services without compen- sation as commissary during the War of Independence. He had inherited a fortune that was considerable for those times, and he did not hesitate to draw from it and give it to the struggling people around him. his brothers, who were striving with him for freedom from a galling yoke. He had everything at stake, and he did not hesitate to place his life along with his worldly goods. The long and arduous war, the heavy duties devolving upon him, separation from his family, whom he scarcely knew werf secure in his absence from them — this he took upon him- self with fidelity and the stubborn determination of his blood, and ROOSliVKLT AS A BQY PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 25 his share in the insisted-upon independence of the country was neither inconsiderable nor a sinecure. The story conies to us of Valley Forge and the freezing, starving men there, Washington cosiderably disconcerted, if not discouraged, and of Jacob Roosevelt impressing horses and other cattle to get tO' the suffering army the stores of food and clothing so much needed. His own privations were many, but he regarded himself only as another man in the army of untrained farmers and unmilitary civilians, and did not spare him- self. The history of the times holds him in veneration, and even though in happier years his worldly efforts succeeded beyond his ex- pectations, he had gladly and willingly thrown in his lot with the poorest drummer-boy in the raw Continental Army, and did not hold himself above and beyond the lowliest. A brother of this Revolutionary patriot, Nicholas J, Roosevelt, born in New York City in 1767, was an inventor of much ability. He was the associate of Robert L. Livingston, John Stevens and Robert Fulton in developing the steamboat and steam navigation. The grandfather of Theodore Roosevelt, Cornelius van Shaick Roosevelt, born in New York City in 1794, was an importer of hard- ware and plate glass, and one of the five richest men in the town, which was then counting its wealth in many figures. New and palatial buildings were going up, and an era of spending money had come in after the stress and hardship of unsettled times, and vessels were bringing to the new United States of America vast numbers of men and women from the old world, all anxious to achieve in the new surroundings what the old had denied to them. The French' Revolution was responsible for much of the immigration, and stately gentlemen and fair ladies of the old regime came over with the un- couth element from downtrodden fields of Ireland and Germany. The country was prospering, banks founded on a firm basis were raising their walls, industries were springing up, the arts and sciences THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 24 ;vcre receiving new impetus. The Chemical Bank of New York was proposed, and Cornelius Roosevelt was one of the founders of it. In the larger cities of the country the social life was becoming more promin'ent. Madam Washington had several years ago established a precedent for certain punctilios which made the General's drawing- rooms almost a court. Among the plainer people there was an un- founded fear that probably the institutions of Great Britain were to be introduced now that the land was free from the throne, and that the excess of formality accredited to General Washington was to lead to a regimen where none but those in authority of office or wealth would be tolerated. The women of the Roosevelt family were prominent in social affairs, but they and other ladies of n?eans tabooed the idea of social seclusion, which was never intended by General Washington, stickler though he might be as to etiquette. The Presidents Adams and their consorts were more democratic, and the merchants and business men of the country understood the trend of affairs, and the feminine portion of their households estab- lished a form of society which, while free from a too-open democratic leaning, was eligible to all who by reason of gentleness of birth, strength of prowess, leai-ning, or gifts of art and success of endeavor, might desire to step across the threshold. The Roosevelt ladies were prominent in charities as well, and were not behindhand in hospital and prison work where the ameliorating hand of woman might do so much to heal the wounds of the body and spirit. James J. Roosevelt, a brother of Cornelius Roosevelt, was a warm friend and ardent admirer of Andrew Jackson, and "Old Hickory" was not averse to consulting him now and then. James Roosevelt served in the New York Legislature, and was a Justice of the Supreme Court of New York from 1851 to 1859. A cousin of Theodore, James Henry Roosevelt, was distinguished for iiis philanthropies, and left an estate of a million dollars, which by PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 25 good management was doubled in value, to found the famous Roose- velt Hospital in New York City. Cornelius V. S. Roosevelt, the grandfather, married Mary Bonhill, of Philadelphia. From this union issued Theodore Roosevelt, the father. After all that is said of the ancestr}^ of the boy who was born in 1858, much is owing to the father, who married Martha Bullock. The boy born in 1858 was early to be inducted intO' the troublous times of war, though too young to understand. The troubles be- tween the North and the South occurred when he was a child of tender years, and his recollection of the dreariness of those days was to be only the brightness of it all, when he was taken to see the troops depart, flags flying, drums beating and bands playing. His father was one of the leading men of the day, rapidly amassing a great fortune — for the fortunes of a hundred millions had not yet come into existence. The elder Theodore was a philanthropist and a lover oi outdoor life. To him more than to any one else the boy was to be indebted for a system of sane Hving, open air exercise after tiresome business hours, and a leaving of heavy cares for a spell of roughing it with nature. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., was prominent in devising and carrying out the present system of newsboys' lodging-houses. The homelessness of many of the waifs that thronged the city streets during the Civil War appealed to him, and he got other influential men to join him in establishing a home life for the stranded atoms of childhood who were thrown upon their own poor resources. Through the expenditure of large sums of money he helped to gather together the ragged untutored dispensers of "Extras" and housed and fed them in comfort and cleanliness and put them on the road to self-respect, encouraged and protected. He also devised and put into operation the plan of the war-time allotment commission, bringing to it a keen insight and levelheaded- ness that stood good for the country torn by conflicting factions, 26 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. when the issue of the stnig-gle was uncertain, and when few of the foreign powers retained faith in a land that for the moment seemed unable to take care of itself. From his earliest childhood the young Theodore was taught the injunction to be active and industrious. His father held that no one had a right to merely cumber the earth; that the most contemptible of human beings was the man wdio did nothing. The child imbibed the idea that he must do something and do it well. During the war he was not hampered as were many of the children of millionaires; when he went to see the troops leave the city for the front he nnist walk; when he wanted a flagstaff for his flag he must make it. It was the beginning of his outdoor life which has had so much attraction for him ever since. Then came the fall of Abra- ham Lincoln. The boy tramped the city in company wnth whoever had him in charge noting the excitement, the badges of mourning; he noted the distress of those round him; his home was depressed, and the men who came to see his father were grim of visage, with few smiles for the little child they often encountered in the hall. These men would go into the library and talk long and earnestly with his father about panics and the money market — themes which were meaningless to !iis young ears. Years and years later he was to un- derstand it clearly; and when he stood in the presence of the terrible work of another assassin's hand the earlier recollections w'ere doubt- less to rise before him. Touching that same time when the boy was so young, it may not be out of place to recall, when the Capitol was aftenvards somber with the mourning emblems for the man whose death made Theodore Roosevelt President, an incident recalling the assassination of President Lincoln: Among the many structures in Washington where symbols of grief have been displayed since President McKinley passed away, none attracts more attention than the unpretentious house at No. 516 Tenth Street, Northwest, where Abraham Lincoln, America's first PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 27 martyred chief magistrate, breathed his last. The emblems of mourn- ing, although of the simplest design, give an added significance to the building, which displays at its portals the inscription that makes it one of the most revered spots in the nation's capital. Over the old-fashioned doorway entrance to the principal floor, which is reached by a series of stone steps with a winding iron railing, is a festooned mass of crape which sweeps in broad bands down the long columns at either side of the outer vestibule and almost trails upon the threshold. In the central and southern windows of each of the main floors there depend from the sills bits of black, and through the panes of the windows on the main floor may be seen small flags trimmed with crape. In themselves these samples of the stars and stripes are insignificant, but they are cherished for their histories. Nothing could be more eloc^uent than the empty flag-stafif pro- truding from the upper northern window and covered only with tightly-wound crape. The window directly over the main doonvay contains no funereal bunting or other emblem, but the yellow^ shade is closely drawn and it seems particularly bare. For this reason many have supposed that the immortal victim of J. Wilkes Booth died in this room. Such is not the fact, however, for Lincoln was too griev- ously hurt to be carried up the narrow stair by the excited men who held his unconscious form. Connected with the hallway on the main floor, in about the centre of the building, is an ordinary sleeping- chamber, and to this the wounded President was borne. There he was laid on the bed of a lodger, a United States soldier, who im- mediately gave up his cjuarters to his dying commander-in-chief. There are many living in Washington and elsewhere who recall vividly the scenes preliminary to and attending the assassination of the great liberator. The close of one of the greatest conflicts in ail history had been celebrated in the national capital on the night of April 13th, 1865, by an illumination of the city that excelled any 28 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. previous demonstration held there. On that auspicious night Presi- dent Lincoln addressed an immense assemblage in front of the White House, congratulating the country upon the restoration of amity and the end of the bloody Civil War. Bands of music paraded the thor- oughfares, and the jubilee continued until dawn peeped over the eastern hills. There was no premonition of the tragedy impending. Jollity and congratulation held complete sway. The rejoicing continued the following day, and in the evening- President and Mrs. Lincoln attended a play at the old Ford's Theatre, on Tenth Street, Northwest, between E and F streets. This building, the front of which is yet standing without change, has been re- modeled inside and serves as a branch of the records division of the \\'ar Department. To-day it flies at half-mast a ragged little flag, with a jagged hole near the centre. The same flag waved sadly in the breeze for the dead Lincoln and the martyred Garfield. It is one of the most treasured bits of tri-color in the city of Washington. While the performance at the old theatre was in progress on the evening of April 14th, Booth, who was an actor, entered the private box in which the chief magistrate was seated and fired the fatal shot. Then he jumped to the stage, shouted Sic semper tyrannisr fled through the stage entrance to an alley-way in the rear of the play- house, mounted a waiting horse and made his escape. When it was realized that President Lincoln had been wounded he was hastily hfled by willing hands and borne out of the theatre on the Tenth Street side to the humble house across the way. From the moment that tiie bullet entered his body it was reahzed that there was no prospect of recovery. Mrs. Lincoln and members of the Cabinet re- mained at the bedside in the Tenth Street house throughout that memorable n,ght, when all Washington was in a fever of excitement Ide 'r Tul ^'^'T '" ^"^^'^"^ ^"' '''' ^^^^-^ ^^-^ had been marlc to stab Seward. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 29 As daylight drew near, the pulse of the wounded executive became more and more feeble. At 6.30 o'clock in the morning the public received the ominous bulletin, "Sinking slowly." Another bulletin at seven o'clock stated that the end was near. Death came at 7.22 o'clock, while the stricken mistress of the White House, with Secre- taries Stanton, Wells, and Usher, and Private Secretary John Hay — William McKinley's Secretary of State, and now next in order of succession to the Presidency — stood hopelessly at the bedside. The stillness was broken by a prayer, and then the solemn voice of Secretary Stanton broke the silence with, "Now he belongs to the ages." To this humble death place of Abraham Lincoln there come each year thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the world. Within its bare rooms have been assembled many articles that figured in the immortal rail-splitter's career and were associated in the tragedy which prostrated a nation with grief. And since William McKinley fell beneath the bullet of an assassin the Lincoln house has become one of the principal sights in Washington, for the tragedy at Buffalo has revived and intensified the everlasting sorrow that grew out of the event in Ford's Theatre in April, 1865. The education of Young Roosevelt was undertaken upon strictly practical lines. He had the advantage of good schools and masters, but he lived the boy-life of the ordinary well-to-do youth. He was sturdy and strong, as often as possible in the open air, whether it was in the city or at his father's country house. He early developed a liking for animals, and his dogs and ponies w^ere his prized com- panions. He began the use of the saddle at an early age and before he was in his teens he was acquainted with the good points of a horse and held colloquy with the coachman respecting the merits of the steeds which were his own special property. As he grew older he often accompanied his father on hunting expeditions, and the keen sorrow of his life was the death of that father in 1872. 30 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. When "Teddy" 'Roosevelt entered Hansard College he did so with- out any special advantages or prestige. He had a good stock of health and preserve strength, and believing, as his father before him had believed, that a sound mind is the outcome of a sound body, he went in for the sports that should keep up his vigor and was foremost in the field games. He was studious without being didactic, and he went through with a large amount of reading, though he seems to have always had time for anything else that turned up. As is the way of busy men, there is always time for doing whatever ofTers, for "without pause and without haste" would seem to be the maxim of life, though unexpressed in so many words by those who achieve most in the world. He had early made up his mind to enter into the affairs of the country, as his ancestors had done before him. He believed that educated men were in honor bound to do their full share of the v.'ork of American public life. He wrote that we have in this country an equality of rights, and that it was the plain duty of every man to see that those rights were respected. Education gave no man the right to feel the least superiority over his fellow citizens, he said, but it certainly ought to make him feel that he should stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the whole public by doing his duty as an American in the body politic. In his paper on "Colleges and Public Life" he says: "This obligation very- possibly rests even more heavily upon men of means; but of this it is not necessary now to speak. The men of mere wealth never can have and never should have the capacity for doing good work that is possessed by the men of exceptional mental training; but that they may l)ecome both a laughing stock and a menace to the community is made unpleasantly apparent by that portion of the New York business and social world which is most in evidence in the papers." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 31 Educated men, he goes on to say, are bound to follow understand- ingly the course of public events; they are bound to try to estimate and form judgment upon public men; and they are bound to act in- telligently and effectively in support of the principles which they deem to be right and for the best interests of the country. An edu- cated man must not go into politics as such, but simply as an Ameri- can. But once in he must speedily understand that he must work hard indeed or he will be upset by some other American who has no education at all, but with much natural capacity. In other words, the educated man must realize that he is living in a democracy and under democratic conditions, and that he is entitled to not a bit more respect and consideration than his abilities can command. "Wrongs should be strenuously and fearlessly denounced; evil principles and evil men should be condemned. The politician who cheats or swindles, or the newspaper-man who lies in any form should be made to feel that he is an object of scorn for all honest men." In giving advice to college men, and he knew whereof he spoke, he denies that they are better or worse than men who have never been inside the walls of a college, while their responsibilities are in- finitely greater. "The worst offense that can be committed against the Republic is the offense of the public man who betrays his trust; but second only to it comes the ofTense of the man who tries to persuade others that an honest and efficient public man is dishonest or unworthy. This is a wrong that can be committed in a great many different ways. Downright foul abuse may, after all, be less dangerous than incessant misstatements, sneers, and those half-truths, wdiich are the meanest lies." The young college man must learn that he must deal with the mass of men, go out and stand shoulder to shoulder with friends and foes alike, and take his part in the hurly-burly of the political life, should 32 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. lie choose that for his own. No man ever really learned from books how to manage a govermental system. Books are admirable ad- juncts, and the statesman who has carefully studied them is far more apt to do good work than if he had not; but if he has never done any- thing but study books he will not be a statesman at all. At Harvard he was reading and thinking. He was to enter politics and he must needs understand the working of the government w'hich he respected. "No government that cannot command the respectful support of thinkers is in an entirely sound condition. Each man should realize that he cannot do his best either in the study of politics or in the applied politics unless he has a working knowledge of both branches." If an educated man was not heartily American in instinct and feel- ing, and taste, and sympathy, he would amount to nothing in Ameri- can public life. Patriotism, love of country, and pride in the flag might be feelings which the race would at some period outgrow^ but at present they were real and strong, and the man who was lacking in them was a useless creature, a mere encumbrance to the land. Ac- cording to his ideas, a man of sound political instincts could no more subscribe to the doctrine of absolute independence of party on the one hand than to that of unquestioning party allegiance on the other. No man could accomplish much unless he worked in an organization with others, and this organization, no matter how temporary, was a party for the time being. But that man was a dangerous citizen who so far mistook means for ends as to become servile in his devotion to his party, and afraid to leave it when the party went wrong. To deify either independence or party allegiance, merely as such, was absurd. The truth was, according to this creed which he laid dow^n for the college man, such as was himself, that there were times when it might be the duty of a man to break with his party, and there were other times when it might be his duty to stand by his party even PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 33 though on some points he thought that party wrong; he must be prepared to leave it when necessary, and he must not sacrifice his influence by leaving it unless it were necessary. "If w'e had no party allegiance our politics would become mere windy anarchy, and under present conditions our government could hardly continue at all. If we had no independence we should always be running the risk of the most degraded kind of despotism — the despotism of the party boss and the party machine." It was just the same as to compromises. It was a truism to say that in politics there was one continual compromise. Though now and then cjuestions arose where a compromise was not to be thought of, there should be no avoidable compromise about any great moral ques- tion; but only a very few great reforms or great measures of any sort could be carried through without concessions. "No student of American history needs to be reminded that the Constitution itself is a bundle of compromises, and was adopted only because of this fact, and that the same thing is true of the Emanci- pation Proclamation." In conclusion, a man with a university education was in honor bound to take part in political life, and to do his full duty as a citizen by helping his fellow citizens to the extent of his power in the exercise of the rights of self-government. He was bound to estimate action as far above criticism, and to understand that the man deserving credit was the man who actually did the things, even though imperfectly, and not the man who did nothing but say how they ought to be done. He was bound to have a high ideal and to try to realize it, and yet he must make up his mind that he" would never be able to get the highest good, and that he must devote himself with every bit of his energy to getting the best that he could. Finally, the college man's work must be disinterested and honest, and it must be given without regard to his personal success or failure, and without regard to the 84 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. effect it might have upon his fortunes or chances; and while he must show the virtues of uprightness, and tolerance, and gentleness, he must also put forth the sterner virtues of courage, resolution and hardihood, along with the desire to war mercilessly against the ex- istence of wrong. This is scarcely an easy creed for the aspirant to political honors, nor was it intended to be easy. In his room at Harvard Roosevelt was thinking out the problems of the government of the country. Tlie men of his family had had to do with the affairs of America, and by natural inheritance he should drift that way. The feverish- ness of politics must not touch him, though his aggressive qualities should come to the fore in doing what he intended to do — he might fail or he might succeed, but in either event he meant to do his best and to truckle to no party interests. A statesman? He would be that if possible, and his debates at college show him to have been no mean speaker from the first. His voice was good, he had the address of a gentleman, and he was not afraid and not easily put down by good-natured chaff or less good-natured ridicule. He w^as urbane and natural, with peculiar distaste for affectation and what was not entirely real. He took defeat well, and when routed in argument met his superior opponent with good nature. On the athletic field he felt at home, and in the various sports in which he indulged he was rarely second best. His summers were passed with his people or on hunting expeditions for as big game as could be reached. His studies were well prepared and he neglected little necessary work for his political studies and his games in the field. It is doubtful if he ever once lost sight of the idea that he should succeed in the political arena. As the day drew near when he should be graduated from college he looked with peculiar interest into the government of his own city of New York. He saw there the state of affairs that has characterized so many American cities that have come within the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 35 power of a party so strong as to have lost the idea of being over- thrown. The newspapers told him of malfeasance in office; of un- scrupulous men in seats of power; and he waited for the time when he, too, should have a say in the ruling of the city, and wondered how he should be received by those in authority. He had little of the timidity of the tyro; politics was his field; his life had that trend, so there could be little use in holding back or cultivating a squeamish- ness that rather befitted the man uncertain of himself. In all walks of life we encounter the disagreeable along with the agreeable, and while no other member of his family was in politics, and might reason with him to not attempt it, yet there w^as no reason in the w^orld why a college-bred man who had read all about government, and States, and Kingdoms, might not take his chances in a profession which called for the highest, and often got the other thing — even w^ard politics. His father w-as dead — that great and good friend who had done so much for him — and he supposed that the law would be his forte once he had bid good-by to Harvard. But not to become a mere lawyer, satisfied with briefs and the settlement of estates — there was a wider field for one learned in the law — a more exciting and intricate pro- fession — politics — the straightening out of the mode of government which so easily slips into irregular hands; the settling of the tempes- tuous course wdiich the ship of State must take to bring it to safe haven v^ith its cargo of the people's rights for the people's needs. CHAPTER IL Gnuluated at Harvard — Entrance into Political Life — Member of New York Assembly — At Albany — Reform Charter for New York — Married — Various Honors as Assemblyman — Death of his Mother and his Wife — State Legislation — Duties of Citizens to Attend Primaries — Bribe-taking — "Bosses"-- Corrupt Politics the Fault of Citizens at Large — Machine Politics — Leaving the Assembly — Literary Work. AT the age of twenty-two, in 1880, Theodore Roosevelt was graduated at Harvard University. He took a European trip for rest before entering upon his life career. He tramped through Germany, his love of walking never absent from him. His first view of the Alps inspired him with the desire to mount them, and he climbed the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn. Returning to New York he began the study of the law, but politics called him as they were bound to do. "I have always believed," he has said, describing his entry into the political field, "that every man should join a political organization and should attend the primaries; that he should not be content to be merely governed, but should do his part of that work. So after leaving college I went to the local political headquarters, attended all the meetings and took my part in whatever came up. There arose a revolt against the member of Assembly from that district, and I was nominated to succeed him, and was elected." It was in the fall of 1881 that he was elected from the XXI. dis- trict, and he was twice re-elected, serving in the legislatures of 1882, 1883 and 1884. At Albany he found a fruitful field for the aggressive- ness of his nature which wrongdoing has never failed to arouse. Some of the veteran politicians were at first amused by his energy 37 38 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. and the ingenuousness and straightforwardness of his speeches. But they were speedily to discover that this "youngster," as some one of them called him, was a fighter who could not be kept under either by open or secret methods. Few men looked less fitted for public life. He was well dressed, while his eyeglasses led the Tammany Hall :3?embers to think him effeminate. Then they learned that he was a good all-round boxer, and two or three encounters, in which however no blows were struck, convinced them that he was a courageous man. Though the fact that he had literary inclinations caused the opinion to gain ground that he was merely a writer and would take no active part in legislation once the novelty had worn off. However, the new member from the XXIst soon began tO' express his sentiments, and the serious minded members of the Assembly began to think that his judgment regarding New York City matters had soundness in it. He was an attractive speaker, was rapid in speech, hit hard, was good natured, while he was savagely sarcastic in dealing with rascals, and public opinion outside of Albany was soon in his favor. For several years various attempts had been made to pass a reform charter for New York City. All these attempts failed, because the threatened departments united and were too strong for the re- formers. Assemblyman Roosevelt made his attacks on certain city departments separately, and overturned them one after another. His rise in rank was rapid. In the second year of his membership he was Republican candidate for Speaker. It was a Democratic House, but the honor was nevertheless great for so young a man. He had recently married Miss Alice Lee, of Boston, a young lady who believed in his abilities and who urged him to fresh endeavor. In the third year he was placed at the head of the Committee on Cities, for he had proved his thorough knowledge of New York and other cities. He served his constituency especially well by aiding in the passage i)f bills abolishing fees in the offices of the Register and the County PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 3» Clerk, and while he was chairman of the Committee on Cities he intro- juced reform legislation which proved immensely beneficial. One of his measures was the act taking from the Board of Aldermen power to confirm or reject the appointments of the Mayor. He was chairman of the noted legislative investigating committee whicli bore his name, and which revealed many of the abuses existing in th^. city government in the early '80s. Assemblyman Roosevelt was highly popular with his associates, irrespective of party, and it is seldom a man receives more genuine expressions of sympathy than did he from his fellow assemblymen when his mother and his young wife to whom he had been married a little over a year, both died in one week. Attending the Republican State Convention of 1884, he was elected one of New York's four delegates-at-large to the Re- publican National Convention, as a delegate desirous of nominating George F. Edmunds for the Presidency. ''Young Roosevelt has started out to reform the universe," were the words of a veteran member of the Assembly at Albany. If this was to be his task New York was an appropriate place to begin it. The spasm of virtuous indignation which had convulsed New York when ten years earlier it had overthrown the Tweed ring had spent its force. Some of the old abuses had been left untouched; many of those which had been re- moved had returned; in the growth in population and wealth in the decade many new abuses had sprung into being. In the sessions of 1882, 1883, and 1884, in which he served, he assailed them all and cor- rected some. From the first his honesty and independence were prominent. He refused to have to do with rings or cliques. Cor- ruption and dishonesty of all sorts in both parties and in every guise he fiercely attacked. Bosses he denounced and defied. With his first entrance into public life he began his career as a reformer. He intro- duced the first intelligently-drawn civil service bill ever presented in the New York Legislature. By an odd coincidence, this was signfe^ 40 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. by Governor Cleveland at nearly the same time (1883) that the civil service reform measure drafted by Dorman B. Eaton and cham- pioned by Senator George H. Pendleton passed the Republican Con- gress at Wasliington and received the signature of President Arthur, In his own words, few persons realize the magnitude of the in- terests affected by State legislation in New York. "It is no figure of speech to call New York the Empire State; and many of the laws most directly and immediately affecting its citizens are passed at Albany, and not at Washington." In truth, at Albany there was a little home-rule parliament which ruled much of the destiny of a commonwealth more dense in popula- tion than any one of two-thirds of the European kingdoms, and one which in regard to wealth, material prosperity, variety of in- terests, extent of territory, and capacity for expansion can truthfully be said to rank next to the powers of the first class. Among his colleagues there w^ere many good men; there was also a class of men that were not very good nor very bad, but went one way or the other according to the strength of the various conflicting influences brought to bear around, behind and upon them. "Where a number of men, many of them poor, some of them- un- scrupulous, and others elected by constituents too ignorant to hold them to a proper accountability for their actions, are put into a position of great temporary power, where they are called to take action upon questions affecting the welfare of large corporations and wealthy private individuals, the chances for corruption are ahvays great; and that there is much viciousness and political dishonesty, much moral cowardice, and a good deal of actual bribe taking in Albany, no one who has had any practical experience of legislation can doubt; but, at the same time, I think that the good members generally outnumber the bad, and that there is not often doubt as to the result when a naked question of right or wrong can be placed clearly and in its true light before the Lesfislature." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 41 Regarding bribe-taking, in each of the three Legislatures there were certain men who were interested in getting through measures which they thought to be for the public good, but which were certain to be strongly opposed — some for political, some for money reasons. "To get through any such measure requires genuine hard work, a certain amount of parliamentary skill, a good deal of tact and courage, and above all a thorough knowledge of the men with whom one has to deal, and of the motives which actuate them. In other words, before taking any active steps we had to 'size up' our fellow legislators to find out their past history and present character and associates; to find out whether they w'ere their own masters or were acting under the directions of somebody else; whether they were bright or stupid, etc., etc. As a result, and after very careful study conducted purely with the oljject of learning the truth so that we might work more effectually, we came to the conclusion that about a third of the members were open to corrupt influences in some form or other; in certain sessions the proportion was greater, and in some less. Now it would of course be impossible for me or any one else to prove in a court of law that these men w'cre guilty, except per- haps in one or two cases; yet we felt absolutely confident that there was hardly a case in which our judgment as to the honesty of any given member was not correct. The two or three exceptional cases alluded to, where legal proof of guilt might have been forthcoming, were instances in which honest men were approached by their col- leagues at times when the need for votes was very great; but even then it would have been almost impossible to punish the offenders before a court, for it v^ould have merely resulted in his denying what his accuser stated. Aloreover, the members who had been approached would have been very reluctant to come forward, for each of them felt ashamed that his character should not have been well enough known to prevent any one daring to speak to him on such a subject. 42 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. And another reason why the few honest men who are approached (for the lobhyist rarely makes a mistake in liis estimate of the men who will be apt to take bribes) do not feel like taking action in the matter is that a doubtful lawsuit will certainly follow, which will drag on so long that the public will come to regard all the participants with equal distrust, while in the end the decision is quite as hkely to be against as to be for them." ^ Thus, it would seem, it is almost beyond possibility to actually convict a legislator of bribe-taking, though at the same time the true character of a legislator soon becomes known, and no dishonest man can long keep his reputation good among those who are honest. Roosevelt, as reformer, knew what was going on around him. Hobnobbing with all sorts and conditions of men, making impas- sioned speeches, he was acquainted with the men with whom he associated and who listened to the words he had to say. Corruption in office angered him thoroughly and he says: "Much the largest percentage of corrupt legislators come from the great cities; indeed, the majority of Assemblymen from the great cities are 'very poor specimens;' while on the contrary the Congress- men who go from them are generally pretty good men. This fact is only one of the many that goes to establish the curious political law that in a great city the larger the constituency which elects a public servant, the more apt that servant is to be a good one; exactly as the Mayor is almost certain to be infinitely superior in character to the average Alderman, or the average city Judge to the aver- age city Justice. This is because the public servants of com- paratively small importance are protected by their own insignifi- cance from the consequences of their bad actions. Life is car- ried on at such a high pressure in the great cities, men's time is so fully occupied by their manifold and harassing in- terests and duties, and their knowledge of their neighbors is neces- f MRS. EDITH CARUW ROOSEVELT PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 45 sarily so limited, that they are only able to fix in their minds the characters and records of a few prominent men; the others they kimp together without distinguishing between individuals. They know whether the Aldermen as a body are to be admired or despised; but they probably do not even know the name, far less the worth, of the particular Alderman who represents their district; so it happens that their votes for Aldermen and Assemblymen are generally given with very little intelligence indeed, while on the contrary they are fully competent to pass and execute judgment upon as promnrent an of^cial as a ]\Iayor or even a Congressman. Hence it follows that the latter have to give a good deal of attention to the wishes and pre- judices of the public at large, while a city Assemblyman, though he always talks a great deal about the people, rarely, except in certain extraordinary cases, has to pay much heed to their wants. His political iulure depends far more upon the skill and success with which he cultivates the good will of certain 'bosses,' or of certain cliques of politicians, or even of certain bodies and knots of men (such as compose a trade-union, or a collection of merchants in some special business, or the managers of a railroad) whose interests, being vitally affected by State legislation, oblige them closely to watch and try to punish or reward the State legislators. These politicians or sets of interested individuals generally care very little for a man's honesty so long as he can be depended upon to do as they ^vish on certain occasions; and hence it often happens that a dishonest man who has sense enough not to excite attention by any flagrant outrage may continue for a number of years to represent an honest constituency." How could a man using such language be popular among- men who went into politics for the money to be gained by the move? Roosevelt had many opponents and made such opponents uncom- fortable by his stubborn determination and his ability to show fight. 46 'irlEODORE ROOSEVELT. He was above suspicion as a place-seeker, though it was known from the first that he intended to try for rulership in pohtics; his methods were too unpopular for the dishonest ruler, and they believed that they controlled the majority. His fortune saved him from. the opprobrium of acting for mere effect, so that, at the proper time, he mijjht swell his bank account by some bold stroke. He v.as begin- ning to be regarded as a statesman and an honest politician, and as such lie was unbeloved by the class of men who at first had looked leniently upon him because of his well-fitting garments, his eye- glasses, and his literary proclivities. On one occasion there came before a committee, of v^hich Mr. Roosevelt was a member, a perfectly proper bill in the interest of a certain corporation; the majority of the committee, six in number, were unscrupulous men who opposed the measure in the hope of being paid money to end their opposition. Mr. Roosevelt had con- sented to take charge of the bill. When he did so he bad stipulated that not a penny should be expended to insure its passage. It there- fore became necessary to see what pressure could be brought to bear on the recalcitrant members of the committee, and accordingly the minority had to find out who were the sponsors of the political ex- istence of these men. Three were found to be under the control of local "statesmen" of the same party as themselves, and of equally shady moral character; one was ruled by a politician of unsavory reputation; the fifth, a Democrat, was owned by a Republican Federal official; while the president of a city railway company controlled the sixth. A couple of letters from these two magnates forced the last mentioned members to change front, and Mr. Roosevelt's friends carried the measure. In his paper on "Phases of State Legislation" he says: "There are two classes of cases in which corrupt members get money. One is when a wealthy corporation buys through some PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 47 measure which will be of great benefit to itself, although perhaps an injury to the public at large; the other is when a member introduces a bill hostile to some moneyed interest with the expectation of being paid to let the matter drop. The latter, technically called a 'strike,' is much the more common; for in spite of the outcry against them in legislative matters, corporations are more often sinned against than sinning. It is difficult for reasons already stated to convict the offending member, though we have very good laws against bribery. The reform has got to come from the people at large. It will be hard to make any great improvement in the character of the legislators until respectable people become fully awake to their duties, and until the newspapers become more truthful and less reckless in their state- ments." But "there is a much brighter side to the picture — and this is the larger side, too. It would be impossible to get together a body of more earnest, upright and disinterested men than the band of legislators, largely young men who" (during the three years he v^as in office) "have averted so much evil and accomplished so much good at Albany. * * * This body of legislators who, at any rate, worked honestly for what they thought right, w^ere as a whole quite unselfish and were not treated particularly well by their constituents. j\Iost of them soon got to realize the fact that if they wished to enjoy their brief space of political life they would have to make it a rule never to consider, in deciding how to vote on any question, how their vote would affect their own political prospects." But the people had themselves to blame for a state of affairs need- ing such signal reformation. It is generally acknowledged that the people in the large cities of the Union have neglected their political duties. In consequence they have been regarded with contempt by the professional politicians. A number of people will get together, hire a hall and call a meeting, when they will cry "reform," and then disband ap,parently under the belief that they have done their duty as 48 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. citizens and members of the community. While he was in the State Legislature ^Ir. Roosevelt asserted that four out of every five of our wealthy and educated men were really ignorant of the nature of a caucus or a primary meeting, and never attend either. "Under our form of government, no man can accomplish anything by himself— he must work in combination with others. * But there seems often to be a certain lack of the robuster virtues in our educated men which makes them shrink from the struggle and the inevitable contact with rough politicians (who must often be rudely handled before they can be forced to behave); while their lack of familiarity with their surroundings causes them to lack discrimination between the politicians who are decent and those who are not; for in their eyes the two classes both equally unfamiliar, are indistinguishable. Another reason why this class is not of more consequence in politics is that it is often really out of sympathy — or, at least, its more conspicuous members are — with the feelings and interests of the great mass of American people; and it is a discreditable fact that it is iji this class that what has been most aptly termed the 'colonial' spirit still sur- vives. * * * From different causes the laboring classes even when thoroughly honest at heart often fail to appreciate honesty in their representatives. They are frequently not well informed in re- gard to the character of the latter, and they are apt to be led aside by the loud professions of the so-called labor reformers who are ahvays promising to procure by legislation the advantages which can only come to workingmen, or to any other men, by their individual or united energy, intelligence and forethought. Very much has been accomplished by legislation for laboring men by procuring mechanics' lien laws, factory laws, etc.; and hence it often comes that they think legislation can accomplish all things for them; and it is only natural, for instance, that a certain proportion of their number should adhere PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 49 to the demagogue who A'otes for a law to double the rate of wages, rather than to the houest man who opposes it. When people are struggling for the necessaries of existence and vaguely feel, no matter how wrongly, that they are also struggling against an unjustly- ordered system of life, it is hard to convince them of the truth that an ounce of performance on their own part is worth a ton of legisla- tive promises to change in some mysterious manner that life-system." Mr. Roosevelt would have every man in the United States under- stand politics and take his part in the government of the country by such understanding. He had little sympathy with those who com- plained of liad representatation when they took no initiative to pro- tect thenisch'es from it. Rich men and poor men equally possess the inalienable right of having a voice in the affairs of the country, and the careless man or the laggard has little right to protest against a state of affairs lirought on by utter heedlessness in relegating their privileges to tricksters and knaves. From the first he advocated the stud}'- of politics by all classes, and could notunderstandthe blind obedience to leaders freely indulged in by men of every social grade. He is particularly hard on the educated man and the man of wealth. Education sliould teach thought, and wealth grants the ease wherein thought may crystallize; education should be used for the benefit of those debarred from it by stress of circumstance, and wealth should be expended for the best good of those wdio have it not. These democratic principles he put into speech on all occasions and never so well as when he was prominent in State legislation; and, he insists, when a man is heard objecting to taking part in politics because it is "low," that man may be set down as either a fool or a coward — it would be c}uite as sensible for a militiaman to advance the same plea in refusing to assist in putting down a riot. He has something to say regarding machine politics: "The terms 'machine' and 'machine politician' are now undoubt- edly used ordinarily in a reproachful sense; but it does not follow that 50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. this sense is always the right one. On the contrary the machine is often a very powerful instrument for good; and a machine politician really desirous of doing honest work on behalf of the community is fifty times as useful as a philanthropic outsider. * * * Jn the rough, however, the feeling against machine politics and politicians is tolerably well justified by the facts, although this statement really rellects most severely upon the educated and honest people who largely hold themselves aloof from public life and show a curious inca- pacity for fulfilling their public duties. The organizations that are commonly and distinctly known as machines are those belonging to the two great recognized parties or to their factional subdivisions; and the reason why the word machine has come to be used, to a certain extent, as a term of opprobrium is to be found in the fact that these organizations are now run by the leaders very largely as busi- ness concerns to benefit themselves and their followers, with little regard to the community at large. This is natural enough. The men having the control and doing all the work have gradually come lo have the same feeling about politics that other men have about the business of a merchant or manufacturer; it was too much to expect that if left entirely to themselves they would continue disinterestedly to work for the benefit of others. Many a machine politician who is to-day a most unwholesome influence in our politics is in private life quite as respectable as any one else; only he has forgotten that his business affects the State at large, and regarding it as merely his own private concern he has carried into it the same selfish spirit that actuates in business matters the majority of the average mercantile community. A merchant or manufacturer works his business as a rule purely for his own benefit, without any regard whatever for the community at large. The merchant uses all his influence for a low tariff, and the manufacturer is even more strenuously in favor of protection— not at all upon any theory of abstract right, but because PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 51 of self-iriterest. Each views such a political question as the tariff not from the standpoint of how it will affect the nation as a whole, but merely from that of how it will affect him personally. If a com- munity were in favor of protection, but nevertheless permitted all the govermental machinery to fall into the hands of importing merchants, it would be small cause for wonder if the latter shaped the laws to suit themselves, and the chief blame, after all, would rest with the supine and letharg-ic majority which failed to have enough energy to take charge of their own affairs. Our machine politicians in actual life are in just this same way; their actions are very often dic- tated by selfish motives, with but little regard for the people at large, though like the merchants they often hold a very high standard of honor on certain points; they therefore need to be continually watched and opposed by those who wish to see good government. But, after all, it is hardly to be wondered at that they abuse power which is allowed to fall into their hands owing to the ignorance or timid indifference of those who by rights should themselves keep it." Always he keeps on insisting in his science of politics that the people are themselves responsible for whatever form of government they are under — if there is a miscarriage of justice the people must look to themselves for the cause; if there be chicanery and villainy in office, blame not the ofSceholders so much as the citizens who sat by and saw such men placed in authority. He was the youngest man in the State Legislature and his youth was not a plea for arrogance. He was a man and a politician in the best sense of the word; he saw the affairs of his city and State dragged from their lofty pedestal and brought too often into the lower strata of foulness at the hands of unprincipled neophytes. He condemned much, but with singularphilosophyhe refused to condemn the actual perpetrators of the wrongs, concluding that the tacit consent of the 62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. rest of the community was the real wrong-doing. His enemies re- spected him, and he was good-natured even when he was hardest with those he opposed. He had no respect for the boss in poHtics, and yet he did not entirely blame the boss for taking the spoils that were ready at his hand while those who called themselves the real owners made no outcry. ]\Ir. Roosevelt was now deep in the sea of affairs and he was ac- counted by all parties as a rising man. Perhaps he was regarded with suspicion by the pot-house politician who could not understand why "Teddy wath the kid gloves" and a bank account should wish to mix up with things that had always gone well enough without him, and would be all the same a hundred years hence. "Teddy wath the kid gloves" may have thought that there was not going to be any hundred years hence for him, and that what had gone w^ell enough without him was not going well enough with him, unless he pro- pelled it a little by his efforts. There is little that can be said in his disfavor in any political question he advocated, and his voice, while raised in angry protest against some iniquitous measure proposed by the bosses or their henchmen, had still a kindly tone in it for the machine man who, through ignorance, did as he was told without asking why he did it. Mr. Roosevelt's father had left a considerable estate, and the man- agement of this largely devolved upon the young Assemblyman. He kept up his friendly interest in New York social life, and always the well-being of the city that had engaged the thought of a long line of his progenitors was near his heart. His love for animals kept around him his dogs and his horses, and his gun was ever ready when he could spare the time for a trip away from the hurly-burly of politics, when he might have ca month or two in the open air, which was his medicine and his strength. Then he would be back again in the midst of the fray, belligerent if need be, taking his part and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 65 asking for no quarter. His wife had left him a Httle daughter, Alice, and she was very dear to him. In his country quarters during the summer his daughter was with him — still very young, for the father, too, was young — and his domestic tastes were even then evidenced in his love of home and homely life. And yet "America for the Americans" was his creed, and even then he was perhaps as good a specimen of the American, pure and simple, as the country has called forth. The various Anglicized fads that were springing up in the country found little sympathy with him — only the sports of all countries, the manly feats of field and saddle, were of interest to him as developing brain and muscle so much needed in an age when office and counting-house draw away too much good red blood in the effort to accumulate the yellow fever called gold. In 1884 his term in the Assembly came to an end and he retired, for the time being, to private life. His library and his literary pur- suits called him, and, a good friend to himself, his home and healthful enjoyments were a Mecca after the fever of the three years at Albany. The year after he left college he published his "Naval War of 1812," and now he set about writing the "Life of Thomas H. Benton," which was issued in 1886, the year when he married a second time. 1 CHAPTER III. In the West— Ranch Life— Horse Hunting — A Roundup — Enjoyment of the Freedom of Outdoor Life — Activity on the Ranch — Stampede of Cattle — Writer on the Plains — Terrible Cold — Arduous Duties of the Ranchman — Line Riding— "Hamlet" in the Ranch-house — Winter of 1886-87— Fine De- scriptive Powers — News from the East— Out of Public Life, but Studying the Questions of the Day. HE "impetuous" Theodore Roosevelt, as many called him, the man who was bound to "ruin" his chances by his irritable displays of annoyance when dishonest politics thrust them- selves into view, when he was no longer in the Assembly wrote his books and found time to ranch in the far West, to hunt big game in the Rocky Mountains and on the plains. He took in a stock of sturdy health before he again made an appearance in public life. His home ranch lay on both sides of the Little Missouri, N. D., where deer and other game abounded. There was horse hunting as well, and the New Yorker entered into the rude life around him with the same enthusiasm with which he entered every phase of life the years brought him. He lived in the open air, a ranchman on the Western plains, making friendships with the rude men in the vicinity, taking long rides, assisting in round ups of vicious cattle, and whatever offered. In his book Ranch Life and the Huniing Trail, he speaks of ^a round up. The plain where a round up is taking place is on a level bottom of the bend of the river which here and there made an almost semi-circular sweep. The wagons were camped among the cotton wood trees fringing the river. The horses were grazing on the outskirts. In the great corral toward one end the men were branding calves, while the whole middle of the bottom was occupied by lowing cattle and shouting, galloping cow-boys. 57 58 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "As soon as, or even before, the last circle riders have come in and have snatched a few has.ty mouthfuls to serve as their midday meal, we begin to work the herd — or herds, if the one herd should be of too imwieldly size. The animals are held in a compact bunch, most of the riders forming a ring outside, while a couple from each ranch successively look the herds through and cut out those marked with their own brand. * * * jg do good work in cutting out from a herd, not only should the rider be a good horseman, but he should also have a skillful, thoroughly trained horse. >i< * * in cutting out a cow and a calf two men have to work together. As the animals of a brand are cut aut they are received and held apart by some rider detailed for the purpose, who is said to be 'holding the cut.' All this time the men holding the herd have their hands full, for some animal is continually trying to break out, when the nearest man flies at it at once and soon brings it back to its fellows. As soyon as all the cows, calves, and whatever else is being gathered have been cut out the rest are driven clear off the ground and turned loose, being headed in the direction contrar)^ to that in which we travel in the following day. Then the riders surround the next herd, the m-en holding cuts move them up nearer, and the work is begun anew, * * * As soon as the brands of cattle are worked and the animals that are to be driven a.long are put in the day herd, attention is turned to the cows and calves which are already gathered in dififerent bands, consisting each of all the cows of a certain brand and all the cows that are following them. If there is a corral each band is in turn driven into it; if there is none a ring of riders does duty in- its place. A fire is built, the irons heated, and a dozen men dismount to, as it is called, 'wrestle' the calves. The best twa ropers go in on their horses to catch the latter; one man keeps tally, a couple put on the brands, and the others seize, throw and hold the httle unfortunates. * * * If there are seventy or eighty calves in a corral the scene PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. ">» is one of the greatest confusion. The ropers spurring and checking the fierce Httle Texan horses drag the caWes up so quickly that a dozen men can hardly hold them; the men with the irons, blackened with soot, run to and fro; the calf-wrestlers, grimy with blood, dust and sweat, work like beavers; while with the voice of a stentor the tally-man shouts out the number and sex of each calf. The dust rises in clouds, and the shouts, cheers, curses and laughter of the men unite with the lowing of the cows and the frantic bleating of the roped calves to make a perfect Babel. Nov/ and then an old cow turns vicious and puts every one out of the corral. Or a maverick bull— that is, an unbranded bull, — a yearling or a two-years old, is caught, thrown and branded; when he is let up there is sure to be a fine scatter. Down goes his head, and he bolts at the nearest man who makes out of the way at top speed amidst roars of laughter from all of his companions; while the men holding down calves swear savagely as they dodge charging mavericks, trampling horses, and taut lariats with frantic plunging little beasts at the farther ends." Mr. Roosevelt, taking part in such wild scenes goes on to describe that on the following morning after this day of rounding-up certam drivers are detached to guard and drive the day herd, the men being on duty from four in the morning till eight in the evening — think of that, you city workers complaining of hard working hours! When the herd reaches the camping ground there is httle to do but loll in the blazing sun watching the cattle feed and sleep, taking care tliat they do not spread out too much. Then, plodding along, slowly, monotonously, is not very inspiriting work. The cattle are strung^ out in long lines, the swiftest take the lead in single file, while the weaker and the young calves and the cows bring up the rear. Two men travel along with the leaders, one on each side, to point them in the right direction, one or two others keeping by the flanks, and th.e rest in the rear to hurry up the weaklings. This may be very tame 60 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. and irksome, but Mr. Roosevelt was often in at the fight when there were flurries of excitement, as when, two or three circle riders came unexpectedly over a butte where was a bunch of cattle which at once started for the day herd, and there was excited riding hither and thither to keep them out. Or when the cattle began to run and crowded all together in a mass like a ball, moving round and round trying to keep their heads toward the center and refusing to leave it. From eight in the evening till four in the morning the herd became a night herd. Each wagon in succession guards it for a night, dividing the time into watches of two hours each, a couple of riders taking each watch. The first and the last watches are the preferred ones; the others are voted disagreeable, as the men have to turn out cold and sleepy. Mr. Roosevelt enjoyed the freedom of the life round him (he was free from political life) and with the adaptability that has usually characterized him. Hardship was not the thing it might be supposed to be by those who knew him in social life in New York, or by those who in the earlier days of his career remarked on his well tailored figure and his eye-glasses. With a sort of exultation he writes of a party, of which he was a member, being thirty-six hours in the saddle, dismounting only to change horses and to eat. They were almost worn out at the end of the time. Again, he and some others were once bringing a thousand head of young cattle down to Mr. Roose- velt's lower ranch, and as the river w^as high they w^re obliged to take the inland trail. The third night they were forced to make a dry camp, the cattle having had no water since morning. But they got them bedded down, and one of the cow-boys and Mr. Roose- velt stood first guard. Soon after night had fallen the thirsty beasts of one accord got to their feet and tried to break out. The only salvation was to keep them close together, for if they once got scattered they could never be gathered again. Roosevelt kept o'l I ! PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 61 one side, the cow-boy on the other, and never In their Hves before did these two men ride so hard. In the darkness the erstwhile mem- ber of the New York Assembly could but dimly see the shadowy outlines of the herd, as with whip and spurs he urged his pony along* its edge, turning back the beasts at one point barely in time to wheel and keep them in at another. The ground was cut up by many little gullies and the men got numerous falls, horses and riders thrn- ing complete somersaults. They dripped with perspiration, and the ponies were cpiivering and trembling, but the herd was finally brouglit out of the stampede. On another occasion, while with the round-up, the amateur herds- man was spared an unpleasant night only because there happened to be a couple of great corrals a mile or so away. It had been raining heavily all day long, and the men were drenched. Toward evening the rain slackened somewhat an.d the day herd, which was a very large one of some two thousand head, was gathered on an open bottom. The horses had been turned loose, and the men in oilskins cowered wet and uncomfortable under the lee of a Vv'agon, making a supper of damp bread and lukewarm tea. Suddenly the wind arose in quick, sharp gusts, and in a little while a blizzard was raging, driving the rain in stinging level sheets before it. Just as the men were preparing to turn into bed with the prospect before them of a night of cliilly misery a man sang out: "I guess there's 'racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea' now, sure." Following this man's gaze Mr. Roosevelt saw that the cattle had began to drift before the storm, the night guards being unable to cope v\ith them, while at the other wagons riders were saddling in hot haste and spurring off to the beasts' help in the blinding rain. Mr. Roosevelt ran at once to his own saddle. All the ponies were standing together, heads down, tails to th.e wind. They were wild and restless enough at all times, l)ut tlie storm had cowed them and the men were able to catch them g2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. without either rope or halter. In no time each man was ready, and away they went, splashing and slipping in the pools of water that studded the muddy plain. Most of the riders were already out when Roosevelt arrived. The cattle were gathered in a compact fan-shaped mass with their tails toward the thin end of the fan. In front of this mass of maddened, frightened beasts was a long mass of cowboys. When the cattle quieted for a moment every horseman turned round with his back to the wind. Then, if the cattle spread out or made a rush, the men shouted and swayed in tlieir saddles, darting to and fro, utterly heedless of danger, now^ checking and wheeling their horses so sharply as to bring them to their haunches or even throw- them flat down, until after some minutes of this mad galloping the herd, which had drifted a hundred yards or so, would be once more brought up standing. The thunder was terrific, and at every thunderclap the cattle would try to break aw^ay. It grew^ harder and harder to hold in the herd; but the drift of the cattle took the men along to the corrals, already mentioned, the entrances to which were fortunately to the windward. As soon as the first corral was reached the riders cut off part of the herd and turned it inside. Doing this again, they put another part of the herd in the second corral. A third corral w^as at hand, and into this the remaining cattle were put. The moment the cattle were provided for, almost all of the horsemen started back full speed for the wagons, Roosevelt and the others, barely waiting to put up the bars and make the corrals secure, hurrying after them. All animals were benumbed by this gale of cold rain. A prairie chicken rose from under Roosevelt's horse's feet and went heavily along, while a jack rabbit barely escaped being trodden on. "But though there is much work and hardship, rough fare and monotony, and exposure connected with the round-up," says Mr. Roosevelt, "yet there are few- men who do not look forward to it and back to it witii pleasure. The onlv fault to be found is that the hours PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S CHURCH AND HIS PASTOR PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 65 of work are so long that one does not usually have enough time to sleep. The food, if rough, is good — beef, bread, pork, beans, coffee or tea, always canned tomatoes, and often rice, canned corn, or sauce made from dried apples. The men are good-humored, bold and thoroughly interested in their business, continually vying with one another in the effort to see which can do the best w^ork. It is superbly health-giving and is full of excitement and adventure, calling for the exhibition of pluck, self-reliance, hardihood and dashing horsemanship; and of all forms of physical labor, the easiest and pleasantest is to sit in the saddle." And Mr. Roosevelt has always appreciated in the men with whom he has been brought into contact in public life those very same qualities — pluck, self-reliance and hardihood. Summer on the plains was in the open, but winter was a different story. Then all the land was changed into a place of grim desolation. Furious gales blew from the North, carrying with them the blinding snow. Across the prairie and through the naked canons howls the breath of the cold season, the cottonwoods shiver, and the pines that cluster in the gorges moan and complain. Or in midwinter not a breath of air may stir, and then the merciless, terrible cold broods over the land, a silent death to all living things that are unprotected from it. The earth becomes stone, the rivers stand still in their beds like sheets of steel. In the long black nights there is no sound to break the silence, and under the stars the snowy plains stretch out like endless wastes of barren white. At such seasons the huge fire- place in the ranch house held blazing logs, and watchers sat beside the fire to see that it did not go out at night when the other men slept under piled-up blankets. In the corral the shaggy ponies huddled together for warmth, icicles often hanging from their lips, while the frost whitened the hollow backs of the cattle. In the winter there is much less work for the ranchman than at other seasons, but there is hardship and exposure in what he dees 66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Many of the men go with the summer, and for those that are left there is little to do except to hunt for animal food now and then, and on vei7 bitter days to lounge restlessly about the house. But some arc out in the line camps and occasionally the ranchman has to make the round of these; besides, one or more of the cow-boys who are at home must every day l)e out when the cattle have become weak, as they get in the hard weather, so as to pick up and drive in those beasts that would otherwise perish. The horses shift for themselves and need no help. In the winter the Indians often cut down the cotton- wood trees and feed the tops to their ponies, not so much to keep them from starving as to prevent them from wandering off in search of grass. The men in the line camp lead a hard existence, as they are com- pelled to be out in all kinds of weather and must be especially active and on the alei t during storms. The camps are established along some line which k is proposed to make the boundary of the cattle's drift in a given dii ection. "For example, we care very little whether our cattle wander to the Yellowstone, but we strongly object to their drifting East and South- East towards the granger country and the Sioux reservation, espec- ially as when they drift that w^ay they come out on flat, bare plains where there is danger of perishing. Accordingly, the cow-men along the Little Missouri have united in establishing a row of camps to the East of the river, along the line where the broken ground meets the prairie. The camps are usually for two men each, and some fifteen or twenty miles apart; then in the morning the two men start out in opposite ways each riding till he meets his neighbor of the next camp nearest on that side, when he returns. The camp itself is sometimes merely a tent pitched in a sheltered coulee, but ought to be either made of logs or else a dugout in the ground. A small corral and horse-shed is near by. with enough hay for the ponies, of which each PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. (57 iider has two or three. In riding over the beat each man drives any cattle that have come near it back into the Bad Lands, and if he sees by the hoof-marks that a few have strayed out over the line very recently he will follow^ and fetch them home. They must be forced well back into the Bad Lands before a great storm strikes them, for if they once begin to drift in masses before an icy gale it is impossible for a small number of men to hold them, and the only thing is to let them go, and then to organize an expedition to follow them as soon as possible. Line riding is very cold work and dangerous, too, when the men have to be out in a blinding snow storm or in a savage blizzard that takes the spirit in the thermometer far dowm below zero." But there are other sorts of work besides line riding that necessi- tates exposure to the bitter weather of the open western lands. Once while over at Beaver Creek hunting up a lost horse Mr. Roosevelt met a cow-boy who was out on the same errand. They started home together across the prairies, and w-ere caught in a heavy storm of snow almost as soon as they had left the ranch where they had spent the night. They were soon completely turned round in their tracks, the snow blinding them as to locality, and they had to travel entirely by compass. They felt their way along for eight or nine hours, until finally they got down into the broken country and came upon an empty hut. In this hut they passed the night, picketing their horses in a sheltered nook near by. To while away the time Mr. Roose- velt read "Hamlet" from a pocket Shakespeare he happened to have with him. The Texan cow-boy w'as much interested in the play and commented freely on those parts of it which most appealed to him — especially Polonius's advice to Laertes, which he translated into his ow^n way of expressing it with considerable relish, and ended with the criticism that "old Shakespeare saveyed human nature some." In the winter life on the plains even those wdio do not look for (,S THEODORE ROOSEVELT. : . .s.s and are not compelled to ride the line day in and day out are a;;t to encounter hardship and danger in being abroad in the bitter season. "Veil a ride in midwinter is certainly fascinating. The great white country wrapped in the powdery snow drift seems like another land; and the' faiiiiiiar landmarks are so changed that a man must be careful lest he lose his way, for the discomfort of a night in the open durine such weather is verv great indeed. When the sun is out the G^lare from the endless white stretches dazzles the eyes; and if the gray snow clouds hang low and only let a pale, wan light struggle through, the lonely wastes become fairly appalling in their desolation. For hour after hour a man may go on and see no signs of life except perhaps a big white owl sweeping noiselessly by, so that in the dark it looks like a snow wreath; the snow gradually chilling the rider to the bones, as he draws his fur cap tight over his ears and muffles his face in the huge collar of his wolfskin coat, and making the shaggy little steed drop head and tail as it picks its way over the frozen soil. There are few moments more pleasant than the home-coming when in the gathering darkness, after crossing the last chain of ice-covered buttes, or after coming around the last turn in the wind-swept valley, we see through the leafless trees or across the frozen river the red gleam of the firelight as it shines through the ranch windows and flickers over the trunks of the cottonwoods outside, warming a man's blood by the mere hint of the warmth awaiting him inside." In the Bad Lands, with their fantastic formations, the vvinter scenery is especially notable. The burning mines are among the more interesting features. The coal seams that have taken fire form these. In size they vary greatly. Some send aloft smoke columns ithat can be seen miles away, while others are scarcely noticeable a few rods off. The old ones burn away gradually, while new ones break out in the most unexpected places. One suddenly appeared PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 69 about a half-mile from the ranch house. The men never knew it ivas there till one cold moonlight night when they were riding home, Mr. Roosevelt with them, they rounded the corner of a ravine and saw in their path a tall white pillar of smoke rising from a rift in the snowy crags ahead of them. As the trail had been over entirely familiar ground the riders were for the moment almost as startled as if they had come upon a ghost. A strong smell of sulphur hangs around the burning mines, and the hot earth crumbles and cracks, while through the long clefts that form in it there may be seen the heavy glow of deep subterranean fires with tongues of bright blue and pink flame struggling up to the surface. Yet the winters vary. During some years the ranchmen can go about in light-weight clothing even in January and February, while the suffering of the cattle is reduced to a minimum. During other winters the severity of the cold is terrible, while the furious bliz- zards render it a physical impossibility for the men to stir outside their shelter except at the imminent peril of their lives. Men are frozen to death when caught in shelterless places, and evidence goes to show that the doomed men had gone mad before dying, some of them having stripped themselves of most of their clothing, their bodies being found almost naked. On the ranch bad accidents were exceptional, though every winter men were more or less frost-bitten. ]\Ir. Roosevelt had an experience in this line while returning by moonlight after a hunt for mountain sheep. The thermometer was twenty-six degrees below zero, and the men had had no food for twelve hours. Mr. Roosevelt became numb and before he was aware of it he had a frozen face, and one foot, both knees and one hand were in a like condition. Every six or seven years these severe storms follow one another V. ithout interval throughout the winter months. At sucli seasons the losses among the stock are great. 70 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "One such winter occurred in 1 880-81. This was when there were very few ranchmen in the country. The grass was so good that the >ld range stock escaped pretty well, but the trail herds were almost Jestroyed. The next severe winter was that of 1886-87 when the nish of incoming herds had overstocked the ranges, and the loss was in consequence fairly appalling, especially to the outfits that had just put on cattle. The snow fall was unprecedented both for its depth and for the way it lasted, and it was this and not the cold that caused the loss. About the middle of November the storms began. Day after day the snow came down, thawing and then freezing and piling itself higher and higher. By January the drifts had filled the ravines and coulees almost level. The snow lay in great masses on the plateaus and river bottoms, and this lasted until the end of February. The preceding summer we had been visited by a pro- longed drought, so that the short, scanty grass was already well cropped down; the snow covered what pasturage there was to the depth of several feet, and the cattle could not get at it at all and could hardly move around. It was all but impossible to travel on horseback, except on a few well-beaten trails. It was dangerous to attempt to penetrate the Bad Lands, whose shape had been com- pletely altered by the great white mounds and drifts. The starving cattle died by scores of thousands before their helpless owners' eyes. The bulls, the cows who were suckling calves, or wdio were heavy with call, the weak cattle that had just been driven up on the trail, and the late calves suffered most; the old range animals did better, and the steers best of all, but the best was bad enough. Even many of the horses died. An outfit near me lost half its saddle-band, the animals having been worked so hard that they were very thin vv'hen fall came. In the thick brush the stock got some shelter and sus- tenance. They gnawed every twig and bough they could get at. they browsed the bitter sage-brush down to where the branches were PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 71 the thickness of man's finger, Wlien near a ranch they crowded into the outhouses and sheds to die, and fences had to be built around the windows to keep the wild-eyed, desperate beasts from thrusting their heads through the glass panes. In most cases it was impossible to drive them to the hay stacks or to haul the hay out to them. The deer even were so weak as to be easily run down, and on one or two of the plateaus where there were bands of antelope these wary crea- tures grew so numb and feeble that they could have been slaughtered like rabbits. But the hunters could hardly get out, and could bring home neither hide nor meat, so the game went unharmed. "The way in which the cattle got through the winter depended largely on the different localities in which the bands were caught when the first heavy snows came. A group of animals in a bare valley, without underbrush and with steepish sides would all die, strong and weak alike; they could get no food and no shelter, and so there would not be a hoof left. On the other hand, hundreds wintered on the great thickly-wooded bottoms near my ranch house with little more than ordinary loss, though a skinny, sorry looking crew by the time the snow melted. In intermediate places the strong survived and the weak perished." This is a piece of description which challenges the efforts of the author of "Lorna Doone," whose great book describes a terrible winter in the black country of England, and describing it in a manner that makes it a stock quotation of strong, imaginative writing, though borne out by facts, in no way surpasses Mr. Roosevelt in detailing an actual experience in the wilds of American life. Mr. Roosevelt, in detailing his experiences on the ranch in that wild v.inter, says that it would be impossible to imagine a sight more dreary and desolate than that offered by the country when the snow at last disappeared, in March. The land was a barren w^aste, not a green thing was visible, while the dead grass had been eaten so close 72 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. by the famished animals that the land looked as though it had been shaved by a razor, so denuded was it of any aspect of ever having had a green leaf on it. Once in a while among the desolate hills a rider would come across a band of gaunt, hollow-flanked beasts, their sides seeming to meet in the middle. They would be feebly trying to crop the sparse, dry pasturage, and were too listless to move out of he way of the horseman; and all around in sheltered spots were the jlackened carcasses of once fine cattle, some in the pathetic attitude of having merely lain down to rest. The best comfort afiforded the ranch of which we write lay in the fact that it did not suffer a heavy loss from weak cattle getting mired down in the springs and mud-holes when the ice broke up and water sprang to make green once more the dead brown of the earth, for all the weak creatures were already dead. The ranch was to blossom once more with grass and shrub and the cattle to feed leisurely and to repletion when summer came, but there was a dreary time of waiting and the April rains and the balmy air of May were eagerly looked for. Mr. Roosevelt, in his enforced leisure, had his books and his writing to help pass the days and weeks of monotony during the winter and early spring. Letters came to him telling him of events in the world he had left for the time being, and he was fully advised of the trend of political events. While he was out of it all he studied the questions that were making history during his absence. The same old rule of political rivalry and not too-clean methods obtained, and as usual he studied the news of the day and the ten- dencies that made for corruption or reform in American public life. Far ofi in the wilds which he had elected to be his stopping-place till he should have established a physical equilibrium not to be unduly weighted by what he might yet have to do in the afifairs of the country, he waited. For it is doubtful if he ever once thought that he should become a mere private citizen while there was need .OOSEVELT IN HUNTING COSTUME— TAKEN IN 188f PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 75 of practical politicians and statesmen to guard and guide the well- loved land in its progressive march toward the consummation of what its sincerest friends hoped for it. We have said that he was "out of it." But is it possible for a man of strength to ever cease from allegi- ance to what has once called forth his best efforts? From the time of his earliest manhood, even when at Harvard, he had determined to do his utmost for the country which his progenitors had loved and did their best for. In the seclusion of the fierce western winter, be- side the roaring log fires of his ranch-house, surrounded by the rugged cattlemen, the cow-boys wdio paid little heed to the civilized aspects of cities, his mind surely went out to the city where he had been Ijorn — the city where over two hundred years before the first Roosevelt that had come to the country held office; and he more than likely knew more about matters at home than had he been in the feverish din of town life, an important part of it. The newspapers sent him told him much, but his past experience was his best factor in understanding the why and wherefore of the events the papers chronicled. He understood Tammany as well as its most enthusiastic supporter, and Washington was an open book to him. It is Emerson who has said that we wdio linger in one place have the faculty, if we possess reasoning imagination, to bring all foreign or far-oif coun- tries to us; that travel, while it broadens the mind of a man, and makes him receptive of impressions, does not necessarily give a clearer understanding of the lands we visit than may be ours if in some sequestered spot we read and think and apply our reading and our thought to their legitimate purpose. Mr. Roosevelt was always a reader and a thinker; with all his impulsiveness of manner and im- patience with anything that was not straightforward and direct, there has been a vein of peculiar gentleness and poetic insight into the motives of men. His love of nature would prove him to be anything but an austere man expecting impossibilities from frail humanity, 76 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. l>ut that same love of nature would make him irritable in the presence of what is vague and uncertain in the dealings of those around him. In his ranch he conned the reports of the doings of the day in places far away from him, in the purlieus of the cities, in the precincts of Washington, which is no city at all, and he figured out w'ithin himself the possibilities that were in store for a reformer who would go East and delve into politics once more. But he was not yet ready to go into the crowded vortex of civilized life; he was with nature and the rough element that is honest till it takes on the gloss of civilization's fictions. Here he would stay, adding to his physical well-being Ijy close companionship with nature, and when the time came for him to once more go into active public life, if he should be needed he would be ready. He was now a ranch- man, a hunter, and his life w^as affiliated with the stern side of nature in the \\'cst, that West of which he should write with the clear under- standing that characterizes everything which he undertook to com- prehend. CHAPTER IV. Americajis and Mexicans on the Plains— The "Bad Man" of the West— Claim- jumpers — Horse-thieves — A Noted Desperado — Opening a Cowboy Ball — The Frontier and Women— Character of the Cowboy— Indians — An Indian Adventure — Organizing a Troop— Loss of Boat — Capture of Boat-thieves and Taking them to the Sheriff— Dogged Determination a Characteristic. OF all free men, the hunter is the freest. He is responsible to no man but himself. He chops and saws the logs for his hut, or he makes a rude dug-out on the side of a hill do duty as a domicile, with a skin roof and flap for his door, and no man preceded him in ownership of it. He buys some flour and salt, and when he can afford them, sugar and tea. But he does not buy much at a time, for it must all be carried hundreds of miles on his horse's back. He has a bunk covered wdth deer skins for a bed, and a kettle and a frying pan are his only kitchen utensils. Mr. Roosevelt lived as the other hunters, with but few more conveniences. His en- thusiasm in bringing down big game never deserted him in his ex- peditions to the Rocky IMountains. But the old style hunter has gone out, and the cow-boy takes his place. The cow-boys are typical men of the plains. They are hard working, faithful men, but they will get into scrapes. Once while on a wagon trip Mr. Roosevelt got caught wdiile camped by a spring on the prairie because of his horses all straying. A few miles off was the camp of two cow^-boys who were riding the line for a large southern cow-outfit. He did not even know their names, but happening to pass by them he told them of the loss of his horses, and they came to him the day after with all the miss- Wig horses, having hunted for them for twenty-four hours. They were Texans, quiet, clean cut, pleasant spoken young fellows, yet to his 77 78 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. surprise he found that they were fugitives from justice. They were complaining of the winter weather, and spoke of their longing to go back to the South. The reason they could not do so was that the summer before they had engaged in a small civil war in one of the wilder parts of New Mexico. It had originated in a quarrel betw^een two ranches over respective w^ater rights and range rights. There w^ere colHsions between bands of armed cow-boys, cattle were harried, camps burned down, and the sons of the rival owners fought one another to the death when they met in the drinking places of the miserable towns. Soon the thinly veiled jealousy that ever exists between the Americans and Mexicans was laid bare, and when the original cause of the quarrel was adjusted, a fierce race fight took place, which was quelled by the arrival of a strong sheriff's posse, but not until after a couple of affrays in which blood was freely shed. In one of these the American cow^-boys of a certain range drove out the Mexicans from among them. In another aft'ray, to avenge the murder of one of their number the cow-boys gathered from the country lying round al)out and stormed the "greaser," or Mexican village where the murder had been committed, killing four of the in- habitants. Mr. Roosevelt's two acquaintances had borne a part in this last offense and were "wanted" by the authorities. They talked plainly with their new friend, and it is not often the case that plains- n^en talk freely, being as a rule reserved with strangers, and are sure to dislike men whom they meet for the first time. At another time, at a ranch not far from his own Mr. Roosevelt found among the cow-boys gathered for the round-up two Bible-, reading Methodists. He found them as strait-laced as possible, but they did not obtrude their opinions upon any one, and were first- class workers and so got along well with the other men. Among the associates of these two were two or three ruffians, as loose of tongue as of life. Says Air. Roosevelt, "Generally some form, of stable PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 79 government is provided for the counties as soon as their population has become at all fixed, the frontiersmen showing their natural apti- tude for organization. Their lawlessness is put down pretty effec- tively. For example, as soon as we organized the governmient of Medora — an excessively unattractive little hamlet — we elected good officers, built a log jail, prohibited all shooting in the streets, and enforced the prohibition, etc. Up to that time there had been a good deal of lawlessness o.f one kind and another, only checked by an occasional piece of individual retribution or by a sporadic outburst of vigilance committee work. In such a society the desperadoes of every grade flourish. Many are merely ordinary rogues and swindlers wliQ rob and cheat on occasion, but are dangerous only when led by some villain of real intellectual power. The gambler * * * jg scarcely classed as a criminal, indeed he may soon be a very public spirited citizen. But as his trade is so often plied in saloons, and as even if, as sometimes happens, he does not cheat, many of his opponents are certain to attempt to do so, he is of necessity obliged tO' be skillful and ready with his weapon, and gangling rows are very common. Cow-boys lose much of their money to gamblers. * * * As already explained, they are in the main good men, and the dis- turbance they cause in a town is done from sheer rough, light- heartedness. They shoot off boot heels or tall hats occasionally, or make some obnoxious butt 'dance' by shooting round his feet, but they rarely meddle in this way with men who have not themselves played the fool A fight in the street is almost always a duel between men who bear each other malice; it is only in a melee in a saloon that outsiders often get hurt, and then it is their own fault, for they have no business to be there. One evening at Medora a cow-boy spurred his horse up the rickety steps of the hotel piazza into the barroom where he began firing at the clock, the decanters, etc., the bartender meanwhile taking one shot at him, which missed. When 80 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. he had emptied his revolver he threw down a roll of banknotes on the counter to pay for the damage he had done and galloped his horse out through the door, disappearing in the darkness with loud yells to a rattling accompaniment of pistol shots interchanged between himself and somie passerby who apparently began firing out of pure desire to enter into the spirit of the occasion — for it was the night ot the Fourth of July, and all the country round about had come into town for a spree." Mr. Roosevelt studied, thus, the life in the wild West, as a student and a man who wished to be acquainted with every phase of the country's life. Of conrse there are plenty of hard characters among cow-boys, he admits, but scarcely more than among lumbermen, and the like; only, the cow-boys are so ready with their guns that a bully in a cow-boy camp is generally a murderer, rather than a mere bruiser. However, as a rule, cow-boys who prefer to be desperadoes soon drop their original characters and are no longer employed on ranches unless in parts of the country where little heed is paid to law and where, consequently, the cattle owner stands in need of a certain number of hired bravos. As a rule, Mr. Roosevelt says, claim- jumpers are only blackmailers. They sometimes drive an ignorant foreigner away from his claim by threats, but never a frontiersman. It is their pleasure to squat down beside ranchmen who are them- Belves trying to hold land to which they have no claim, and who know that their only hope is to bribe or fight out the intruder. He found cattle thieves not common, though plenty of shiftless, vicious men will kill a cow or a steer in the winter, if they get the chance, for food. Numerous, however, are horse-thieves, and formidable. Reasons for the severity of the punishment for horse-stealing on the border are evident, he says. Horses are the most valuable property of the frontiersman, and are often absolutely essential to even his life. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 81 Horses are always marketable and are easily stolen, for they walk themselves off. Thus horse-stealing is a tempting business to the more reckless ruffians, and it is followed by armed men. Frequently ihe thieves band themselves with the road agents, or highwaymen, and other desperadoes, and organize into secret societies, which ter- rorize whole districts until overthrown by force. When the Civil War was freshly over a great many guerrillas from Arkansas and Missouri went to the plains. They took to horse-stealing and like pursuits. From these have sprung emulators in these latter days, but they have gone farther and farther West, and vengeance usually pursues them. The professional man-killers, or "bad men," as they are called, may be horse-thieves or highwaymen, yet some of the "bad men" are quiet fellows whom accident has driven to wild careers. Perhaps one of them at some time has killed a man in self-defense; he in this way gains some sort of reputation, and the bullies look on him as a rival w^hom it would be an honor to dispatch; so that henceforth he must be on the watch; he must learn to shoot quickly and with good aim, and may have to take life after life in order to save his own. "A noted desperado, an Arkansas man, had become involved in a quarrel with two others of the same ilk, both Irishmen and partners. For several days all three lurked about the saloon-infested streets of the roaring little board-and-canvas city, each trying to get 'the drop,' the other inhabitants looking forward to the fight with pleased curiosity, no one dreaming of interfering. At last one of the partners got a chance at his opponent as the latter was walking into a gamb- ling hell, and broke his back near the hips; yet the crippled, mortally wounded man twisted around as he fell and shot his slayer dead. Then, knowing that he had but a few moments to live, and expecting that his other foe would run up on hearing the shooting, he dragged himself by his arms out into the street; immediately afterward, as he 82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. had anticipated, the second partner appeared and was killed on the spot. The victor did not live twenty minutes." The first deadly affray that took place in the town of Medora was between a Scotchman and a Minnesota man. Both possessed "shooting" records. The Scotchman was a noted bully, and was the more daring of the two, but he was too hot-headed and overbearing to be a match for the hard-headed man from Minnesota. After a furious quarrel the Scotchman mounted his horse and, rifle in hand, rode to the door of the mud ranch perched on the river bluff where the American made his home, and was instantly shot down by the latter from behind a corner of the building. One time Mr. Roosevelt opened a cow-boy ball with the wife of the victor in this affair, the husband dancing opposite the pair. It was the lancers, and the man knew all the steps far better than his wife's partner. There is a frontier saying that "the frontier is hard on women and cattle." The toil and hardship of a life passed in the wilderness drive the grace and beauty from a woman's face long before her youth has passed her by. But she has many qualities that atone for the fairness she has lost. She is a good mother; she is a faithful wife; peril does not daunt her and hardship and poverty do not appall her. It was so with the woman who danced at the cow-boy ball. These balls are great events in the little towns where they take place. Everybody roundabout attends them. There is always much decorum observed, unseemly conduct not being tolerated. There is a master of cere- monies. He is selected as much for his strength as for his executive ability in affairs saltatorial. He calls off the figures of the square dances with so much explicitness that even the most inexperienced may prance through them, and all the time he preserves order. Some- times the guests are allowed to carry their revolvers as a part of their social paraphernalia, and sometimes not. The nature of the orchestra Copyright 1S98 By Rockwood MR. ROOSEVELT AT TWENTY-EIGHT PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 85 depends upon the size of the place where the bah is held. At one ball Mr. Roosevelt attended the function came near being a failure, for the half-breed fiddler who was to make the music "went and go( himself shot," as the master of ceremonies disgustedly phrased it. Merely incidents in the cow-boy's life are these things. The whole class should not be judged, says Mr. Roosevelt, by wdiat a few in- dividuals do of an outrageous character when, in the course of a few days spent in town, they lose their heads. More fairly should they be known for manly character, and fearless bravery. On tlic plains he passes his days; his life work is done there; and there he dies, facing death as he has faced many other evils, quietly, uncomplainingly. The cow-boy is hospitable, hardy, adventurous. The pioneer of the x\merican race, he prepares the way for civilization, before whose advent he must take himself away, for civilization has nO' place or need for him. His existence, though hard and dangerous, has a wild attraction that draws to it his bold, free spirit. He lives in lonely lands where the prairies stretch out inimitably till they meet the blue horizon — plains across which he can go for days and weeks without peeing a human being nor so much as a hill to break the awful even monotony of the earth. "Up to 1880 the country thrtiugh which the Little ]\Iissouri flows remained as wild and almost as little known as it was when the old explorers and fur-traders crossed it in the early part of the century. It was the last great Indian hunting ground, across wdiich Gros- ventres and Mandans, Sioux and Cheyennes, and even Crows and Rees w-andered in chase of game, and wdiere they fought one another and plundered the small parties of white trappers and hunters that occasionally ventured into it. Once or twice generals like Sully or Custer had penetrated it in the course of the long, tedious and bloody campaigns that finally broke the strength of the Northern Horse Indians; indeed, the trail made liy Custer's baggage train is to this 86 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. day one of the well-known land marks, for the deep ruts cut by the wheels of the heavy wagoiis are in many places still as distinctly to be seen as ever. "In 1883, a regular long-range skinnish took place just south of us between some Cheyennes and some cow-boys with bloodshed on both sides, while about the same time a band of Sioux plundered a party of buffalo hunters of everything they owned, and some Crows who attempted the same feat with another party were driven off with the loss of two of their number. Since then there have been in our neighborhood no stand-up fights or regular raids; but the Indians have at different times proved more or less troublesome, burning the grass, and occasionally killing stock or carrying off horses that have w^andered some distance away. They have also suffered somewhat at the hands of white horse-thieves. Bands of them accompanied by their squaws and children often come into the ranch country either to trade or to hunt, and are then, of course, perfectly meek and peaceable." On Mr. Roosevelt's ranch the white men got along pretty well with the Indians, as it was the rule to treat the red man fairly, as though he were white. For example, the white men on tlie ranch were always as willing to put down horse-stealing from Indians as from white men. In meeting a band of young bucks in a lonely, uninhabited country, though, there was always more or less danger; for the young Indians are hardly yet men as to age, and even young fellows with white parents are usually the most trvrculent members of civilized communities, lack of years apparently giving license because responsibility is hardly yet appreciated. When a man comes on such a band of young bucks he stands the chance of losing his horse, his rille or whatever else he may have about him, though a frontiersman with experience can usually "stand off" such assailants unless the band be too large for him, or he loses his nerve. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 87 Mr. Roosevelt's one adventure with Indians he calls a very mild one. It was during a solitary trip to the North and East of the range to what was practically unknown country. One day, about noon, traveling along the edge of the prairie, he rode his horse up a slight rise and came out on a plateau about half a mile broad. When near the center four or five Indians suddenly leaped over the edge directly in front of him. As soon as they saw him they took their guns out of their slings, started their horses into a run and came full tilt at him, whooping and brandishing their rifles. The white man im- mediately reined up and dismounted. The level plain where he was was eminently suited for the Indian attack to be met. In a broken country, or where there is much cover the attacked party is at much disadvantage if pitted against such adepts at the art of hiding as are Indians. On the other hand, the red men will rarely rush in on a foe who, even if he be eventually overpowered, will probably inflict severe loss on his assailants. The fury of an Indian charge and the whoops of the men often scare horses into a stampede, but Mr. Roosevelt had trust in the horse he rode, which did not swerve. He waited till the Indians were within a hundred yards and then he drew a bead on the foremost one. At once the whole party of redskins scattered, doubling on their tracks, bending over alongside their horses. Some distance off they halted and consulted. Then one came forward alone, dropping his rifle and waving a blanket over his head. When he came to within fifty yards the white man halted him, and he pulled out a piece of paper, presumably the pass which all Indians are supposed to carry when absent from their reservation. "How!" he called out; "me good Indian." The white man answered, "How!" and that while he was glad he was a "good Indian" he need not come any closer. When his com- panions began to draw near, Mr. Roosevelt covered the spokesman with his rifle and made him move ofT, which he did with remarkable gj THEODORE ROOSEVELT. American profanity. Mr. Roosevelt then started to lead his horse out to the prairie. After hovering about a short time the Indians rode away. The relations between white men and Indians are rarely pleasant. Many of the frontiersmen are brutal and overbearing; most of the Indians are treacherous, revengeful and fiendishly cruel. Crime and bloodshed are the only possible results when such men are brought into contact. Indians dififer individually, and they differ as tribes. In these days an upper Cherokee is as good as a white. The Nez Perces dififer from the Apaches as much as possible. A Cheyenne is one of the most unforgetting foes in the world, while a Digger Snake is one of the meanest. The Pueblo is thrifty, industrious, peaceful; and an Arapahoe is lazy and thievish. Indians are good fighters, though poor shooters, being inferior to the old hunters. They have an efifective discipline of their own, and so a body of them may easily overmatch an equal number of frontiersmen if the frontiersmen have no well drilled leader. If the cow-boys have rifles (for the revolver is of no use in long range individual fighting) they have little fear of the Indians so long as there are only half a dozen or so on a side. But though quick, yet, owing to the heaviness of their saddles, they are unable to make the wonderful marches of the Indians, and their un- ruly spirit often makes them ineffective when gathered in any number and without a good leader. "In the summer of 1886, at the time of the war scare over the 'Cutting incident,' we began the organization of a troop of cavalry in our district, notifying the Secretary of War that we were at the service of the Government, and being promised every assistance by our excellent chief executive of the Territory, Governor Pierce. Of course the cow-boys were all eager for war, they did not care much PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 89 with whom. They were very patriotic (on the day when the An- archists were hanged in Chicago my men joined with the rest of the neighborhood in burning them in effigy); they were fond of ad- venture, and to tell the truth they were by no means averse to the prospect of plunder. News from the outside world came to us very irregularly and often in distorted form, so that we began to think we might get involved in a conflict not only with Mexico but with England as well. One evening at' my ranch the men began talking over the English soldiers, so I got down my 'Napier' and read them several extracts from his descriptions of the fighting in the Spanish peninsula, also recounting as well as I could the great deeds of the British cavalry from Waterloo to Balaklava, and finishing up by de- scribing from memory the fine appearance, the magnificent equip- ment and the superb horses of the Household Cavalry and of a regi- ment of Hussars I had once seen. All of this produced the same effect on my listeners that the sight of Marmion's cavalcade produced in the minds of the Scotch moss-troopers on the eve of Elodden; and at the end, one of them, who had been looking into the fire and rub- bing liis hands together said with a regretful emphasis, "Oh! how I zvoiild like to kill one of them.' " In the locality of the ranch there was more difficulty with white renegades than with Indians. Mr. Roosevelt had been anxious to run down the river in a boat during the time of the spring floods for duck and goose shooting. The men could only go down during a freshet, for the Little INIissouri is usually a mere thread of sluggish water, or else a boiling, muddy torrent. In 1886 the ice left the river in Eebruary but piled up. In March a great jam came down. One da}- the hunters crossed the river and walked ten miles to a rugged country, and killed four deer. They were hung in a cedar canon.. A fortnight later tliey went for the venison and found that cougars had eaten them. They followed the trail of the cougars for som.e time 90 THEODORII ROOSEVELT, until it was lost in a tangle of rocky hills. They retraced their steps intending to return the following day with a good tracking hound. The following morning they found that their boat had been stolen. Whoever had taken the boat had certainly gone dowai the river, and the only other boat on the Little Missouri was a flat-bottomed scow in the possession of three hard characters w ho lived in a shack, or hut, some twenty miles above the ranch, and wdio had been threatened with lynching. The three men had long been accused of cattle- killing, and that worst of all offenses, horse-stealing. Their leader was a fellow named Finncgan, a rather hard case, w ho had been chief actor in a number of shooting scrapes. The two others w-ere a half breed and an old German. J\]r. Roosevelt and his men at once set to work to build a flat- bottomed scow in which to follow these men. In a wild country where the power of the law is unheeded and where everyone has to rely upon himself for protection, men soon grow to feel that it is in the highest degree unwdse to submit to any wrong without making immediate and resolute effort to avenge it uj)on the wrongdoers. And so the boat was begun and finished and stocked for the journey, and started. The boat drifted through heaped up piles of ice all day. At nightfall Mr. Roosevelt and his men landed and made a camp. In the morning it was decidedly colder than it had been, and an icy North w-ind was blowing. The boat drifted with difficulty among the ice. A.s the afternoon waned the air grew still colder. In the early evening another landing was effected, and another camp made for the night. During the night the thermometer went down to zero and in the morning the river was frozen slush. Accordingly the men took a couple of hours for a deer hunt, and shot a couple of bucks and a yearling doe. This insured plenty of fresh meat. The scow was loaded with it and started. The cold still continued intense and before lonsr those on PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 91 the scow were nearly benumbed by it, until at last an incident oc- curred which set their blood h-eely running again. They were of course always on the alert, keeping a sharp lookout ahead and around, and making as little noise as possible. In the middle of the afternoon of this, the third day, as the boat came around a bend the men saw in front of them the lost boat, together with a scow moored against the bank, while a little way back, from among some bushes, the smoke of a camp fire curled up in the frosty air. It was the camp of the thieves. As Roosevelt glanced at the faces of his two followers (only two men were with him) he was struck by the grim look in their eyes. The boat was hastily and silently shoved toward the bank. As soon as it touched the shore ice Roosevelt leaped out and ran up behind a clump of bushes so as to cover the landing oi the others, who had to make the boat fast. The thieves knew they had taken the only craft upon the river, so they felt secure. But the German was the only one in the camp, his shooting iron on the ground. He gave up at once. His two com- panions were off hunting. He was made fast and a man was set to watch him, and see that he made no noise, and then the hunters of men sat down to wait for the other two miscreants. They came along carelessly, their rifles on their shoulders. When they were twenty yards or so off Roosevelt and his men straightened up and covered them, while Roosevelt yelled to them to hold up their hands. The half breed, trembling, obeyed at once. Finnegan hesitated a second, his eyes like those of a wolf. Then as Roosevelt walked toward him, covering the center of his chest so as to avoid over shooting, he saw that he had no show, and with an oath, and letting his rifle drop, he held both hands up beside his head. The captors camped where they were for the night, making a great ffre which was to be kept up all night. The captured men were made to take off their boots, which was a sure precaution, as it was a cactus country /)2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. in wliicli no man could travel in bis bare feet. Next morning tbe captors and tbc captured floated down stream. For some miles tbe party went along swiftly, but tbey came to an ice jam that precluded furtber progress tbat day. There was nothing to do but pitch camp. For eight days they were held here by the ice, and the store of provisions became low. There was no game, and besides, the prisoners had to be watched. So long as the captors kept awake there was no danger, for their three men knew them and understood perfectly that the slightest attempt to break away would result in their being shot down. Finding that they were well treated and closely watched the thieves behaved well and gave no trouble, though after the half breed had been lodged in jail he indulged in a stabbing affray. They conversed freely with their captors and after the first evening made no allusion to the theft or anything connected with it. Once and once only did Finnegan broach the subject. Somebody had been speaking of a man they all knew, called "Calamity," who had been recently taken by the sheriff on a charge of horse-stealing. Calamity had escaped once, but was caught at a disadvantage the second time. When told to hold up his hands he refused and attempted to draw his own re- volver, with the result that he had two bullets put through him. Finnegan commented on Calamity as being a fool for not knowing when a man had the drop on him. Then, suddenly turning, he said, his weather-beaten face flushing darkly, 'Tf Fd had any show at all you'd have sure had to fight, Mr. Roosevelt; but there wasn't any use making a break when Fd only have got shot myself, with no chance of harming any one else." Then the subject was dropped. Provisions grew shorter and shorter. The Indians had driven all ihe deer out of the country around abont, and only an occasional prairie fowl was to be shot. At last, after having worked down some thirty miles at the tail of the ice jam the men struck an outlying ROOSEVELT IN "COW-BOY" COSTUME PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 95 COW camp. There was but one cow-boy in it, but Roosevelt and his fellow police knew they would get help here, for in a stock country all make common cause against either horse-thieves or cattle-thieves. The cow-boy had no wagon, but there was one some fifteen miles away. Mr. Roosevelt went for it. The settler who loaned the wagon could not understand why so much trouble was taken with thieves who could have been hanged off-hand. Returning to the river next day the thieves were walked up to the Killdeer Mountains. His two assistants leaving him to go back to the boats, Mr. Roosevelt took his three men intO' Dickinson, the nearest town. Traveling was bad, the two^ little mares pulling the wagon could go only at a walk. It took two days and a night to make the journey. It was a most desolate drive. The prairie had been burned the fall before and was a bleak waste of blackened earth, while a cold, rainy mist came down all of the two days. The only variety was where the road crossed the shallow headwaters of Knife and Green rivers. Here the ice was high along the banks, and the wagon had to be taken to pieces In order to get it over. Mr. Roosevelt's three captives were unarmed, but as he was alone with them, except for the driver, of whom he knew nothing, he had to be doubly on his guard and never let his prisoners come close to him. The wagon put together on the opposite side of the river, the little mares jogged on, the roads so heavy that any hope of accelerating the pace by flogging the horses was out of the question. Mr. Roosevelt found that the better plan was to put the prisoners in the wagon and himself walk behind, a Winchester across his shoulder for use in case of need. Accordingly, he trudged through the ankle-deep icy mud in the rear of the conveyance. Hour after hour went by in this way, hunger, cold and fatigue adding to the uncomfortable journey. At night the party put up at the hut of a frontier granger, the only habita- tion on the road. There was an upper and a lower bunk in this hut. 96 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Mr. Roosevelt did not dare to go to sleep, but making his three men climlj into the upper bunk from which they could get only with difficulty, he sat with his back against the cabin door all night long and watched them. After thirty-six hours of sleeplessness he at last handed his prisoners over to the sheriff of Dickinson. This story is told at length to show the dogged determination of Mr. Roosevelt once he has made up his mind to do a thing. He had determined to capture the men and to give them up to the proper authorities and he had done so at great discomfort to himself. This dogged de- termination has ever signalled his character in his political life and his public offices for the public good. CHAPTER V. Antelope and the Manner of Hunting Them— The Black-tail of the Mountains— Still-hunting— Deer Hunting with Hounds— Coursing Jack-rabbits, Swifts and Foxes— Round-horn Elks— A Hunt of Elks— Big-horn Sheep— Ex- periences with Them— Wonderful Speed— Habits of Bighorn Sheep— White Goats of the Rockies— Praise of Hunting— Instincts of Born Hunter— Adapta- bility of Character— Back to Politics. ANTELOPE is the game from April to August, the bucks only being killed. The smoked venison, stored away, lasts through the bitter winter weather. Antelope gather in great bands in the fall, and are qweer, freaky creatures; they either travel south and leave the country, or they go to some out-of-the-way place where they stand no chance of being disturbed. In April the herds come back, but broken up into straggling parties. They have regular passes through which they go every year. One of these passes w^as not far from Mr. Roosevelt's ranch, where the antelope herds crossed the Little Missouri in vast numbers each spring on the return march. In the fall, hunters posted in the passes when the deer passed in dense throngs butchered enormous numbers. A man needs skill in antelope shooting, for the animals are wary, and the ground they infest is of a peculiar nature. They must generally be shot at over a hundred and fifty yards, and often between two and three hundred. As in all other kinds of big game shooting, success in antelope hunting often depends on sheer luck. While on the early spring excursions Mr. Roosevelt used to vary the sport and the fare as well by bringing down mallards, now and then his party would creep up to and kill the cock prairie fowls when they had gathered into their dancing rings to stretch themselves and spread 97 99 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. their wngs as they shuffled round, all the while keeping up a curious clucking and booming sound. Late in the season an antelope could creneralTy be got by anyone of the party riding oft alone to a tract of hillv prairie some fifteen miles from the ranch, where the prong- horns were usually abundant- "On such a trip," Mr. Roosevelt writes, ''I leave the ranch-house by dawn, the rifle across my saddle-bow. and some strips of smoked venison m the saddle pockets. ' :" : : ~" — the horse lopes smartly through the wooded L. .:...-. --- i - --ow larks, ^^-ith black crescents on their yellow breasts, sing ?.ll day long, but tlie thrushes only in the morning and evening: c. melody is heard at its best on s. e as this. By the time I get out of the last ra\-ines and canter along the drvride. the dark blutt-tops in the East have begun to redden in the sunrise, w' ": - :he flushed West the hills stand out against a rosy sk\-. The ;. :: ...i been up some little time befcre the himting grounds are fairlv reached: for the antelope stands .. being a diurnal game r. at from this peculi- arity, as well as from the nature of its haunts, can be hunted as well at mid-day as at any other hour. Arrived at the hunting grounds I generally, but not always, dismour: on foot, lea\-ing the horse tethered out to graze. "Lunch is taken at some spr.:_.. .... : .„_ be only a trickle of water at the base of a butte. where a hole must be dug out with a knife and hands before the horse can drink. Once or twice I have enjoyed unusual delicacies at such a lunch in the shape of the eggs of curlew or prairie fowl bake '. ' ' 2shes. The day is spent in still- hunting, a much easier task .: . ::^ the ridges and low hills than out on the gently rolling prairies, .\ntelope see much better than deer, their great bulging eyes placed at the roots of the horns being as strong as twin telescopes. Extreme care miist be taken not to let them catch a gHmpse of the intruder, for it is ; eless to attemp. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. d» approaching them. On the other hand, there is never the least difficulty in seeing them; for they are conspicuous beasts and, unlike deer, they never hide, being careless whether they are seen or not, so long as they can keep a good lookout. They trust only to their own alert watchfulness and quick senses for safety. The game is carried home behind the saddle, and the bottom on which the ranch house stands is not often reached until the moon, showing crimson through the haze, has risen above the blufifs that skirt the river." In ]May and June the little antelope kid appears. He is a queer little fellow, but at a very early age learns to run as fast as his parents. Antelopes often suffer from freaks of apathetic indifference to danger, which are curious as existing in an animal notoriously wary. Also they are fond of wandering, and sometimes appear in most unlikely places. Thus, once, Mr. Roosevelt, while building the cow corral in an open bottom, found five of the animals there, but having no weapon with him the creatures retired unmolested. Antelope are much more difficult to shoot than deer because of their tough hide, which seems to turn a bullet aside, but so plenty are they at times that Mr. Roosevelt often brought one down before breakfast. With the first sharp frost the chase for antelope is abandoned for that of deer. Then the favorite quarry is the blacktail of the moun- tain and the high, craggy hills. "We kill him by fair still-hunting, and to follow him succe^fully through the deep ravines and across the steep ridges of his upland home a man should be sound in wind and limbs, and a good shot with the rifle as well. Many a glorious fall morning I have passed in this pursuit. Often, moreover, I have, slain him in the fading evening as I walked homeward in the still, dim twilight — for all wild game dearly love the gloaming. Once on a frosty evening I thus killed one when it was so dark that my aim was little but guesswork. I was walking back to camp through a winding valley hemmed in by steep cedar-crowned walls of clay and L cfC. 100 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. rock. All the landscape glimmered white with the new fallen snow, and in the West the sky was still red with the wintry sunset. Sud- denly a great buck came out of a grove of snow-laden cedars and walked with swift strides up to the point of a crag that overlooked the valley. There he stood motionless, while I crouched unseen in the shadow beneath. As I fired he reared upright and then plunged over the cliff. He fell a hundred feet before landing in the bushes, yet he did not gash or mar his finely moulded head and shapely massive antlers. On one of the last days I hunted, in November, I killed two blacktail, a doe and a buck, with one bullet. They were feeding in a glen high up the side of some steep hills, and by a careful stalk over rough ground I got within fifty yards. Peering over the brink of the clift'-like slope up which I had clambered, I saw them standing in such a position that the neck of the doe covered the buck's shoulder. The chance was too tempting to be lost. My bullet broke the doe's neck, and of course she fell where she was; but the buck went off, my next two or three shots missing him. However, we followed his bloody trail through the high pass he had crossed, down a steep slope, and roused him from the brushwood in the valley bottom. He soon halted and lay down again, making off at a faltering gallop when approached; and the third time we came up to him he was too weak to rise." Deer were sometimes killed by the aid of hounds, of which there were two on the ranch. A blacktail buck can beat off a dog or a wolf, however, and he is a most awkward foe for a man. One of them nearly did up a cowboy in Mr. Roosevelt's employ. The buck had been mortally wounded and had fallen, and the man ran up to stick hinu with the knife. The buck revived for a moment, struck down the man and tried to gore him, but did not succeed because of the despairing grip the man kept on his horns. The man, bruised and cut by the sharp hoofs, was rapidly growing too weak to retain his PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 101 hold on the horns, when in the struggle man and deer came to the edge of a washout and fell twelve or fifteen feet. This separated them, an.d the dying buck was too weak to renew the attack, while the man crawled off so much hurt that it was months before he recovered. Whitetails are also fair still-hunting, but more often they were shot in the dense river bottoms by the help of the track hounds. The dogs went into the woods with a horseman to guide them and help them rout out the game, while the rest of the hunters, rifles in hand> rode from point to point outside, or else watched the passes through which the hunted animals were likely to run. "It is not a sport of which I am very fond, but it is sometimes pleasant as a variety. The last time we tried it I killed a buck in the bottom right below our ranch house, not half a mile off. The river was low and my post was at its edge; in front of me the broad sandy flat sparsely covered with willow brush. Deer are not ordinaril}' afraid of a noisy hound; they will play around in front of him, lead and flag in on. But Rob (one of the hounds) was different. The gray wolfish beast, swift and silent, threw^ them into a panic of terror, and in headlong flight they would seek safety from him in the densest thicket. On the evening in cjuestion one of my cow-boys w^ent into the brush with the hounds. I had hardly ridden to my place and dismounted when I heard the dog give tongue, the bluffs echoing back his long-drawn baying. Immediately afterward a young buck appeared coming along the sandy river bed, trotting, or cantering, and very handsome he looked, stepping with a light high action, his glossy coat glistening, his head thrown back, his white flag flaunting. My bullet struck him too far back, and he went on, turning into the woods. Then the dogs appeared, one running the scent, while the eager gaze-hound made wide half-circles around him as he ran ; while the cow-boy, riding a vicious yellow mustang, galloped behind, 102 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. cheering them on. As they struck the bloody trail they broke into clamorous yelling and tore at full speed into the woods. A minute or two later the sound ceased, and I knew they had run into the quarry." The hounds were sometimes used for other game besides deer — coyotes for instance, or a wolf, as has been done. Good sport was had on the rolling plains near Mandan in following a pack of four fleet long-legged dogs. They ran down coyotes, deer and an an- telope. They were especially fond of chasing coyotes, which they easily overtook. Brought to bay, the coyotes fought desperately, but unavailingly, for the hounds killed them easily. The animal that gave them most trouble was a badger which they once found and only killed after much struggling. The ranchmen also coursed jack- rabbits, swifts and foxes. The swifts are called swift foxes, being rather smaller than the southern gray fox. They have always been said to possess tremendous speed, and their name, "swift," per- petuates the idea. As a matter O'f fact it is a delusion, as they are rather slow if anything. Once in a snow storm Mr. Roosevelt started one up under his horse's feet while riding across the prairie. He overtook him in a few strides and killed him with a revolver. The speed of the coyote has been popularly exaggerated. Judging by the records of the hounds on the ranch the antelope is the fastest animal of the plains. The white-tailed deer and the jack rabbit come next. Then follow in order the coyote, the fox and the swift. Individuals vary, liowever, for a jack rabbit might well outrun a slow deer, while a coyote and fox will outlast the swifter jack rabbit. Several dogs should make the run together, othenvise a jack or a swift although overtaken may make his escape by dexterous dodging. The cactus beds of the vicinity befriend the hunted animals, as the dogs rush into the thorny plants recklessly and are soon disabled, while a rabbit or a fox slips through easily and escapes injury. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 103 Mr. Roosevelt, in hunting these smaller game, usually had a couple of his men with him. They scattered out, dogs and men, and rode in an irregular line across the country, beating the most likely looking places, and following at top speed any game that got up. Sometimes a jack rabbit starting well ahead would run for a couple of miles straight ahead before being turned by the leading hound, while oc- casionally one would get away altogether. At other times it would be caught at once and killed instantly, or only prolong its hfe a few seconds by its turns and twists. One swift gave the hunters several minutes chase though it never got thirty rods from the place where it started. The little creature went off as merrily as possible, its hand- some brush streaming behind its pliant back, and though overtaken at once it dodged so cleverly that dog after dog shot past him. A single dog could not have killed him. Coursing is the sport of sports for ranchmen now that big game has grown scarce, and there can be no healthier or more exciting pastime than that of following game with horse and hound over the vast Western plains. The round-horned elk is fast vanishing from the plains, the sight of one is exhilaration intense to the man with hunting instincts. In the season when the ranch was sorely in need of meat Mr. Roosevelt went after these elk. "At the time most of the ponies were off on one of the round-ups which, indeed, I had just left myself. However, my two hunting horses, Manitou and Sorrel Joe, were at home. The former I rode myself, and on the latter I mounted one of my men who was a par- ticularly good hand at finding and following game. With much diffi- culty we got together a scrub wagon team of four as unkempt, de- jected and vicious looking broncos as ever stuck fast in^a quicksand or balked in pulling up a steep pitch. Their driver was a crack whip, and their load light, consisting of little but the tent and bedding, so we got out to the hunting ground and back in safety. * * * 104 _ THEODORE ROOSEVELT. We camped by an excellent spring of cold, clear water, not a common luxury in the Bad Lands. We pitched the tent beside it, getting enough tinil)er from a grove of ash to make a large fire which is, again, an appreciated blessing on the plains of the West. * * * We started next morning before the gray was relieved by the first faint pink, and reached the broken country soon after sunrise. Here we picketed our horses, as the ground we were to hunt through was very rough. Two or three hours passed before we came upon fresh signs of elk. Then we found the trails of two, from the size presum- ably cows, made the preceding night, and started to follow them carefully and noiselessly, my companion taking one side of the valley in which we were, and I the other. * * * Yet though we walked as quietly as we could the game must have heard or smelt us, for after a mile's painstaking search we came to a dense thicket in which were two beds evidently but just left, for the twigs and bent grass blades were still slowly rising from the ground to which the bodies of the elks had pressed them." The hunters followed at once. The elk left the strip of rugged Bad Lands and went on into the smoother land beyond. The hunters considered it likely they would halt in some heavily timbered coulees six or seven miles off. They found flie elk almost as soon as they struck the border of the ground they had thought would be their probable halting place. The hunters had regained their horses, for the scouting took them near the tethering place. The horses were unshod and made but little noise, and coming to a wide, long coulee the two men separated, Mr. Roosevelt going down one side, his com- panion the other. Half way down the ranchman whistled, and Mr. Roosevelt stood still at once. Nothing moved, and he glanced at his fellow hunter. The ranchman had squatted down and was peering over into the dense laurel on Mr. Roosevelt's side of the coulee. In a minute he shouted that he saw a red patch in the brush. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 105 "Elk will sometimes lie as closely as rabbits, even when not in very good cover; still I was surprised at these not breaking out when they heard human voices. However, there they staid, and I waited several minutes in vain for them to move. From where I stood it was im- possible to see them, and I was fearful that they might go off down the valley and so offer me a very poor shot. Meanwhile Manitou, who is not an emotional horse, and is moreover blessed with a large appetite, w^as feeding greedily, rattling his bridle chains at every mouthful, and I thought he w'ould act as a guard to keep the elk where they were while I shifted my position. So I slipped back and ran swiftly around to the head of the coulee to where my companion was still sitting. He pointed me out the patch of red in the bushes not sixty yards distant, and I fired into it without delay, by good luck breaking the neck of a cow elk, when immediately another one rose up from beside it and made off. I had five shots at her as she as- cended the hillside and the gentle slope beyond, and two of my bullets struck her close together in the flank — a very fatal shot. She was evidently mortally hit, and just as she hit the top of the divide she stopped, reeled and fell over dead." The hunters were much gratified with their luck, as it secured an ample stock of badly needed fresh meat. They left the elk where they fell, the following morning stopping for them with the wagon, into which they put the creatures bodily, leaving the entrails for the vultures that were soaring in circles over the carcasses. The finest elk antlers Mr. Roosevelt ever got, as a trophy of his own rifle, were from a bull he killed far to the west of his ranch, in the eastern chains of the Rockies. He shot the animal one early morning while still-hunting in the open glades of a great pine forest. He and his companion had listened all night long to the animal and its fellows challenging one another. "At this season the bulls fight most desperately, and their combats are far more often attended with fatal results than is the case with -.06 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. deer. In the grove back of my ranch house when we first took pos- session w-e found the skulls of two elk with interlocked antlers; one was a royal, the other had fourteen points. Theirs had been a duel to the death." Since 1884, when Mr. Roosevelt went to the Big Horn Mountains, he had killed no grizzlies. There were some still left in the neighbor- hood of the ranch but they were exceedingly shy and lived in such ■'naccessible places that though he had twice devoted several days to solely hunting them he had not been successful so far — though two cow-boys found a bear in the open and after using a great num- ber of cartridges succeeded in killing it, the bear charging gamely to the last. Mr. Roosevelt, so it happened, generally hunted big-horn sheep in exceedingly cold weather, though the big-horn is not confined to any one climatic zone, but may be met with in the hot table lands of middle Mexico as well as to the North of the Canadian boundary. There exists no animal more hardy to grapple with the extremes of heat and cold. The big-horn, or Cimarron sheep, as the Mexicans call it, is the one American representative of the different breeds of mountain sheep that are found in the Old World. A brief experience with it changes the big-horn sheep into a quarry that taxes the skill of the hunter whether he be from a city or is a mountaineer. A ram seems to be always on the watch to notify his friends of the approach of danger. His favorite point of espial is high up on some cliff from whence he can see far and wide over the country. The slightest sound, the rattle of a loose stone, a cough, even a heavy footfall on the hard earth, attracts his attention and makes him climb as high as possible in order to ascertain the cause of the commotion in the silence. His eye catches the slightest movement, his scent is as keen as an elk's. A band of sheep is even more difficult than a solitary individual, but a band is easier to get on the track of, as there are PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 107 always some young members guilty of indiscretion and who have not yet learned the meaning of danger. All of the flock is always on the lookout; while the others are grazing there is always one at least on the watch, and occasionally a particularly watchful ewe will jump upon some boulder so as to get a wider view. On ordinary occasions a big-horn menaced by danger flies beyond the reach of that danger with immediate decision and headlong speed, disappearing over ground where it needs an expert cragsman to so much as follow at a walk. Its wonderful feats of climbing have given rise to the fable that the rams on plunging down precipices alight on their horns. A band of sheep will sometimes seem to court instant death by spring- ing off a brink that looks perpendicular and where there is not a ledge or a crack to afford foothold. On examination it will be found that the seemingly perpendicular clifT is not quite so and that the sheep in making the fearful descent from time to time strike the clifif with their hoofs, thus going down in long bounds, the final bound often made headlong like a plunge. It is not possible to hunt big-horn unless you have some knowledge of their habits. They go down to drink late in the evening or very early in the morning. In ordinary weather they begin feeding in the early morning, and when the sun is rising high they start to graze up the high ridge where they intend to lie during the day. They stay here till well on in the afternoon, and then again descend to the feeding grounds lower down. Often it is necessary for the hunter to lie carefully concealed for hours watching a flock in an unfavorable position until it shifts its ground. This is scarcely comfortable on a cold day in November and December, the months during which Mr. Roosevelt usually hunted big-horn. Speaking of it he says that what- ever success he has had in this hunting he owed to dogged perse- verance and patient persistence. On one of his expeditions after the sheep he wore away hour after hour trying to fmd them. At last 108 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. he caught sight of a band. They were fifteen or tweoty in nimibeT and were on the point of a spur some half-mile from him. "With glasses I could make out that there was no good head among them, but I was out after meat rather than for sport." He watched and waited for them to make a move. At last near sunset the sheep got on their legs and led by an old ewe began to descend into the valley. They went down the cliff with a rush. Picking out a fine young ram the hunter fired and hit him. The others, without an instant's pause, rushed madly down and away. The day when he shot his largest and finest ram was memorable, for the cold was in- tense, windless and deadly. "All day we walked and climbed through a white wonderland. On every side the snowy hills, piled one on another, stretched away, chain after chain, as far as sight could reach. The stern and iron- bound land had been changed to a frozen sea of billowy, glittering peaks and ridges. At last, late in the afternoon, three great big-horn suddenly sprang up to our right and crossed the tableland in front of and below us at a strong, stretching gallop. The lengthening sun- beams glinted on their mighty horns; their great, supple brown bodies were thrown out in bold relief against the white landscape; as they plowed with long strides through the powdery snow their hoofs tossed it up in masses of white spray. On the left of the plateau was a ridge, and as they went up this I fired twice at the leading ram, my bullets striking under him. On the summit he stopped for a moment, looking back, three hundred and fifty yards off, and my third shot went fairly through his lungs. He ran over the hill as ii unharmed, but lay down a couple of hundred yards farther on, and was dead when we reached him." In hunting for white goats on the high peaks of the Rockies in 1886, Mr. Roosevelt and his party would start immediately after breakfast each morning, and go straight up the mountain sides for PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 109 hours at a time. They ahvays went above the haunts of deer, and saw little evidences of any sort of Hfe roundabout. The goat trails led away in every direction, zigzagging up, higher and higher. Although these game paths were deeply worn they yet showed very little fresh goat signs. "I had been as usual walking and clambering over the mountains all day long, and in the mid-afternoon reached a great slide with half-way across it a tree. Under this I sat down to rest, my back against the trunk, and had been there but a few moments when my companion suddenly whispered to me that a goat was coming down the slide at its edge, near the woods. I was in a most uncomfortable position for a shot. Twisting my head around I could see the goat w^addling down hill, looking just like a handsome tame billy, espec- ially when at times he stood upon a stone to glance around, with all four feet close together. I cautiously tried to shift my position and at once dislodged some pebbles, at the sound of which the goat sprang promptly up on the bank, his whole mien changing to one of alert, alarmed curiosity. He was less than a hundred yards off, so I risked a shot, all cramped and twisted as I was. But my bullet went low^ — I only broke his left fore-leg, and he disappeared over the bank like a flash. We raced and scrambled after him and took up the bloody trail. The trail went up the sharpest and steepest places, skirting the cliffs and precipices. * * * Suddenly on the top of the mountain we came upon the goat close up to us. He had risen from rolling and stood behind a huge fallen log, his back barely show- ing above it. * * * The second bullet went just too high, cut- ting the skin above the high spinal bones over the shoulders, and the speed with which that three-legged goat went down the precipi- tous side of the mountain would have done credit to an antelope on the level." Weary and disgusted the men took up the trail. The goat had crossed the river on a fallen tree-trunk, and the men crossed that wav 110 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. also. But the goat had gone up the mountain. It was now nearly dark. The men were confident the goat could not go far in his present condition. Next morning at daybreak they again climbed the mountain and took up the trail. At last, about midday, they spied the goat on a ledge seventy yards off. This time Mr. Roose- velt shot true. During that trip the hunters shot deer and hoped to come upon bear, though in this they were disappointed. But it was white goats they were after. One day the hunters climbed to the very top of a mountain range looking for game. They went from crag to crag and while they saw goat trails they saw none of the animals that made them. "When I reached the farther side of the plain and was about enter- ing the woods, I turned to look over the mountain once more, and my eye was immediately caught by two white objects which were moving along the terrace, about half a mile to one side of the lick." They were goats, and came along rapidly. It was close on to sunset, and the goats, wary as usual, must have smelt the footsteps of their enemy, and halted too far away for a shot to reach them. "Shortly after noon next day we were on the terrace, having ap- proached with the greatest caution. I wore moccasins so as to make no noise. We soon found that one of the trails was evidently regu- larly traveled, probably every evening, and we determined to lie in wait by it so as either to catch the animals as they came down to feed, or else to mark them if they got out on some open spot on the ter- races where they could be stalked. As an ambush we chose a ledge in the cliff below a terrace with, in front, a breastwork of the natural rock some five feet high. It was perhaps fifty yards from the trail. 1 hid myself on this ledge, having arranged on the rock breastwork a few pine branches through which to fire, and waited hour after hour, continually scanning the mountain carefully with the glasses. * * From time to time I peeped cautiously over the pine branches of the J»ATRIOT AND STATESMAN. Ill breastwork; and the last time I did this I suddenly saw two goats that had come noiselessly down, standing motionless opposite to me, their suspicions evidently roused by something. I gently shoved the rifle over one of the boughs; the largest goat turned its head sharply around to look as it stood quartering to me, and the bullet went fairly through the lungs. Both animals promptly ran off along the terrace, and I raced after them in my moccasins, skirting the edge of the cliff where there were no trees or bushes. As I made no noise and could run very swiftly along the bare cliff edge I succeeded in coming out in the first little glade, or break, in the terrace at the same time that the goats did. The first to come out of the bushes was the big one I had shot at, an old she, as it turned out; while the other, a yearling ram, followed. The big one turned to look at me iio she mounted a fallen tree that lay across a chasm-like rent in the terrace; the light red frothy blood covered her muzzle, and I paid no further heed to her as she slowly walked along the log, but bent my attention toward the yearling which was galloping and scramb- bling up an almost perpendicular path that led across the face of the cliff above. Holding my rifle just over it I fired, breaking the neck of the goat, and it rolled downi some forty or fifty yards almost to where I stood." Both these slain goats proved good specimens, the old one being unusually large with magnificent horns. Mr. Roosevelt, an en- thusiast, praises all mountain game-hunting and never tires of speak- ing of the glow that the contest for capturing the wild denizens of the high peaks gives. His strong masculine mind rejoiced in the out- door life, the adventure, the daring and the danger. He understood pretty well the cities and towns of the Union, and he would under- stand the desert places of the land, its prairies and its mountains. He knew men; he knew poHtics; and he would know the noble wild ani- mals and their characteristics. He had the instincts of the born 112 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. hunter, and while in the purHeus of the crowded capitals of the land he had his say and did his work, the prairie and the mountain and the plain called him, and he went there and became a Nimrod. Polished and educated men were his friends, statesmen, patriots; and he did not disclaim an equal friendship for the frontiersman and the cow-boy whose lives were passed away from the centers of present civilization while they blazed the way for a civilization yet to be. Perhaps some of his happiest days were passed with nature in paths scarcely trod by the foot of man before he trod them, and in the exercise of his freedom on the American deserts and the peaks of the frowning mountains his blood was renewed, his muscles made stronger and more enduring, his brain and body cleared of morbid cityisms till he was prepared to go back into the vortex of the "strenuous" life of town and State and country that called him over and over ae:ain. CHAPTER VI. Republican Candidate for Mayor— Largest Republican Vote for Mayor ev«r Polled ill New York — Civil Service Commission — How he "Ruined Himseli"— , Duties of Civil Service Commission — Abolishment of Abuses in Politics — Paper ou Civil Service Reform — Case before LIII. Congress — In Of^ce Six Years — Resignation to Accept Office as Police Commissioner of New York. IN the year 1886, Mr. Roosevelt was the RepubHcan candidate for Mayor against Abram S. Hewitt, United Democracy, and Henry George, United Labor. Mr. Hewitt was elected b} about 22,000 plurality. The canvass was not very exciting, except that Henry George was a candidate, and the labor problem, according to the labor organs, was about to be solved. The honesty of Henry George was not im- pugned, while his principles, as interpreted by his followers, were not always convincing. It is doubtful if Mr. Roosevelt ever con- sidered his own election as a foregone conclusion. His speeches at the time published his now well-known attitude, though at the age of twenty-eight there had never before been a candidate for the New York mayoralty. He took his defeat in good part and retired, as much as a man of his viriHty in estimate of public affairs, could retire. He published his books and various articles in the magazines of the day, and enjoyed what his friends considered a well-earned rest, thougli that rest partook of the nature of rough traveling in the West for a part of the time. In 1889 he was appointed a member of the United States Civil Service Commission. By a strange conjunction f^'' circumstances Mr. Roosevelt, author of the New York Civil Service law, was, through appointment as Civil Service Commis- sioner by President Harrison, put in a position in which, for half a 113 114 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. dozen years, the enforcement of the national reform was largely in his hands. Alany of the Republican and Democratic politicians were against the Civil Service act. Many members of Congress, of both parties, who voted for it did so on account of the tremendous popular pressure for its enactment which the assassination of Garfield, by a demented of^ce-seeker two years earlier, had incited. These Con- gressmen would have been glad to see the act die of inanition. Commissioner Roosevelt did not share in this feeling. He gave most vigorous operation to the Civil Service act for at least two rea- sons: He decidedly favored this law. He held that all laws, bad as well as good, ought to be enforced, so that. If bad, the people could force their repeal, and the statute book cease to be cumbered by them. He enforced the act with so much vigor and intelligence that he called down upon himself the hostility of the party workers on both sides, and called it down so impartially that when President Cleve- land, in 1893, succeeded President Harrison he asked Harrison's appointee to remain in oi^ce, which he did for two years longer. In his six years of service Mr. Roosevelt added twenty thousand posts to the list under the scope of the merit law, or more than were placed on that roll in an equal length of time before or since. Of course he met with opposition. While in the gubernatorial election he had polled more votes than had ever been cast for any Republican candidate for Mayor of New York, and it was believed that he would have been elected had not so many Republicans voted for Hewitt in order to render George's defeat certain, there were those who said he was "ruined," as he had "ruined himself" when in the Assembly at Albany because he fought "organization" measures and was neither academic nor Pickwickian in his attitude as to political corruption. He "ruined himself" again, and completely, by taking a place o-n the Civil Service Commission and standing across the path of the powerful politicians — the men who elect and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 115 who control delegations to nominating- conventions — on their hunt for patronage. When Mr. Roosevelt began his public career he was looked upon as a youthful faddist. The spoilsmen and those corrupt in politics laughed at him; they ridiculed him; and then they had to fight him. Those in public life for the money that was in it felt the sting of his scorn. He became a public figure at once. In the early eighties President Andrew D. White, of Cornell University, since Ambassador to Germany, said in the lecture-room of his college: "Yaung gentlemen, some of you will enter public life. I call your attention to Theodore Roosevelt, now in our Legislature. He is on the right road to success. It is dangerous to predict a future for a young man, but let me say that if any man of his age was ever pointed straight for the Presidency that man is Theodore Roosevelt." Roosevelt at that time did more than command respect for reform ideas, he showed that it was possible to remain in office and be clean. He caused to be abolished in New York City several useless offices which were used to bleed the public treasury. He helped to abolish the joint responsibility of the Board of Aldermen with the Mayor in appointments to office. He investigated the Police Department of New Y'ork City and laid bare some of its iniquities. He recom- mended a single head for the Department, the necessity for which later he realized to the fullest degree. Then he secured the passage of the Civil Service Refomi law of 1884, a law upon which the Federal statute was largely modeled. If he had done little else in his public life in the way of a service for the right, that law would have carried him high in the estimation of his fellow citizens. The wisdom of that legislation is no.w U/uiversally approved. The qualities of honesty and courage were never absent from him, and they had done their work. President Harrison made him Chairman of the Civil Service Com- mission of the United States in 1889. Brilliant as had been his work 116 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. in other directions, never was he so deserving of the approval of his fellow countrymen than during the years he toiled to elevate the public service and to help bring it to its present state of efficiency. At that time, it would appear, he had little ambition for higher work. He had to face hostility on every side. He had to show that the scheme was practical. He countermined the enmity of certain Con- gressmen. His master stroke in this work was to hold examinations in various States and gradually to build up a following of office- holders, through merit, of scores of Congressmen. Roosevelt had to prove that a party did not need the minor offices to secure success before the people. He had to prove that it was good party politics to take the great mass of offices out of the domain of politics. It was bold and fearless work, and he succeeded in it. According to the new Commissioner's idea, "no question of in- ternal administration is so important to the United States as the question of Civil Service reform, because the spoils system which can only be supplanted through the agencies which have found expres- sioji in the act creating the Civil Service Commission, has been for seventy years the most potent of all the forces tending to bring about the degradation of American politics. No republic can endure per- manently when its politics is base and corrupt; and the spoils system, the application in political life of the degrading doctrine that 'to the victor belongs the spoils,' produces corruption and degradation. The man who is in politics for the offices might just as well be in politics for the money he can get for his vote, so far as the general good is concerned. When the then Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Hendricks, said that he 'wished to take the boys in out af the cold to warm their toes,' thereby meaning that he wished to distribute offices among the more active 'heelers,' to the rapturous enthusiasm of the latter, he uttered a sentiment which was morally on the same plane with a wish to give 'the boys' five dollars apiece all around tor PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 117 tlieir votes, and fifty dollars apiece when they showed themselves sufficiently active in bullying, bribing- and cajoling other voters. Such a sentiment should bar any man from public life, and will bar him whenever the people grow to realize that the worst enemies of the Republic are the demagogue and the corruptionist. The spoils- monger and the spoils-seeker invariably breed the bribe-taker and bribe-giver — the embezzler of public funds and the corrupter of voters. Civil Service reform is not merely a movement to better the public service. It achieves this end, too; but its main purpose is to raise the tone of public life, and it is in this direction that its effects have been of incalculable good to the whole community." For six years, from May, 1889, to May, 1895, Mr. Roosevelt was a member of the National Civil Service Commission. The aim of the Commission was always to procure the extension of the classified Service as rapidly as possible, and to see that the law was administered thoroughly and fairly. The Commission did not have the power which Mr. Roosevelt thought it should have, and in many instances there were violations and evasions of the law in certain bureaus or departments, and the Commission was unable to hinder them, though in every case the Commission made a good fight and gave the widest publicity to the wrongdoing. Often when the Commission could not win the actual fight in which they were engaged, the fact of their having made it, and the other fact that they were willing to repeat the fight on provocation, put a stop to a repetition of the offense. Consequently, while there were many violations and evasions their proportion became smaller and smaller in time. In the aggregate; it is said that it is doubtful if one per cent, of all the many employees have been dismissed for purely political reasons. Taking it another way, where under the old system of spoils a hundred men had been turned out, under the Civil Service ninety-nine men were kept in office. I 118 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. In the administration of the law very much depends upon the Com- mission. With a combative mind, yet Mr. Rooseveh was most | receptive. He had learned much in his years of public life; the Civil Service Commission was to teach him more. He understood the needs of reform in the Civil Service and he did his best to carry to a consummation such measures as should ensure the betterment of it. He said that good heads of departments and bureaus would ad-^ minister it well anyhow; though not only the bad men, but also the more numerous class of men who are weak, rather than bad, are sure to administer a law poorly unless kept up to the mark. He thought the public should exercise a more careful scrutiny over the appoint- ments and over the acts of the Civil Service Commissioners, for there was no of^ce the effectiveness of which depends so much upon the way in which the man himself chooses to construe his duties. A Commissioner could keep within the letter of the law and do his routine work, and yet accomplish nothing at all in the way of securing the observance of the law. Always a painstaking man, with an eye for detail, he made the execution of his duties in the Com- mission as difficult to himself as he felt that he was in honor bound to do. He felt that the Commission, to do useful work, must 1)e fearless and wideawake; that it must actively interfere wherever wrong was done, and must take all the steps that could be taken to secure the punishment of the wrongdoer and to protect the employee who was threatened by the powers-that-be. This course he consistently followed throughout his connection with the Commission. He was a Republican from the North. Two of the members were from the South — Democrats who had served in the Confederate army — but in all the dealings with one and the other of the Commissioners there was no single instance wherein the politics of any person was so much as taken into account in any case that arose. The force of the Commission itself was chosen PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 121 through competitive examinations, and inchided men of every party and from every section of the country. Says Mr. Rooseveh: "From the beginning of the present system each President of the United States has been its friend (the Com- mission's) but no President has been a radical Civil Service reformer. Presidents Arthur, Harrison and Cleveland have all desired to see the Service extended, and to see the law well administered. No one of them has felt willing or able to do all that the reformers asked or to pay much heed to their wishes, save as regards that portion of the Service to which the law actually applied. Each has been a sincere party man who has felt strongly on such questions as those of the tariff, of finance, and of our foreign policy, and each has been obliged to conform more or less closely to the wishes of his party associates and fellow party leaders; and, of course, these party leaders and the party politicians generally wished the offices to be distributed as they had been ever since Andrew Jackson became President. In con- sequence, the offices outside the protection of the law have still been treated under every administration as patronage, to be disposed of j'« ''°e interest of the dominant party. An occasional exception has been made here and there, * * * but with altogether insignifi- cant exceptions the great bulk of the non-classified places have been changed for political reasons by each administration, the ofliceholders politically opposed to the administration being supplanted or suc- ceeded by poHtical adherents of the administration." The Cabinet officers, though often not Civil Service reformers originally, usually become such before their terms of office expire. This was true without exception of all the Cabinet officers with whom Mr. Roosevelt was brought into personal contact while he was on the Commission. Moreover, from their high position and their ap- preciation of the responsibility of their ofiices. Cabinet officers arc certain to refrain from a personal violation of the law, while they wi'i 122 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. try to secure a formal compliance with its demands on the part of their subordinates. "In most cases it is necessary, however, to goad them continually to see that they do not allow their subordinates to evade the law," to quote Mr. Roosevelt in his article on "Civil Service Reform," "and it is very difficult to get either the President or the head of a Depart- ment to punish these subordinates when they have evaded it." There was not much open violation of the law during his in- cumbency, because such violation could be reached through the courts; but in the small offices and bureaus an unscrupulous chief of an office or bureau may persecute his subordinates wdio are politically opposed to him, if he have the chance, and force them to resign; or to trump up charges against them which will cause them to be dismissed. "If this is done in a sufficient number of cases men of the opposite political party think that it is useless to enter the examinations; and by staying out they leave the way clear for the offender to get pre- cisely the men he wishes for the eligible registers." Against this chicanery ]\Ir. Roosevelt was very severe. But the cases were isolated. In some of the Departments this form of evasion was never tolerated, and where the Commission had the force under its eye the chances of injustice were few. Congress had control of the appropriations for the Commission, and as it could not do its work with ample funds the action of Congress w^as vital to its welfare. "Many even of the friends of the system in the country at large are astonishingly ignorant of who the men are wdio have battled most effectively for the law and for good government in either the Senate or the Lower House. It is not only necessary that a man shall be good and possess the desire to do decent things, but it is also neces- sary that he shall be courageous, practical and efficient if his work is PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 12,1 to amount to anything. There is a good deal of rough-and-tumble fighting in Congress, as there is in all our political life, and a man is entirely out of place in it if he does not possess the virile qualities, and if he fails to show himself ready and able to hit back when assailed. IMoreover, he must be alert, vigorous and intelligent if he is going to make his work count. The friends of the Civil Service, like the friends of all other laws, would be in a bad way if they had to rely solely upon the backing of the timid good." ]\Ir. Roosevelt has never been averse to taking his part in a vigorous argument, and he was often called upon to have a share in these arguments while he was on the Commission. His article on the Civil Service is so full of comprehension of the subject that one is tempted to quote it lengthily in order to convey an understanding of his attitude when he was so often assailed by the money-getting politicians \\ho opposed his ideas of reform. "There is need of further legislation," he explains, "to perfect and extend the law and the system; but Congress has never been willing seriously to consider a proposition looking to this extension. * * On the other hand, .efforts to repeal the law or to destroy it by new legislation have uniformly been failures and have rarely gone beyond a committee. Occasionally, in an appropriation bill or some other measure, an amendment will be slipped through adding forty of fifty employees to the classified service, or providing that the law shall not apply to them; but nothing important has ever been done in this way." In the final session of the Fifty-third Congress an incident oc- "curred which deserves to be related in full, as it affords an example of the many cases which arise to test the efiiciency of the friends of reforu! in Congress. According to the original law of 18S3, the Secretary of the Commission was allowed a salary of sixteen hundred dollars a year. As the Commission's work and force grew the 124 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. salary In a successive appropriation bill allowed was two thousand a year. Many of the clerks under the Secretary received eighteen hundred dollars, so that it would have been absurd to reduce the Secretary's salary below that of his subordinates. Many other officials of the Government have had their salaries increased in suc- cessive appropriation bills, over the sum originally provided, in pre- cisely the same way that the salary of the Secretary of the Commis- sion was increased. The Fifty-third Congress under President Cleve- land was Democratic, and the Secretary of the Commission was him- self a Democrat. According to the rules of the House, "there shall be no increase of salary beyond that provided in existing law in any appropriation bill." When the appropriation for the Civil Service Commission came up before the House, the gentleman from Ken- tucky, Mr. Breckinridge, made the point that to give two thousand dollars to the Secretary of the Commission w^as to add to his salary four hundred dollars increase over the sum allowed by the original law of 1883, and was consequently out of order. At the same time he exhibited a list of twenty or thirty other officers whose salaries had likewise been increased. He withdrew his point of order as regarded these other persons, but he adhered to it as affecting the Secretary of the Commission. The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, Mr. O'Neill, of Massachusetts, sustained the point of order, and there was no objection made by any one nor any fight made, and the bill passed the House and the Secretary's salary was reduced. The point of order was probably ill-taken. The existing law was and had been for ten years that the salary should be two thousand dollars. Had there been a Congressman alert to the situation and willing to fight, the whole movement might have been stopped liy making a similar point of order against those other officers, the President's private secretary, the First Assistant Postmaster-General, the Assistant PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 126 Secretary of State and the others whose increased salaries were ex- cused from Mr. Breckinridge's animadversion. Had a Congressman raised this point the House w^ould have refused to cut down the salaries of all these officials, and a man with resolution, and who in- sisted that all or none should be reduced, could have saved the salary of the Secretary of the Civil Service Commission. Many of the Con- gressmen W'Ould have done as much had it been pointed out to them, but no one did so. However, when it got over to the Senate the Civil Service reformers had friends to whom coaching was unneces- sary. "In the first place, the Sub-Committee on Appropriations, composed of IMessrs. Teller, Cockrell and Allison, to which the Civil Service Commission section was referred, restored the salary to tw-o thousand dollars. But Senator Gorman succeeded in carrying, by a bare majority, the Appropriations Committee against it, and it was reported to the full Senate at sixteen hundred dollars." As soon as it got into the full Senate, Senator Lodge had his chance at it. He was in favor of the increase and he let it be knowai that he would receive ample support in insisting upon adding four hundred to the sixteen. All that he had to do was to show the absolute folly of the reduction provision put in by Mr. Breckinridge, a.nd kept in. He made it evident that he meant to make a resolute fight and not to come out w^orsted. The opposition made no show at all, and collapsed without being put to a further test. The salary was put back to two thousand dollars, and in that form the bill became a law. If we are to have good legislation or if we are to have bad — that is, if we are to have it forwarded — depends greatly upon the com- position of the Committees on Civil Service reform of the Senate and the Lower House. The personnel of these Committees, there- fore, is of great importance. They are charged w^ith the duty of in- vestigating complaints against the Commission, and if ever the Com- 126 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. mission becomes corrupt or inefficient it should be unsparingly ex- posed in Congress. It is equally important that the falsity of un- truthiul charges made against it should be made public. "The main fight in each session comes on the Appropriation bill. There is not the slightest danger that the bill will be repealed, and there is not much danger that any President will suffer it to be so laxly administered as to deprive it of value; though there is always need to keep a vigilant lookout for fear of such lax administration. The danger point is in the appropriations. The first Civil Service Commission, established in the days of President Grant, was starved out by Congress refusing to appropriate for it. A hostile Congress could repeat the same course now; and as a matter of fact, in every Congress resolute efforts are made by the champions of foul govern- ment and dishonest politics to cut off the Commission's supplies. The bolder men who come from districts where little is known of the law, and where there is no adequate expression of intelligent and honest opinion on the subject, attack it openly. They are always joined by a number v.'ho make the attack covertly under some point of order, or because of a nominal desire for economy. These are quite as dangerous as the others and deserve exposure. Every man in- terested in decent government should keep an eye on his Congress- man and see how he votes on the cjuestion of appropriations for the Commission." The opposition to the reform is usually led by skilled parliamentari- ans, and they fight with the vigor of men who see a chance to strike at an institution which has baffled their greed. The rank and file, as a rule, is made up of politicians wdio cannot rise in pul)lic life ! ccausc of the;-; attitude on any public question, and who possess most of their power in the skill with which they manipulate the politics of their districts. "These men have a gift of office-mongering, just as other men have a peculiar knack in picking pockets; and they PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 127 are joined by all the honest dull men who vote wrong out of pure ignorance, and by a very few sincere and intelligent but wholly mis- guided people. Many of the spoils leaders are both efficient and fear- less and able to strike hard blows. In consequence, the leaders on the side of decency must themselves be men of ability and force or the cause will suffer." More and more does Mr. Roosevelt insist upon the importance of the Civil Service Commission in the interests of good government. He would teach all men to govern themselves politically and through such government to make a good selection of the men who are to represent them in the State and in Congress. His own honesty and uprightness make him harsh upon any approach to the opposite qualities in others, and he holds as dishonest and untruthful the voter who refuses or does not have sufTicient interest in the matter to look into the aims and character of the men for whom lie votes at the polls. The Civil Service reform meant with him reform reaching clear into the most insignificant of ward politics. Placemen were the decay at the core of good government, whether that good government were in the white palace at Washington or a director of a school in a thinly inhabited country town. He insists that the country has a preponderance of good men in it and that the bad men are only in evidence because of the inertia of the good who are, thus, the up- holders of the bad. Civil Service reform is the strength this inertia calls into being, the natural outcome of a state of affairs which should never have come about, but which having come will not easily be rid of until a healthful lesson of constant defeat has been taught it. Noteworthy is it that those who have done most effective work in Washington in the departments for the Civil Service reform law are men of unimpeachable character, who show by their public life that they are able and resolute and devoted to a high ideal. Much of what they have done has not been commented on by the public J28 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. because much of the work in committee, and some of that in the House, such as making and opposing points of order, and pointing out the merits and defects of certain bills, is not of the sort readily understood or appreciated by the outsiders. Yet few men have de- served better of their country, "for there is in American public life no one other cause so fruitful of harm to the body-politic as the spoils system, and the legislators and administrative officers who have done the best work toward its destruction merit a peculiar meed of praise from all well-wishers of the Republic." :Mr. Roosevelt is outspoken on all occasions, mincing matters as little as is consistent with a good manner. High and low who enter into competitive public life must expect criticism, and he has not spared it in his written as well as his spoken speech. He advises that all departmental officers and heads of bureaus, and especially the Commissioners themselves, be carefully watched by all friends of the reform. They are to be supported when they do well, and con- demned when they go wrong, while attention should be called not only -to what they do but also to what they leave undone. Nor is the President himself to be exempted from this scrutiny. Regarding Senators and Congressmen he thinks, in this regard there is urgent need that they be carefully supervised by the friends of the law of reform. "¥.'e need criticism by those who are unable to do their part in action; but the criticism to be useful must be both honest and intelli- gent, and the critics must remember that the system has its stanch friends and bitter foes among both party men and men of no party — among Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Each Congress- man sh(!n.\l(l be made to feel that it is his duty to support the law, and that he will be held to account if he fails to support it. * * * People sometimes grow a little down-hearted about the reform. When they feel in this mood it would be well for them to reflect on MR. ROOSEVELT IN HIS GARDKN AT OYSTER BAY PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 131 what has actually been gained in the past six years. (This was written in 1895.) By the inclusion of the railway mail service, the smaller free-delivery offices, the Indian School Service, the Internal Revenue Service, and other less important branches, the extent of the public service which is under the protection of the law has been more than doubled, and there are now nearly fifty thousand employees of the Federal Government who have been withdrawn from the de- grading influences that rule under the spoils system. This of itself is a great success and a great advance, though of course it ought only to spur us on to renewed effort. In the fall of 1894 the people of the State of New York by a popular vote put into their constitution a provision providing for a merit system in the affairs of the State and its municipalities; and the following spring the great city of Chicago voted by an overwhelming majority in favor of applying in its municipal affairs the advanced and radical Civil Service Reform Law, which had already passed the Illinois Legislature. Undoubtedly after every success there comes a moment of reaction. The friends of the reform grow temporarily lukewarm, or because it fails to secure every thing they hoped they neglect to lay proper stress upon all that it does secure. Yet in spite of all rebuffs, in spite of all disappointments and opposition, the growth of the principle of Civil Service reform has been continually more rapid and every year has taken us meas- urably nearer that ideal of pure and decent government which is dear to the heart of every honest American citizen." With these inspiring words he closes one of the very best articles ever written on refomi in politics, and in the years when he had so ably served on the Commission he missed no opportunity by voice or pen to promulgate his theories regarding pure politics, and so effec- tually that he won thousands to his way of thinking. For while it may be true that Americans love to be fooled, there comes a time in the experience of the citizen of "the States" when he asks himself 132 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. who is the one who is doing the fooHng. Mr. Rooseveh answered that question so far as false pohtics was concerned, and his hearers became his adherents. His office as Commissioner was held in all honor and there was never a moment when his most adverse critic might say he had been caught napping. In this stern attention to the business he had started out to do in reforming the Civil Service he "ruined himself" politically as many who disagreed with his methods were prone to say once more. Mr. Roosevelt continued in his office as Commissioner till May, 1895, when he resigned to accept the office of Police Commissioner from Mayor Strong of New York. CHAPTER VII. Departrr.ent of Police — Augury of Defeat — No Sentiment for Professional Poli- ticians — Enforcement of Laws — Improving Police Force — Gaining Respect — Opposition— Strike Leaders— Abuse Stopped— Attacked by Certain News- papers—Adverse Criticisms— Methods Reviled— Forging Ahead. IT was augured that Mr. Roosevelt would not make a success of it as an overseer of the police force of the Metropolis. The Department had been conducted on rather independent prin- ciples, and would scarcely put up with a rule which it would consider arrogant and which would interfere with its manner heretofore of doing pretty much as it pleased. The new man was known to have little at stake in politics; he feared neither boss nor heeler; he was reported to be incorruptible, while his means were such as made bribery of no account to him. At the same time, his record in the offices he had already held was to the effect that he was a martinet, holding every man to a strict account in the carrying out of the duties undertaken by him; and the police were now to come under his super- vision and control. The only thing for the corruptionists and windy ward and district men to do was to make the office untenable by hmi —to harass him in the ways which had more than once been adopted when a man was placed in office and was unpopular in his methods. ^For no method could be popular that did not cater to Tammany Hall — that great octopus whose feelers went out to suck in the gains of bad legislation and faulty government — the institution relied upon by the politician who adopted the rule of fellow citizens for what could be made out of the office by fair means or foul. Surprise was expressed by the friends of Mr. Roosevelt that he should take the office of supervising a body of men long known to 133 J34 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. be the willing tools of the baser element in politics, and whom a man of his scholarly attainment might scarcely hope to bring out of the wretched rut into which it had sunk in the years of its gross mis- management and use for party purposes. He entered upon his duties at once— duties which were to be no sinecure, and which, perhaps, were to be marked in his life as the most difficult he ever undertook. He asked for no sympathy. He went into the work with the determination to do what was expected of him by that large contingency of fellow citizens wdio, having with- held practical remonstrance too long, saw themselves menaced and their rights uprooted by a department supposed to have been origin- ally established for the protection of the privileges of this very class of people. But they had let things go on an easy jog-trot; for the ordinary American citizen, absorbed by business cares and the making straight the tangle of complex professional life, thinks little of his city government until it misbehaves itself, and he finds that what he thought was a midge necessary for the seasons, turns out to be a scorpion that makes every season its own. The usual evangel had gone forth, that if men of deceucy and weight in the community would only attend the primary elections, and do their duty in the letter of the la^v by a close scrutiny of the worth or worthlessness of those who were proposed to represent them, there would be little to com- plain of. But the primaries had long ago been given up to the men who made politics a business, while the newspapers were misleading in the extreme. If a man were on the side of the party controlling a newspaper he was an angel; if he were on the other side he was something so far below the angelic state that there was no use talking about him. Each paper had its own store of angels ready to take wing to the benighted country and save it through the efficaciousness of their purity of intention and ability to lift it from the slough of despond; and if you had a choice, all you had to do was to make your PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 135 selection of journals and have detailed to you the immaculate pro- clivities of the seraphic brood only waiting your permission to swoop down upon the land and protect it forever. The American voter is more often amused than not by the gush of his favorite vehicles for the dissemination of the happenings of the day, and the man who is amused by the extravagant praise or blame of the organs of his political party is the man who considers the primary elections of little account; for he makes up his mind that when an aspirant to office is nominated, if he does not Hke him he will not vote for him — unless he is so party-imbued as to vote for any man at all his party advocates, so as to not go against his principles as a Republican or a Democrat. Little by little the Police Department had, to a large degree, come to control politics in the city, until the misrule and corruption made an Augean stable which the new president of the Police Board was ex- pected to clean out, irrespective of "ring" rule and the heretofore unopposed governing power of those in authority. Mr. Roosevelt at once let it be seen what he meant to do. He had no sentiment for the men who made of politics a means to an end; he had as little feeling for other men, who would not go against their chosen party, though the city should sink for want of such opposition. Ke assailed the corruptionists, tricksters and incompetents in his new jurisdiction as vigorously as he had attacked abuses while in the Legislature and at the head of the Civil Service Commission. Blackmailers, bribers, bulldozers and bushwhackers of all sorts combined against him, doing all they could to thwart and puzzle him; but he overthrew them all, or nearly all, for he was not the man- to accept defeat unless overpowered, and he saw no reason why he should now be overpowered. He enforced the liquor laws and the Sunday laws, and the corner groggery-keepers to a man hated him and tried to dodge his decree by a liberal use of back-doors, though the fact of the front entrance beinp- barred ncfainst the better class of j3g THEODORE ROOSEVELT. the thirsty told against the income at the bar, Americans being prone to object to back entrances when there is a front one. An American is an inalienable citizen, whether he be born on the soil or "takes out his papers" after the prescribed length of residence, though he may have been born ten thousand miles from the sight of the dome on the capitol at Washington. Mr. Roosevelt reformed and trans- formed the police force from the Superintendent, whose removal he made imperative; punished the shiftless and venal, while he rewarded and praised the honest and efficient. His personal qualities were constantly displayed; he did not make the laws, but he was in office to enforce them and enforce them he must, or sink his honor and respectability. Threats to legislate him out of office moved him not to swerve from the high standard he had determined on, but only served to make him force his foes to abandon their plans. Scorn, abuse and ridicule were heaped upon him, but he was firm, and had no symptom of giving in to a horde that antagonized him by a flagrant abuse of power and an utter disregard of the rights of the community. He was told that he would "wreck his party." He knew better; he was a politician, and he knew that persistence in the right never yet WTCcked a party. He made the police force cleaner than it ever was before. He appointed solely on their merits, and without regard to their political tendencies, seventeen hundred new men for the further protectiom of the city. He caused sterner and fairer ideas a sto police methods to come into existence. Loot and blackmail were to disappear almost entirely under his regime, and decency to prevail. He did not attempt the impossible, and he had no vague theories as to the reformation of mankind; he knew man, and he knew that man insists that he has an inalienable privilege to do right or wTong according to other men's ideas of right or wrong; but Mr. Roosevelt prevented PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 137 this privilege from becoming that license which means the open violation of the restrictions made for the good order of society and the preservation of peace and respectability. Crime began to sneak away; there was a searchlight on it, and strong ilhmiination is not a good friend to ill-doing. New electric lights placed in old hitherto dark places will do much to disclose foul blots which of necessity must be expunged, or at least made cleaner. He did not accomplish all he desired, but he made the city cleaner and less corrupt than it had been for years, while the police force under him took on an appearance of uprjo-htness scarcely seen before in it. "During Mr. Roosevelt's incumbency," says a friend of his, "it was my privilege to enjoy his friendship and his confidence to some extent. I have sat beside him in his trials of policemen, and have been with him alone when he was dealing with the most confidential matters in the department. I have even listened to him dictate his private letters, remaining with him at his request, and 1 know abso- lutely that the sole idea which inspired him was a sense- of the loftiest devotion to the public good. I know men who were closer to him than I ever could expect to be, and their experience with him, related to me in private, simply tallies with my own. He was conservative to the last degree when justice and right were to be considered. He was radical to the utmost limits when injustice and wrong were to be swept away. He could not do all that he wished, but when he left that office he was the friend of every honest man in the department, and the New York police force was nearer what it should be than ever it was before. Theodore Roosevelt was safe in that office, and none knew it better than those who did wrong and wished to prosti- tute the police force to evil ends." No matter how men may have differed with him touching his policy and beliefs, or even his methods of administration, no one can deny 138 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. that he contracted the business of his office with an energy marked by enthusiasm, and that he accompHshed much. The lot of the patrohnan became better, he grew to be a more self-respecting and more efficient man, and the whole police force was of a higher plane. Tammany misrule was put down for the time being and a sadly dis- organized body of men fattening on the public treasury hated the one man who told them they were all wrong in their methods and proved it bv taking away from them much of the emolument to which they had no right. To a friend who expressed astonishment that a literary man should become Police Commissioner, Mr. Roosevelt said: 'T thought the storm center was in New York, and so I came here. It is a great piece of practical work. I like to take hold of a piece of work that has been done by a Tammany leader and do it as well, only by approaching it from the opposite direction. A thing that attracted it to me was that it was to be done in the hurly-burly, for I do not like cloister life." His enforcement of the excise law produced an abundance oi hurly- burly. Many said it was the most potent factor in the overthrow of the Strong reform administration at the next election and the return of Tammany to power; but Mr. Roosevelt answered all criticisms that the laws had been made before he came into office and that he must enforce them or sacrifice his self-respect and the respect of all right-minded citizens. Moreover, he maintained that the best way to obtain 'die repeal of an obnoxious law was by rigidly enforcing it, and not by ignoring it — the enforcement of a measure unpopular or offensive to people showed them liow^ wrong they had been in sup- porting it in the first instance, and if they chafed under it when it was put into execution they had only themselves to blame and might remedy it when they were given a choice to make a better law to rupplant it. Such grim humor might not be appreciated, but it •made people understand the man they had to deal with, and as he had MR. ROOSEVELT CAMPAIGNING IN NEW YORK— A SHORT STO P PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 141 often before said in substance the same thing they must now consider his words. The better classes were with him, though he might have said that the better classes always took care of themselves, and his words were leveled at the wrongdoer and the careless citizen unap- preciative of his rights and who could not, thus, be considered as be- longing to the better classes. His unheralded personal tours of in- spection about the city at night caught many a policeman napping, and resulted in many awkward situations, until the force assimilated the idea that their chief was a man who was not to be taken too lightly and to whom trifling was a weighty thing. Riis, the author of ''How the Other Half Lives," saw considerable of Police Commissioner Roosevelt, for the author of the pitiful book regarding the sad lives of the "submerged" was also looking about him. Touching the Commissioner's single-minded fearlessness in ofifice, Mr. Riis says: "I read a story when I was a boy about a man, who pursued by a relentless enemy, dwelt in security because of his belief that his plot- ting could not hurt an honest man. Mr. Roosevelt constantly made me think of him. He spoke of it only once, but I saw him act out that belief a hundred times. ^Mulberry street could never have been made to take any stock in it. When Mulberry street failed to awe Roosevelt, it tried to catch him. Jobs innumerable were put up to discredit the president of the board and inveigle him into awkward positions. Probably he never knew of one-tenth of them. Mr. Roosevelt walked through them with perfect unconcern, kicking aside the snares that were set so elaborately to catch him. The politicians who saw him walk apparently blindly into a trap and be- held him emerge with damage to the trap only, could not understand it. They concluded that it was his luck. It was not. It was his sense. He told me once after such a time that it was a matter of conviction t.i2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. with him, that no frank and honest man could be in the long run en- tangled by thr snares of plotters, whatever appearances might for the moment indicate. So he walked unharmed in it all." Of ^Ir. Roosevelt's attitude toward strikers Mr. Riis says: "I had watched the police administration in IMulberry street for nearly twenty years, and I had seen many sparring matches between work- ingmen and the Police Board. Generally there Avas bad faith on one side; not infrequently on both. It was human that some of the labor men should misinterpret ]\Ir. Roosevelt's motives when, as president of the board, he sent word that he wanted to meet them and talk strike troubles over with them. They got it into their heads, I sup- pose, that he had come to crawl; but they w-ere speedily undeceived. I can see his face now as he checked the first one who hinted at trouble. I fancy that man can see it too' — in his dreams. 'Gentle- men,' said ]\Ir. Roosevelt, T have come to get your point of view, and see if we can't agree to help each other out. But we want to make it clear to ourselves at the start that the greatest damage any workingman can do to his cause is to counsel violence. Order must be maintained, and, make no mistake, I will maintain it.' I tingled with pride when they cheered him to the echo. They had come to meet a politician. They met a man, and they knew him at sight." An honest man had touched the nature of other honest men by his honesty. Theodore Roosevelt believes that this countr}^ can be better governed by appealing to men's virtues than by catering to their vices. It is this very characteristic of his that the professional politicians and a part of the newspapers of the country could not understand, and they kept harping on the wrong he was doing the Republican party by antago-nizing the opposite party so much that there would be constant clues against his side of politics at every election. They thought there was a middle course, that as the effect of a poison is often counteracted by the administration of another PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 143 poison, on the principle that like cures like, so there might be a way of lessening the evils that had crept into the police department by a closing of the eyes to acts that had groAvn to be regarded mere peccadilloes, technicalities, or some other term applicable to describe a deviation from the spirit of the law. But Mr. Roosevelt went into the heart of the matter, regarded the adherence to the strict letter of the law as a foregone conclusion and recognized no middle course. With singular directness he called a bribe a bribe, not a present, while a blackmailer was a miserable wretch and a menace to society at large. If he did not mind making a "ruin" of his own future pos- sibilities, at least he should save his party from loss of votes by a little care in carrying out his ideas of reform, said others. He lost friends, newspapers had in them exaggerated portraits of him which they called cartoons, and lampoons on his characteristics were published in several parts of the country. The professional politician had hoarded up a grievance against him for his activity in Civil Service reform and now was the chance to make it public under the plea of sympathy for the Republican party which he "was doing so much to make unpopular" in a city, if not a State and several States, where it had never had the firm power of being the party of the majority. But, as he would have said, if his party could not stand his acts, if they had made a mistake in choosing him now, and then to represent it in an of^ce, then the fault was theirs, not his, they should have known him better when they made their choice, for he had never been vague or mystical in his intercourse with it. As for himself, he was in an office which he had sworn to serve with the best of his ability, and his understanding of that ability was that it was his duty to put into active practice the laws long ago made for the governing of the of^ce, but which had gradually grown weak and languishing and sometimes waxed into the semblance of death, though they never had been re- pealed. Repeal the laws, but do not break them; make other laws, 144 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. but keep them. And until new laws were made the old should and would be carried out so far as he was concerned no matter if he made or broke his party. It was a miserable party if it relied upon illegali- t!':s to bolster it up, rather let it go to pieces and from its wreck build '..•: another which should be so strong in its legal rights as to defy all assaults made upon it. But the party would not break, it would suffer nothing at his hands. Rather, he was strengthening it when \.c carried out the provisions of an office which should be above party {- 'leiest and so neutral that Republican and Democrat had an equally rail show so far as it was concerned. fa nmany Hall had derived no small share of its sustenance from cv.tzrJng some laws and accepting bribes for the non-enforcement 0. others. It had therefore accustomed the people of New York to toe spectacle of an omnipotent and irresponsible Legislature and con- stituti(5?ial convention combined, which thrived by extending pro- tectioil to the adult and infant industries of a vicious nature. Mr. Roosevelt's interpretation of the constitution and laws disclosed the existence of no such nullifying agency, and the shame-trodden and sin-beset creatures might know that their rights were not all dead even though their best of life had gone, and the child wronged could raise up friends who were no longer afraid of the powers that be. The oath taken by the Police Commissioner was to enforce laws, not amend or repeal them, and there was no law on any statute book which offered protection to any class of citizens who broke them, as there was none that made of any other class a mass of victims for rapacious despots. The Italian padrone could no longer import cripples to be used as beggars on paying for the privilege; the tenements could not use their padded lists of voters for election purposes; the denizens of the tenderloin district were no longer compelled to pay over to the police captains certain weekly or monthly sums to prevent house-raiding, PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 145 the dives could not carry on open gambling and petty lotteries if the owners or proprietors of them put their hands in their pockets and transfer what they there found to the pockets of the blue-coats who were sworn to keep the peace. Of course the Commission made enemies, but not among men like Mr. Riis who had spent the best years of his life in looking out the abuses of the poor and oppressed, and who saw in the brothel and the gambling hell and the groggery the first cause of four-fifths of the poverty and crime in the big city. A police force is essentially a militar)^ force. The chief of the police department in New York (or any city) who has thousands of men under him, ought to have the same high character and the same sort of abilities as those of a Major-General. Such a man should have the capacity and the character to command the respect of gentlemen as well as those of gamblers and thugs. His friends should not be law-breakers, but men who stand for the strength of the community in business and professional circles. He should have an absolutely clean name and should be a man whose integrity is not under even a shadow of doubt. The uprightness of such a man must afTect every man under him; his personal character will be felt instantly and will stimulate those of weak and uncertain resolution if left to themselves, and destroy those of criminal tendencies. Can an honest, clean, able man exert such a power and do it almost as soon as he enters upon his duties? When Theodore Roosevelt was President of the Board of Police Commissioners this very thing happened. When he came into Police Headquarters with his quick nervous stride, every policeman in sight would straighten up as though an electric current had been shot into him. Yet Mr. Roose- velt was not the chief of Police. Between him and the chief there was a network of legal barriers. But he broke the barriers down. More than that, sustained by only one of his three associates, and that one of a different political faith, he nevertheless sent the force of his 146 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. integrity clown the line so that it was felt by the lowest man in the department. Character and not "pull" began to count at once. Men were pro- moted because they were fit. There was no open alliance with crime by the police. Vice was made to seek cover. It was impossible to stamp it out, but it was not encouraged for the sake of money, as had been the case previously. The police, except in a few cases, ceased to blackmail. Justice was dealt out to the men on trial. Mr. Roosevelt would stop and consider how he could be absolutely fair, and his decisions would have immediate result. As the candidates for appointment came up for private examination as to their fitness, searching inquiries would be put to them. To one man who was nervous from the severity of his examination Commissioner Roose- velt said: "You are the man Father So-and-so spoke to me about?" "Yes, sir; but I didn't suppose being a Catholic made any difference." "Of course not," was the instant reply. "I don't care wdiether you are a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jew, or a Gentile. I think you'll do. Tell Father So-and-so if he has any more men like you to send them down here. I pass you; go and see the other commissioners." That policeman never took blackmail. There were hundreds like him. This for having a good man at the head of police affairs. And now take a i)ersonal illustration to show what a bad man at the head may do. Says an observer: "I was coming to New York on the Day Express. I got into conversation with a man who said that he was the chief of police in one of the large cities in the state of • He showed me his shield to prove his statement. He had taken just enough liquor to be talkative. He said: T had no idea of coming East till last night, but I made a touch and I thought I would blow it in. You see it w-as this way: I got a telephone mes- sage from the railroad station that three of the bis-gest crooks in the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 147 country were down there prepared to take a train. I jumped on a car and hurried down.' "What you doing here?" I asked. 'Nothin',' they said. 'We ain't done nothin' here and we ain't goin' to. We are just passin' through.' "I knew they hadn't done anything in town, and so I said, TIow much money have you got?' "Only a little," they said. "Come, that won't do," I replied. "Shell out, or up you go." "I could easily have fixed 'em; put up a job on 'em or sent 'em up as suspicious characters, and so they had to give up. They had fifteen hundred dollars. I took twelve hundred, run 'em out of town, and now I'm going to have a good time." "I haven't the slightest doubt he told the truth. I saw his money. He was the nephew of one of the best known men in one of our Eastern cities, a man wdiom I knew well, and he was going East to visit his uncle. Comment on the character of the police force under such a man is unnecessary." Certain of the difficulties which Mr. Roosevelt had to face were merely those which confronted the entire reform administration in its management of the municipality. Many people expected that this reform administration would work an absolute revolution in the government and even the minds of the entire population of the city, and felt that they had been almost cheated because there was not an immediate cleansing of every form of bad influence in New York. The Board of Commissioners were obliged to treat all questions that arose strictly on their merit, without reference to the desires of the politicians. The Commissioners went into this mode of procedure with their eyes open; they knew the trouble their course of action would cause them personally, and, what was more important, the wav their efforts for reform would be hampered. But there was no alternative, and they had to abide by the result. Yet they could not accomplish all they would have liked to do for they were shackled 148 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. by ridiculous legislation and by the opposition and intrigues of the most base machine politicians. Nevertheless, the net result of their work was that they did more to increase the ef^ciency of the police department, and establish its honesty, than had ever previously been done in its history. The Tammany officials made a systematic effort to excite public hostility against the police for their warfare on vice. The law- breaking liquor seller, the keeper of disorderly houses and the gambler had been influential friends of Tammany and principal con- tributors to many of its campaign exchequers. Naturally Tammany fought for them, and the best and most picturesque way to carry on such a fight was to paint with gross exaggeration and false state- ment the methods necessarily employed by every honest police force to do its work. Tammany found its best allies in the sensational papers. "Scandal forms the breath of the nostrils of such papers, and they are quite as ready to create as to describe it. To sustain law and order is humdrum and does not readily lend itself to flaunting wood cuts; but if the editor will stoop, and make his subordinates stoop, to raking the gutters of human depravity, to upholding the wrong- doer, and furiously assailing what is upright and honest, he can make money just as other types of panders make it. The man who is to do any honest work in any form of civic politics must make up his mind (and if he is a man of properly robust character he wall make it up without difficulty) to treat the assaults of papers like these with absolute indifference, and to go his way unheeding. Indeed, he will l"^ave to make up his mind to be criticised, sometimes justly, and more often unjustly, even by decent people; and he must not be so thin skinned as to mind such criticism overmuch." Mr. Roosevelt underwent this newspaper criticism. He was at- tacked by certain sheets and most unfairly written up. When a i MRS. ROOSEVELT AND BABY QUENTIN PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 151 particular raid was made on some miserable resort of high play, and the like, the papers next day came out with glaring headlines about the iniustice of the thing, more than once saying that the very same thing obtained in the high-class clubs frequented by the Commis- sioner and his friends, but that the arm of the law w^as supposedly not long enough to reach men with six figures to their bank accounts and who ruled the city arrogantly and with pure bombast. They promised to prove that he showed favoritism; that he left alone those places of a fine tone and selected others where the language might not be quite so elegant but where the same games were played. As for drink, they said, why not attack these same exclusive clubs where every night the members drank in public, in the full sight of the police, and were afterward driven to their homes in a beastly state of intoxication, their coachmen carrying them to and from the ele- gant private carriages which belonged to the friends of the saint-like Commissioner. Other vices were hinted at as having a friend in the Commissioner, when those of his acquaintances, as he knew very well, were concerned i'^ them,, but which he with hypocritic virtue assailed and put down where the repression made a show to the public and made him a seeming reformer. The cry was that vice in hio"h places might exist, but that when the social line was drawn it must go along with the "family liquor store" and small "stock offices" where occasional bets were made on a favorite horse. If he ever read these criticisms of himself Mr. Roosevelt gave no sign. He went on his way unabashed and uncaring, gaining every day the esteem of the right people who were now roused to the needs of a city that had too long rested silently under a wretched system of police, and where sin and shame stalked through the highways insolently and arro- gantly, and where in whose public offices were men in authority who upheld the disgraces of Gotham for what they netted their pockets. Mr. Roosevelt was going through a siege of opposition as well as 152 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. approval, though the opposition was closer at hand, being in the very places where he was most in touch and where he should of right have looked for aid in his crusade against corruption in the department of police. CHAPTER VIII. Tidal Wave of Reform— Blackmailing Tariff— Detectives— Methods of Restotine; Older— Rewards and Punishments— Police and Citizens— Sunday Liquor Law— Saloonkeepers and Politicians— Report of Interview— Wealth from Co'ruption— Sunday Law Enforced— Increase of Police Force— Examinatior s— Best Policemen— Honest Elections— Premiums for Merit— Tramp Lodging- houses— Bertillon System— Good Results of Reform. THE year before Mr. Roosevelt assumed the office of President of the PoHce Board of New York, Tammany Hall had been overthrown by a coalition composed partly of the regular Republicans, partly of anti-Tammany Democrats, and partly of In- dependents. The tidal wave which at the time (1894) was running against the Democratic party influenced the victory against Tam- many, but most of all in producing the result was the almost universal disgust of decent citizens for the rank corruption which under Tam- many's sway had honeycombed every department of the city govern- ment, and more especially the police force. No man not intimately acquainted with both the lower and humbler sides of New York life (and there is a wide distinction be- tween the two) can fully realize how far the corruption in the police force went. Except in the few instances where prominent politicians make demands, which could not be refused, towards the end of Tam- many rule in the department, both promotio^ns and appointments were made for money. There was a regular tariff of charges ranging from two or three hundred dollars for appointment as patrolman, to twelve or fifteen thousand for the office of captain. The money was reimbursed to those who paid by a system of blackmail which was mainly carried on at the expense of gamblers, liquor-sellers and keepers of disorderly houses, though every form of vice and crime 153 154 THEODORE ROOSEVELT contributed its quota; and many entirely respectable people who were ignorant or timid were blackmailed under a pretense that in carr>^ing on their various decent vocations they were violating obscure ordi- nances, and the like. When Mr. Roosevelt took office things were at a miserable pass. The regular Democratic organization, not only in the city but in the State, was under the dominion of Tammany and its allies, and they fought the Commissioners at ever>^ step. Tammany officials still left in power did all they could to balk the reform movement. Besides suffering from the difficulties which beset the course of the entire administration, the Police Board had to meet with certain special difficulties. Says Mr. Roosevelt: "It is not a pleasant thing to deal with criminals and purveyors oi vice. It is very rough work and it cannot always be done in a nice manner. The man with the night-stick, the man in the blue coat with the helmet, can keep and repress open violence on the streets; but most kinds of crime and vice are ordinarily carried on furtively and by stealth, perhaps at night, perhaps behind closed doors. It is possible to reach them only by the employment of the man in plain clothes — the detective. Now, the function of the detective is primarily that of the spy, and it is always easy to rouse feeling against a spy. It is absolutely necessary to employ him. Ninety per cent, of the most dangerous criminals and purveyors of vice cannot be reached in any other way. But the average citizen who does not think deeply fails to realize the necessity for any such employment. In a vague way he desires vice and crime put down; but also in a vagae way he objects to the only possible means by which they can be put down. It is easy to mislead him into denouncing what is necessarily done in order to carry out the very policy for which he is clamoring." Mr. Roosevelt and his colleagues on the Board employed detec- tives to ferret out vice which could not be openly reached by the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 165 police, and at once the opposing- politicians raved about "underhand methods," and even the good citizens said there might be "more honorable means of getting at the trouble." But it was the only way, for the vices which it was determined to suppress had friends which guarded them and who were astute and strong to resist open- handed ways; so the less beautiful methods had to be resorted to. The papers took it up, and there was often a pretty hue and cry about persecution and the like. The Commissioners had to deafen them- selves against all this, and go ahead, resolving that they were doing their best for the public, as the public would in time discover. Mr. Roosevelt, in speaking of his duties, modestly says that there was no need of genius in administering the police force. What was needed was the exercise of plain ordinary virtues of a commonplace type, which all good citizens are expected to possess. Common sense, honesty, courage, energy, resolution, readiness to^ learn, and a desire to be pleasant with every one, were the qualities most called for. The Commissioners found that, in spite of all that was said and done, in spite of widespread corruption and malfeasance in the poHce department, the bulk of the men wished to be honest, and were honest at heart. Of course, there were some who were past being cured of dishonesty, which had been practiced so long that it had eaten into the bone; but there were also some who had remained honest and upright in spite of temptation and terrible pressure. The m)ajority came between the two extremes. Although not possessing the peculiar strength to fight against corruption when victor}'' was nearly hopeless, they were nevertheless glad to be decent, and wel- i, corned a change of system under which they were rewarded for well- doing and punished for doing wrong. Says Mr. Roosevelt: "Our methods for restoring order and disci- pline were simple, and indeed so were our methods for securing efficiency. We made frequent personal inspections, especially at 156 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. night, turning up anywhere, at any time. We thus speedily got an idea of whom among our upper subordinates we could trust, and whom we could not. We then proceeded to punish those guilty of shortcomings, and to reward those wlio did well, refusing to pay any heed whatever in either case to anything except the man's own character and record. A very few of these promotions and dismissals sufficed to show our subordinates that at last they were dealing with superiors who meant what they said, and that the days of politi- cal 'pull' were over, while we were in power. The effect was im- mediate. The decent men took heart, and those who were not decent feared longer to offend. The morale of the entire force improved steadily." But something must be done in regard to the relations between the police and citizens generally. There had been a great deal of complaint of the brutal treatment of innocent people at the hands of the police. This was now stopped by the simple expedient of dismissing from the force the first two or three men found guilty of brutality. On the other hand, the force was made to understand that when an emergency arose necessitating the use of their weapons against a mob or an individual criminal, the Board without reserva- tion would be with the police. "Our sympathy was for the friends, and not the foes, of order. If a mob threatened violence we were glad to have the mob hurt. If a criminal showed fight we expected the officer to use any weapon that was necessary to overcame him on the instant; and even, if necessar)% to take his life. All that the Board required was to be convinced that the necessity really existed. We did not possess a particle of that maudlin sympathy for the criminal, disorderly and lawless classes which is such a particularly unhealthy sign of social development; and we were bound that the improvement in the fighting efficiency of the police should go hand ni hand with the improvement in their moral tone." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 157 Mr. Roosevelt had none of the mawkishness which pities the evil- doer who has his way and then rebels at punishment. The law, ex- cusing no man for ignorance of it, once broken must be vindicated. The lax sympathy of the unreasoning — that sees in every criminal an errine: brother or sister who should be taken to the heart and com- forted and consoled — did not enter into his plan of action. The man or woman who does wrong must take the penalty, just as one who indulges in frenzy-producing drugs must be made insane. Sin might be a disease, but there was a medicine for it; and while many a one- time criminal afterwards becomes a good, law-abiding citizen, yet at the time of his transgression he must be taught that he has gone against the law of the land and the rights of every citizen, himself included. To break up the system of blackmail and corruption was not so easy. It was less difficult to protect decent people in their rights of immunity from the attacks of the lawless belligerents, and this was brought about at once. But the criminal who is blackmailed had a direct interest in paying the blackmailer, and it was not at all easy for the board to get correct information regarding it. But they put a stop to most of the blackmailing by the simple mode of a rigorous enforcement of the laws, not only against crime, but also against vice. It was the enforcement of the liquor law which brought an earth- quake about the heads of the Commissioners. "The larger part of New York City wished to drink liquor on Sunday. Any man who studies the social condition of the poor knows that liquor works more ruin than any other one cause. He knows also, however, that it is simply impracticable to extirpate the habit entirely, and that to attempt too much often merely results in accomplishing too little; and he knows, moreover, that for a man alone to drink whisky in a bar room is one thing, and for men and their families to drink light wines or beer in respectable restauranis 158 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. is quite a different thing. The average citizen, who does not think at all, and the average politician of the baser sort, who only thinks about his own personal advantage, fxud it easiest to disregard these facts and to pass a liquor law which will please the temperance people, and then trust to the police department to enforce it with such laxity as to please the intemperate." The results of this system were evident on all sides when the Board came into power. Was the Sunday liquor law in New York a dead letter? No less than eight thousand arrests for its violation had been made the year before Mr. Roosevelt and his fellow commissioners came into power. It was certainly alive, while it was proceeded against only in cases where the violators of it had no political pull or refused to pay money. The liquor business stands alone among the businesses of the world. It has a tendency to produce criminality in the community at large and law breaking among the saloon- keepers and bartenders themselves. Supervision must be rigidly kept over this form of mercantile activity, and restrictions imposed upon the traffic. Up to the present the traffic has gone on and apparently cannot be stopped in large cities, though the evils can be minimized. "In New York the saloon keepers have always stood high among professional politicians. Nearly two-thirds of the political leaders of Tannnany Hall have at one time or another been in the liquor busi- ness. The saloon is the natural club and meeting place for the ward heelers and leaders, and the bar room politician is one of the most common and best recognized factors in local political government. The saloon keepers are always hand-in-glove with the professional politicians and occupy toward them a position such as is not held by any other class of men. The influence they wield in local politics has always been very great, and until our board took office no man ever dared seriously to threaten them for their flagrant violations of the law. The powerful and influential saloonkeeper was glad to see NIGHT INSPECTION— POLICE COMMISSIONER ROOSEVELT AND JACOB RIIS HUNTING OUT DELINQUENT PATROLMEN IN NEW YORK CITY PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 161 his neighbors closed, for it gave him business. On the other hand, a corrupt poHce captain, or the corrupt poHtician who controlled him, could always extort money from a saloonkeeper by threatening to close him and let his neighbor remain open. Gradually the greed of corrupt police officials and of corrupt politicians grew by what it fed on, until they began to blackm.ail aJl but the very most in- fluential liquor sellers; and as liquor sellers were very numerous, and the profits of the liquor business great, the amount collected was enormous." It was said that more than one police captain in Xew York waxed wealthy from this very source of income, and that many a row of houses on the outskirts or a huge fiat for the accommodation of many families could be pointed out as the spoils of a man who had played his game with energy and used the money nefariously taken in as a blackmailer of saloon keepers to invest in brick and mortar. The best class of saloon keepers found this system of blackmail and political favoritism intolerable. The law which the commissioners found on the statute books had been promulgated by a Tammany Legislature three years before. A couple of months after the Commission settled down to work, J. P. Smith, editor of the Wine and Spirit Gazette, the liquor dealers' organ, gave out the following interview, which is of such a remarkable nature that it has not been curtailed in quoting: Governor Flower, as well as the Legislature of 1892, was elected upon distinct pledges that relief would be given by the Democratic party to the liquor dealers, especially of the cities of the State. In accordance with this promise a Sunday-opening clause was inserted in the excise bill of 1892. Governor Flower then said that he could not approve the Sunday-opening clause; whereupon the Liquor Dealers' Association, which had charge of the bill, struck the Sunday- opening clause out. After Governor Hill had been elected for the second time I had several interviews with him on that very subject. Ig2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT lie told me, 'You know I am the friend of the hquor dealers and will go to almost any length to help them and give them relief; but do not ask me to recommend to the Legislature the passage of the law opening the saloons on Sunday. I cannot do it, for it will ruin the Democratic party in the State." He gave the same interview to various members of the State Liquor Dealers' Association who waited upon him for the purpose of getting relief from the blackmail of the police, stating that the lack of having the Sunday question properly regulated was at the bottom of the trouble. Blackmail had been brought to such a state of perfection and had become so oppres- sive to the liquor dealers themselves that they commmiicated first with Governor Hill and then with Mr. Croker. The Wine and Spirit Cacetfc had taken up the subject because of gross discrimination made by the police in the enforcement of the Sunday-closing law. The paper again and again called upon the police commissioners to either uniformly enforce the law or uniformly disregard it. A committee t f the Central Association of Liquor Dealers of this city then took r.p the matter and called upon Police Commissioner Martin (Mr. Roosevelt's predecessor in the Presidency of the Police Board). An agreement was then made between the leaders of Tammany Hall and the liquor dealers, according to which the monthly blackmail paid to the police was to be discontinued in return for political support. In other words, the retail dealers should bind themselves to solidly support the Tammany ticket in consideration of the discontinuance of the monthly blackmail by the police. This agreement was carried out. Now what was the consequence. If the liquor dealer after the monthly blackmail ceased showed any signs of independence the Tammany Hall district leader would give the tip to the police captain, and that man would be pulled and arrested the following Sunday. Then ]\Ir. Smith, after inveighing against the law went on: The (present) police commissioners are honestly endeavoring to have the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 163 law carried out. They are no respecters of persons, and our infor- mation from all classes of liquor dealers is that the rich and the poor, the influential and the uninfluential, are recjuired equally to obey the law. If there is any comment to be made upon the statements of this interview let it be briefly said that the statements were never denied. The law was a not unimportant factor in the Tammany scheme of rule. Tammany officials, police captains and patrolmen blackmailed the liquor men who had no pull and made them virtually the slaves of the ring. On the other hand, very wealthy and influential dealers in liquor controlled the police and made or unmade captains, ser- geants and patrolmen at their pleasure. The more powerful dealer in liquor might violate the law if he wished, unless he fell under the displeasure of the ward boss or the police, in which event he was not permitted to infringe upon the law in the least. Therefore, the new police board had one of two courses to follow. They could either let it be understood by the police that all saloon keepers might become law-breakers, or they could instruct them that there should be no law breaking at all. They followed the latter course. For two or three months it would seem there was to be a continual fight, and on Sundays Mv. Roosevelt had to call on half the force to carry out the provisions of the liquor law; for Tammany had drawn up the law so as to make it easy of enforcement for blackmailing purposes, but difficult of enforcement generally, certain provisions being inserted with the intention to make it difficult of general execution. But when the liquor dealers understood that the new men at the head of affairs did not intend to be bullied in the slightest degree, nor to be threat- ened or coaxed out of following a course Avhich the law of their office made imperative on them as honorable men, resistance practi- 164 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. cally came to an end. In the year after the commissioners first took office the number of arrests for the violation of the Sunday Hquor law fell to one-half of what they had been during- the last year under Tammany rule, w^hile the saloons were practically closed, whereas under Tammany most of them had kept open. Vice stalked rampant. The Tenderloin district of New York was a crying disgrace, not only to the city, but to the nation of which New York was the acknowl- edged Metropolis. There were not only streets, but w^hole districts where it was unsafe for pedestrians to go after nightfall, and these streets and districts were not in the very poor districts where wrong- doing is popularly presumed to have license, but in wdde avenues of "brown stone fronts," in regions where a certain amount of so-called elegance held sway. The writer of this book chancing about that time in a street of comparatively fine houses saw a man standing on the topmost step of an imposing dwelling in conversation with a woman, suddenly catch hold of the woman and hurl her headlong from the stoop into the middle of the roadway, where she lay appar- ently stunned and injured. At the next block a man crossed from one side of the street to the other and deliberately knocked down another man who jostled him, and without a word being said by either. No report of these assaults appears on the police reports, there were no policemen at hand, and the few witnesses of the out- rageous performances hastened away, as though such scenes were com- mon occurrences and that safety lay in flight. The Sunday saloon was largely responsible for the outrages committed in the city, and when Roosevelt came into power these Sunday saloons were held in check by the police force, and held effectually. And yet no new method was adopted by the new men, unless honesty was a new method, nor was the law enforced with unusual severity. It was merely enforced against the man with a pull exactly as it was against PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 165 the man who had no pull at all. There was no discrimination, and that was something new in the annals of the liquor trade, and the politicians of the lower kind and liquor dealers of the same sort attacked the commission with the utmost virulency. But the com- missioners went on their way satisfied with having given a much needed and wholesome lesson to the city that a law should not be put upon a statute book if it was not meant for enforcement, and that even a usually effete excise law might be put into practical execu- tion if the officials having it in charge so desired. The wealthy brewers and plutocratic liquor sellers who had swelled their bank accounts by violating the statute with the open connivance of the police showed their teeth, and conscienceless politicians sup- ported them and yelled for assistance at this extraordinary state of affairs. But the poor man, and more especially the poor man's w'ife and children were benefited, and they did not accuse Mr. Roosevelt of playing at the galleries as did some of the newspapers and political officials. The surgeons of the hospitals found their Monday work lessened to one-half, for brawls of drunken men lessened and there were fewer cracked heads than in years. The magistrates who sat in the city courts on the day after Sunday to try the offenders of the pre- ceding day had much less to do than usual, while many a tenement house emptied its families into the country for the Day of Rest be- cause the head of the family could not spend his money at the grog- geries. Obedience to law is the important element of good citizen- ship, and this obedience was being enforced by the commissioners, of whom Mr. Roosevelt was the head. There was no species of untruth to which the opponents of the commission did not resort in order to try to break them down in this purpose of enforcing the Sunday law^ For several wrecks they in- sisted that the saloons were as wide-open as ever, but they gradually quieted down when the counsel for the Liquor Dealers' Association 166 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. admitted in open court at the time when the commission secured the conviction of thirty of his cHents, that over nine-tenths of the liquor dealers had become bankrupt since the commission had stopped the illegal trade which afforded the taverns the larger portion of their revenue. They then began to say that the Commission in devoting its attention to enforcing the liquor law^ had allowed crime to in- crease. For some time the cry had some influence. But as this was not true, it went down with the other mendacities of the world. If a commentary be necessary upon its accuracy or inaccuracy it was furnished toward the end of the administration of the Commis- sioners, for in February, 1897, the Judge in addressing the grand jury congratulated that body upon the fact that there was at that time less crime in New York relatively to the population than ever before. In reorganizing the police force "the Board had to make and did make more appointments and more dismissals than had ever before been made in the same length of time. We were so hampered by the law that we were not able to dismiss many of the men whom we should have dismissed, but we did turn out two hundred men — more than four times as many as had ever been turned out in the same length of time before; all of them being dismissed after formal trial, and after having been giv^n full opportunity to be heard in their own defense. We appointed about seventeen hundred men all told — • again four times as many as ever before; for we were allowed a large increase of the police force by law. We made a hundred and thirty promotions; more than had been made in the six preceding years. All this w ork was done in strict accord with what has grown to be known as the principles of civil service reform. In dismissing men from the force attention was paid only to the man's efficiency and his past record, no attention being paid to outside pressure. Under the old rule no policeman possessing^ sufficiant influence was ever PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 167 dismissed, no matter how much he might offend. The same in making promotions; the Commission took into account not alone the man's general record, his faithfulness, industry and vigilance, but also his personal prowess as shown in any special feat of daring, in arrest- ing of criminals or in the saving of life. Again, in making appoint- ments the Commission saw that it was practicable to employ a system of com.petitive examination of a most rigid character, which combined a severe physical examination with, also, an examination of mental qualities such as could be passed by a man who had attended a pub- lic school. ''Of course there was also a rigid investigation of char- acter. Theorists have often sneered at civil service reform as 'imprac- ticable/ and I am very far from asserting that written competitive examinations are always applicable, or that they may not sometimes be merely stop-gaps, used only because they are better than the methods of appointing through political endorsement; but most certainly the system w^orked admirably in the Police Department. We got the best lot of recruits for patrolmen that had ever been ob- tained in the history of the force, and we did just as well in our ex- aminations for matrons and police surgeons. The uplifting of the force was very noticeable, both physically and mentally. The best men were those wh9 had served for three years or so in the Army or Navy. Next to these came the railroad men. One noticeable feature of the work was that we greatly raised the proportion of native born, until of the last hundred appointed ninety-four per cent, were Americans by birth. Not once in a hundred times did we know the politics of the appointee, and we paid as little heed to this as to their religion." An important task of the Commission was ascertaining if the elec- tions were carried on honestly. Under the Tammany regime the cheating was of the most flagrant nature, the police being often openly used to facilitate fraudulent practices at the polls. This was ■\68 THEODO-^RE ROOSEVELT. brought about partly from the character of the men used as election ofificers. By having a written examination of such election ofhcers and by a careful examination regarding their characters, the Com- mission certainly raised their calibre. Before each election the Com- missioners were obliged to reject for moral or mental shortcomings over a thousand of the men whom the regular party organizations, exercising their legal rights, proposed as election officers. The Commissioners then made the police understand that their only duty was to guarantee an honest election, and that they might expect the severest punishment if they presumed to interfere with an honest citizen on the one hand, or failed to stop fraud or violence on the other. In a number of other ways did the Commission under Mr. Roosevelt endeavor to effect reform in the police force, less important in the eyes of the public, but still important. Especially was heed taken to put a premium on meritorious conduct by awarding m.edals and certificates of honorable mention where promotion could not be had. A system of pistol practice was introduced by which, for the first time, the policemen were brought to a reasonable standard of excellence in handling their revolvers. A bicycle squad was organ- ized, the members of which distinguished themselves not only to duty but by exhibitions of remarkable daring and skill. Another piece of reform was the abolishing of the tramp lodging houses which had in the first place been started in the police stations in a spirit of sympathetic but not over-wise philanthropy. These tramp lodging houses not enjoying proper supervision had become in time mere nurseries for crime and chronic pauperism, tramps and loafers of every degree of worthlessness thronging to the city in the cooler weather when the open country was no longer pleasant, and taking up their quarters in the lodging houses provided for them. The Commission put them out of existence, a municipal lodging liouse being substituted. In this municipal house ah homeless PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 171 wanderers and unfortunates were received. They were made to bathe and were given night-clothes before going to bed. The next morning tliey were set to work and were so closely supervised that the habitual tramp and vagrant was speedily detected and appre- hended, and in time as many as could do so gave the house a wide berth. The Bertillon system of measurement for the identification of criminals was also introduced and did much work that had hitherto been relegated to the memory of the detectives when a wrong-doer was apprehended and there was a doubt as to his identity as a foniier criminal. In a short time there was a striking increase in the honesty and efficiency of the police force. "When we took office it is not too much to say that the great majority of the citizens of New York were firmly convinced that no police force oould be both honest and efficient. They felt it to be a part of the necessary order of things that a policeman should be corrupt, and they were convinced that the most efficient way of war- ring against certain forms of crime' — notably crimes against person and property — was by enlisting the services of other criminals, and of purveyors of vice generally, giving them immunity in return for their aid. Before we took power the ordinary purveyor of vice was allowed to ply his or her trade unmolested, partly in consideration of paying blackmail to the police, partly in consideration of giving in- formation aljout any criminal who belonged to the unprotected classes. We at once broke up this whole business of blackmail and protection and made war upon all criminals alike, instead of getting the assistance of half in warring on the other half. Nevertheless, so great was the improvement in the spirit of the force that although deprived of their former vicious allies they actually did better work than they ever did before against those criminals who threatened life and property. Relatively lo the population fewer crimes of violence 172 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. occurred during our administration of the Board than in any pre- vious two years of the city's history in recent times; and the total number of criminal arrests increased, while the number of cases in which no arrest fohowed the commission of crime decreased. The detective bureau nearly doubled the number of arrests made com- pared with the year before we took office; obtaining, moreover, 365 convictions of felons and 215 convictions for misdemeanors, as against 269 and 105 respectively for the previous year. At the same time every attempt at riot or disorder was summarily checked, and all o-ano-s of violent criminals brought into immediate subjection; while on the other hand the immense mass meetings and political parades were handled with such care that not a single case of clubbing of any innocent citizen was reported." Mr. Roosevelt had reason to be proud of this record of his com- mission. The result of the labors of the Commissioners was of signal value to the city, for the citizens had better protection than they ha-d ever had before, and at the same time corruption which had been a canker in civic affairs was cured. The Commission conclusively showed that it was possible to combine both honesty and efficiency in handling the immense police force. The attacks lev<:led at the Commissioners was not because of their shortcomings, bat because of what they did that was good, and as the attacks came from base sources they rebounded from those they were intended to hurt. The commission enforced the laws as they were on the statute books, it broke up blackmail, it kept down the spirit of disorder and repressed rascality, and it administered the police force with an eye that was alone for the welfare of the city. Mr. Roosevelt had the faculty for organization and he had proved its merit in his Presidency of the Police Board. When he took the position he found the greatest disorder and maladministration ; wdien he left it he left behind him a force of military men in blue coats who PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 173 for precision and excellence of deportment were worthy of the greatest praise, while their honesty could not be impugned, and who in their habits and behaviour would seem to vouch for the fact that the good government of the city was their one aim and object. They w^ere respected by all respectable citizens, and they went about their arduous duties with the pleasing reflection that they were men above reproach and able to look all other men in the face without blenching. They were free to say that one man had effected this reform in their ranks — before he came they were expected to be mere tools in the hands of unscrupulous men, to do the miserable behests of the viola- tors of law and order, and to view crime and criminals not as blots upon the city's fair name, but more as mines from which might be extracted gold with which to line the coffers of officials whose praise or blame kept them in office or dismissed them — the keeping and the dismissal for no excellence or wrong of their own, but for the much or little gain which their connivance with wrong-doing yielded their faulty chiefs. The one man who had wrought most of the change was Theodore Roosevelt. CHAPTER IX. Assistant Secretary of Navy — Foresees Spanish War — Personnel Bill in Navy-- I'ushing Repairs of Ships — $800,000 and $500,000 for Powder and Shot — Story of Old-time BufTalo Hunting — Washington's IMaxim — Address Be- fore Naval War College — War of 1812 Recalled — Need of a Reconstructed Nav}' — Necessary to Proceed at Once — Stirring Peroration — War Actually Declared — Resignation from Naval Department — "Roosevelt's Rough Riders" Organized. FROIM the presidency of the New York Police Board i\Ir. Roosevelt was called by President ]\IcKinley to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy in April. 1897. His energy and force were now to make him prominent in the Navy Department, for he showed himself to be a model of an executive and administrative officer, and, what is more, he had an instinct which singled out the best men in the service; and when he had found them he trusted them implicitly and thus gave to the country the full value of their efficiency. Of his service in the Department it is scarcely necessary to speak at length. He was virtually at the head for a time. He foresaw the Spanish war a year before it came; collected ammunition; insisted on the practice of marksmanship by all the vessels, and made the Navy ready for any emergency. Said the late Cushman K. Davis, head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; "If it had not been for Roosevelt, Dewey would not have been able to strike the blow that he dealt at Manila. Roose- velt's sagacity, energy and promptness saved us." But he never desired to pose as the man^vho made the Navy ready for the war, or to try to deprive his superior, Secretary Long, of all the honors due to his most excellent management of the Navy. The Navv was prepared for war, and the Assistant Secretary had no small 175 176 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. share in the preparation. He helped to pass the personnel bill, which did away with the standing cause of bitterness between the line and staff. "It is useless," he said, "to spend millions of dollars in the building of perfect fighting machines, unless we make the personnel which is to handle "these machines equally perfect." From the very first he said he saw the possibility of a conflict with Spain. He pushed reoairs on the ships, and visited the various naval reserves through- out the country, inspecting and making rigid inquiries. He left nothing undone that would, in his opinion, secure the highest effi- ciency in the service when the time for action came. It is asserted that it was he who first realized the tremendous importance of the opportunity for us if the war should open the East, and who had Dewey, in whom he recognized the right man for the place, ap- pointed to command the Eastern Squadron. Many naval experts agree that the wonderful marksmanship by the American gunners was due to his foresight. A characteristic story is told regarding Mr. Roosevelt's insistence on practice in the Navy. Shortly after his appointment he asked for an appropriation of $800,000 for ammunition. The appropriation was made. A few months later he asked for another appropriation of $500,000 for the same purpose. When asked what had become of the first appropriation, he replied: "Every cent of it has been spent for powder and shot, and every bit of powder and shot has been fired." When he was asked what he would do with the additional $500,000 replied: "Use every dollar of that, too, within the next thirty days in practice shooting." Rumors from Spain were disquieting; the American people waited. When the Maine was blown up, and so many thought that diplomacy might settle the matter, ;^,Ir. Roosevelt, it is said, had no doubt that war would follow, and his energies were bent v;ith redoubled force to getting the Navy in readiness. A\'lien war finally broke out he is PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 177 credited with a plan for taking Havana at once, and dictating terms from there. War is never pleasant; it could not be desired by even a man so energetic as Mr. Roosevelt in insisting upon the country having its rights, as he had heretofore insisted upon State, and city, and citizen having their rights. He had married again; a little family was growing up around him, and home and books must now liave had many new attractions for him. His hunting pleasures, too, were something, and he had earned a rest after his wock on the Police Board in New York. But he must forego much — home life must be put in the background; books left unopened, and the happy existence on the plains go out of his mind. It may not be out of place here to insert the experience of a man who, at the beginning of the war, and afterward when the then Assistant Secretary had assumed the highest office of the land, told the story. He thus speaks of his meeting with, and life near, Mr. Roosevelt years before: "It was along in the fall of '83 that I first saw him as he stepped from the train one evening in the little shack town of Little IMissouri, a point where the Northern Pacific Railroad crosses the river of that name in the heart of the North Dakota Bad Lands. A slender, blue- eyed young fellow of about 26, with little baggage, save a superb collection of rifles in perfect order. If yoii raked the continent with a fine-toothed comb you could have found no tougher aggregation of great American citizens unhung than the gang who, lounging in front of 'Big Mouth Bob's' canvas saloon across the way, eyed the stranger with lazy indifiference. In their ripe estimation he w^as only one of those predatory 'dude' hunters, who, after a frightened ex- istence of a day or two, 'pulled their freight' again for home in pro- found thankfulness. The station agent was, as usual, roaring- drunk. The stranger managed, however, to secure information that led to his hiring a guide named Sylvane Ferris, v;ho owned a bunch of saddle ponies grazing on the river bottom near by. These were 178 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. brought up and picketed to the sage-brush, while the stranger and his kit spent the night in a nearby dugout, preferring this to the vociferous joys of the 'Blue Goose.' Next morning the outfit started for the buffalo range. The stranger who said he was from New York and his name, Theodore Roosevelt (although it might have been Nebuchadnezzar, for all it signified there), led his string of pack ponies behind those of the guide, as they plunged into that awful trackless waste of the Bad Lands. Well-named indeed is that mysterious land: piled higher and higher were great precipitous peaks, their scarred and blistered faces streaked with scoria and lava. Sheer down at their feet lay ya\vning chasms from out of the bottom- less depths of which rose sulphurous smoke from subterranean fires that knew no end. Winding its treacherous way, the faint pony trail led along the faces of the giant buttes, where a single misstep meant death. Occasionally the trail crossed the swift, silent, tortuous river, that wound its quicksandy course through this, the darkest, strangest, loneliest land that human foot has ever trod. 'Thirty miles to the south, the bu^alo herd was struck, and the guide, whose respect for his employer grew with each mile of the trail, looked on with wonder. Here was a new breed ol 'critter,' a man who, while he kept his face and blankets clean, rode straight, shot straight, and took his medicine like a veteran. Hunger, cold, exposure were lost on him. With a grim, dogged courage that knew no end, he hung to the chase. He was after buffalo, and buffalo he got. After a most successful trip he returned home. The denizens of 'Big Mouth Bob's' caravansary were prone to admit that 'ther critter with a squint were plum handy with a gun.' "On Roosevelt the lesson of the Bad Lands was not lost. His keen eye took in those shiny valleys and sheltered ravines covered with bunch grass and sweet sage, upon which lolled in luxury countless herds of wild game. If this apparent waste would keep elk, deer and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 179 buffalo, why should it not keep cattle? Next spring he came again, but with more than six guns and a tooth brush. Behind him rolled train after train of stock, and all the equipments necessary for the making up of a practical camp. There was work for days and weeks, until gradually in the barren country there arose a ranch, busy with life and activity. The ranch was located eight miles south of Little Missouri, at a point where the lofty buttes receded, leaving a wide stretch of river bottom. From the brand adopted — the ''Maltese Cross" — the ranch took its name, which it still retains. The ranch was a success from the start. Next spring saw the river bottom alive with rollicking calves, while the big, clean beef steers lolled in the shade of the cottonwoods by the river bank in luxury. In the meantime another ranch had been established by Roosevelt called "Elkhorn" ranch, tw^enty-three miles north of the "Maltese Cross." In the locating and establishment of these splendid ranches the young owner was omnipresent. First, out in the hills shooting a deer for meat; then in the saddle helping round up, or down on the ground in a violent wrestling contest with a husky calf that objected to the branding iron; occasionally taking a solitary pilgrimage to the loneli- est buttes after mountain sheep. He was a good, though not a fancy shot. His success in hunting was due more to his dogged energy and grim untiring tenacity than to brilliant ritle work. He was particularly good at long range and running shots that recjuire accurate judgment of light and distance; all the more remarkable as he sights through glasses. He had a beautiful collection of rifles. His favorite, however, was a plain Winchester of forty calibre. One of his rifies (an express) was beautifully inlaid with solid gold plates, exquisitely engraved. I have never seen him use it, however. 180 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Roosevelt is a great lover of horses; particularly the half wild, wholly intelligent native horses. On the ranch he kept sixty. His first favorite was "old Manitou," whose picture is here reproduced. It is a difficult thing to find a really good hunting pony; any one who has ever tried to lift a limp, freshly killed deer on a horse's back can understand this. "Manitou" was steady as a rock and a faithful com- panion until age gave him immunity from work. His saddle was a beauty; it weighed over fifty pounds and was valued at $125. It was of handsomely embossed leather, ornamented with silver. One morning late in the fall the round-up was camped on the Lagguy Camp range, the horses were brought in at daylight with frost on their backs and all in an ill humor. Roosevelt threw his saddle on a big roman nosed bay named Ben Butler. Ben was a natural-born degenerate. He was past master in pitching, "sun- fishing" and high and lofty bucking. He was a crafty old villain, however, and submitted to the tightening of the hair cinches with only a nasty roll of white in his eye. Roosevelt mounted and rapidly braced for the inevitable shock; but to the suspense of the assembled cowboys (three of whom had already been thrown), Ben trotted ofif at first like a family cow. Then reaching a deep washout directly in front, he gave a bawl like a branded calf and went into the air. Down he came with his long neck poked under his fore legs, and with a shock that jarred the earth. Up he went again, the rider swiftly bracing back until his shoulders nearly touched the beast's loins. But with a trick that human skill could not avert, the horse spun in the air like a top and came down "all standing," or, as in as straight a perpendicular line as his evil skill could conceive. No human rider could withstand that shock and Roosevelt was thrown violently to the half frozen ground. Some cowboys lassoed old Ben, Vvho had taken to his heels at once, while the rider, pale PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 181 and drawn-looking, but with a steady gleam in his eye, rose from the ground and insisted on remounting. This he did, although he did not tell us until later that three of his ribs were broken. "That young fellow's got sand in his craw a-plenty," sagely re- marked "Three Seven Bill," who was captain of the round-up. Bill was a gaunt, hungry-looking varmint, with a 14-inch waist and long, crooked legs that would have shamed an old-fashioiied pair oi tongs. Nothing delighted him more than to "ride the tail offen them young fellers," as he called it, wdiich meant to "haze the ground" hour after hour at a fourteen-mile clip; changing horses three times daily out of each rider's individual string of ten, he rode us to a finish. Saddle sore and half dead from exhaustion, I could many a time have wept from sheer agony, but on and on he rode us without mercy at a stiff run, making a wide circle and retiring to camp only to up and at it again. Months of this work told on the trim young New Yorker. He became like the rest of us — gaunt, wind-swept and bleached white with alkali. Not a single time did he seek to take advantage of his larger wealth and station, but, like any common $40 cow-boy, stood up to his work without a whimper. While I am free to confess I have freely used every invective in my vocabulary against that country and its inhabitants in general, I never but once knew him to complain. It was on a bitter night late in the fall of '86. The last beef round-up was nearing the home ranch, when a fierce storm of sleet and rain came on, accompanied with intense cold. All hands were up until midnight, quieting the big herd of uneasy beeves that had been gathered vvith so much effort. We had carefully worked them to the foot of "Chimney Butte," that in a measure protected them, and, with night guards doubled, a few of us returned to the drenched camp, worn out with exhaustion. X82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Roosevelt and I slept together; our bed was of blankets spread on the wet, freezing groiuid, covered with a tarpaulin. Without even removing our spurs, we crept into its shelter, and were almost instantly dead to the world. An hour later the call came, "All hands turn out; cattle breaking away," accompanied by the slashing of a wet lariat across the canvas. With a hopeless groan I slipped out sideways and began to grope for my pony's picket line. Suddenly I heard a burst of picturesque language that expressed my thoughts exactly. "Blank the blankety-blank country; blank the blankety-blank fool that would leave God's country for this blank" — but there are situa- tions in all lives too sacred for public scrutiny. This was the first, last and only time I ever knew him tO' use violent language. It seems that there had collected in the depression be- tween us on the tarpaulin that covered the bed a good-sized tubful of half frozen rain. In his attempt to rise my partner had incautiously raised his knees, which, of course, tipped the whole refrigerating out- fit over his head and shoulders. He was very popular with the cowboys by reason of his courage and grit. During the early years of his Bad Lands career a certain element that hung out around "Big Mouth Bob's" elegant establish- ment at "Little Misery" bitterly opposed the development of the stock industry. But there was organized the Little Missouri Live Stock Association, with Theodore Roosevelt as president. Never in my life shall I forget that meeting of not more than half a dozen men, outside of Bob's gang that had sneeringly trooped in. A certain deputy sheriff was the leader of the aggregation. Step- ping directly in front and with the reflection of the man's big revolver Hashing across his glasses, Roosevelt scored him for a thief and scoundrel. Unarmed, he bitterly accused him of breaking his faith, and declared that instead of giving protection he encouraged lawless- ness and disorder. PATRIOl AND STATESMAN. 183 Men of the frontier are peculiarly sensitive; an accusation that would be laughed at here eats out a man's heart who is bred there in solitude. Death stares a man closely in the face who calls another a liar, be he what he may. Somehow in this case, in a way that I can- not understand, the very forcefulness of the speaker, his un- conscious steely nerve cowed the accused into abject silence. But his prestige left him forever in that land. During "off times" on tVie range Roosevelt did a good deal of literary work. We could always tell when he was thinking about his writing by the way he used to thresh through the sage brush in front of the ranch with hands clasped behind him. His relaxation from this kind of work was to pick up the weakest and trashiest novel he could find, which he would read with avidity. Of all the "bad" men that infested the country (and their name was legion), "Bad man Finegan" was cock of the walk. He said he came from Bitter Creek, where the further up you went the tougher the people got, and that his headquarters were at the fountain head. One day while peacefully sleeping ofif an overdose of Bob's "con- versation juice" the gang sheared his long red hair close to his head, leaving only a ridge like that of a roached mule. When he awoke his heart was bad. He sat down in the sage brush and pumped lead into everything in sight. He made pepper boxes of the houses and stampeded the citizens to the nearest timber like wild steers. Mr. Finegan was indeed a bad man. He shot "Blood Ran John's" oyster grotto full of holes and sent the editor of the Bad Lands Cow- boy into a cave at the foot of Graveyard Butte. Flushed with success, he stole a boat and floated down the river until he came to Roose- velt's "Elkhorn" ranch, from which he appropriated everything he fancied, and passed cheerfully on. As time went on and the influence of the sturdy ranchmen began to prevail, people began to flock into the squalid little shack town. 184 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. v.hich soon assumed all the vices and some of the virtues of the typical frontier settlement. The lawless element, as a rule, respected the yo'ung ranchman, although deep mutterings against the invasion of his herds were the rule. While the social life of the frontier centers in the saloon, I never once saw^ him enter one. He was a "good fellow" with the cow-boys, but never when in the riotous debauchery of their occasional sprees. Next to hunting, he liked best his horses. The "Alaltese Cross" horses were famed as tlie biggest, huskiest, most rampagious beasts in the Bad Lands. They were mostly half-breeds, with an appalling amount of vigor and evil w^ays. I brought one East with me six years ago. He lived to be 20, and I believe one of his last acts was to kick the front end off a farmer's milk wagon. Roosevelt's cattle, of Vvhich he finally had about 3000. were half- bred natives and bore the INIaltese cross on the left hip, with dewlap on brisket. During the first years of ranching he bred cattle, but later discountinued it. Only recently he sold the ranch, the buyer being his trusted guide and subsequent manager, Sylvane Ferris. As an evidence of the picturesque character of his associates it might be interesting to trace the careers of a few. "Big ]\Iouth Bob" drank hard; served a term for murder in Bismarck jail, and now is a broken down man. "Three Seven Bill" married the daughter of the section boss and is running a place of his own across the Montana line. "Three Fingered Jack," professional horse thief, was driven to the Powder River Mountains and frozen to death in a blizzard, ^\'ill Eaton is running a silver mine in Mexico. "Old J\Ian Lebo," his early hunting partner, is raising potatoes up about Keogh Wail. William Mennifield is running a ranch in the Kootanci Valley. "I.iver Eatin' Johnson the Squaw INIan" is eating government rations lip Buford way. The Marquis De Mores was killed in Africa, PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 185 It is hard to realize that the voice nov/ given to dignified utterances jpon which a nation hangs once was lifted in the roaring chorus, "Ole Black Bull come down from the mountain," nor that the strong young hand that forced his unwilling horse to breast the current of a treacherous river should now be guiding a pen on whose track rests the destiny of seventy-five million souls." In parts this may seem almost like a repetition of what has gone before in speaking of Mr. Roosevelt as a hunter, but it is the word of an eye-witness \\ho has in a way followed the fortunes of the man \\'ho in 1883 first was known to him, and who as a very young man evinced those qualities which have since made him recognized the country over as the typical American, the man of staying powers, the man of honesty and truth and uprightness. But war was imminent; Spain was arrogant and insolent. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy had his hands full. ''To be prepared for war is the most effectual means to promote peace," Washington wrote a century ago. Thus, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was doing all that in him lay to prepare for war — and peace might or might not be promoted. In his address before the Naval War Col- lege, in June, 1897, he says that in this country there is not the slightest danger of an over-development of war-like spirit, and there never has been an)' such danger. In all our history, there has not been a time when preparedness for war was any menace to peace. On the contrary, again and again we have owed peace to the fact that we were prepared for war; and in the only contest which we have had with a European power since the Revolution, the war of 18 12 was due solely to the fact that we were not prepared to face, nor ready instantly to resent, an attack upon our honor and interest. We are a great peaceful nation, a nation of merchants and manufacturers, of farmers and mechanics, a nation of workingmen who labor inccssantU^ 186 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. with head and hand. It is therefore idle to talk of such a nation being led into a course of wanton aggression or conflict with military powers by the possession of a sufficient Navy. The danger was of precisely the opposite character, he goes on to say, as, if we forget that in the last resort we can only secure peace by being ready and willing to fight for it; we may some day have bitter cause to realize that a rich nation which is slothful, timid or unwieldy is an easy prey for any people which still retains those most valuable of all qualities, the soldierly virtues. We but keep to the traditions of Washington, to the traditions of all the great Americans who struggled for the real greatness of America when we strive to build up those fighting quali- ties for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, no refine- ment, no culture, no wealth, no material prosperity can atone. Pre- paration for war is the surest guarantee for peace, he continues. Arbitration is an excellent thing, but those who wish to see this country at peace with foreign nations will be wise if they place re- liance upon a first-class fleet of first-class battleships rather than on any arbitration treaty the wit of man can get up. It is not only true that a peace may be so ignoble and degrading as to be far worse than war, but it is also true that it may be accompanied by more bloodshed than most wars. "Of this there has been melancholy proof during the last two years. Thanks largely to the very unhealthy influence of the men whose business it is to speculate in the money market, and who approach every subject from the financial standpoint solely; and thanks quite as much to the cold blooded brutality and calculating timidity of many European rulers and statesmen, the peace of Europe has been preserved, while the Turk has been allowed to butcher the Armenians with hideous and unmentionable barbarity, and has actu- ally been helped to keep Crete in slavery. War has been averted at the cost of more bloodshed and infinitely more suffering and degra- dation to wretched women and children than have occurred in any European struggle since the days of Waterloo." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 187 No matter what high ideals may make of the future and eliminate the need of war, as yet no nationcan hold itsplace in the world or can do any work really worth doing unless it stands ready to guard its rights with ^n armed hand. We of the United States have passed most of our years of national Hfe in peace. We should honor the architects of our wonderful material prosperity, but we feel after all that the men who have dared greatly in war are those who deserve best of the country. The men of Bunker Hill, and Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown, the men of New Orleans and Mobile Bay, Gettysburg and Appomattox, are those to whom we owe most. The Americans whO' stand highest on the lists of the world's great men are Washing- ton, who fought to found the country which he afterward governed; and Lincoln, who saved it through the blood of the bravest and best of the land. It is on men such as these, and not on the advocates of "peace at any price," or upon those who are so shortsighted that they refuse to take into account the possibilities of war, that we must rely in every crisis which deeply touches the true greatness and true honor of the Republic. The men who to-day protest against a Navy, and protest against every movement to carry out the traditional policy of the country in foreign affairs, and uphoJd the honor of the flag, are only following in the footsteps of those who protested against the acquisition of the great West, and who failed to make proper preparation for the war of 1 812, or refused to support it after it had been made. He does not believe that any considerable number of our citizens are stamped with this timid lack of patriotism. There are some whose eyes are so firmly fixed on the golden vision of universal peace that they cannot see the real facts of real life till they stumble over them and get hurt; and there are some educated men in whom edu- cation only serves to soften the fiber and to take away the higher and 188 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Sterner qualities that make for national greatness; these men prate about love for mankind, or for another country, as being in some vague way a substitute for love of their own country; and what is of more weight is that there are men of means who are always ready to balance a temporary interruption of money-making, or a temporary financial and commercial disaster, against the self-sacrifice necessary in upholding the honor of the nation and the glory of the flag. It ■has always been true, and in this age it is more than ever true, that it is too late to prepare for war when the time for peace is over. The men who opposed the war of 1812, and would rather have the nation humiliated by unresented insult from a foreign power "than see her suffer the losses of an honorable conflict, occupied a position little short of contemptible; but it was not much worse than that of the men who brought on the war, and yet deliberately refused to make the preparations necessary to carry it to a successful conclusion. The visionary scheme for defending the country by gunboats instead of by a fleet of sea-going battleships; the refusal to increase the Navy to a proper size; the determination to place reliance upon militia in- stead of upon regularly trained troops; and the disasters which fol- lowed upon each other and every one of these determinations should be studied in every school-book in the land so as to enforce in the minds of all our citizens the truth of Washington's adage that Tn time of peace it is necessary to prepare for war.' " As this applied to 1812, it applies to the present day. Then, as now, it was the Navy the countr}' had to depend upon in case of war with a foreign power, and then, as now, one of the foremost duties of a wise and far-seeing statesmanship should have been the building up of a good fighting Navy. The failure to provide such a Navy in 181 2 was followed by untold evils, for the fine efforts of the few cruisers we had proved what might have been done if we had had a fleet of battleships of some size. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 189 Ships and men were more easily supplied at the beginning of the century than is the case now. Now it takes months to build ships and guns, where it then took weeks at most, and in these days it takes far longer to train men to the management of the vast and compli- cated engines with which war is carried on. In which case it takes a much longer time to make the proper preparation, while at the same time wars are much quicker now, last so comparatively short a time, and can be begun so quickly that there is far less time than formerly to make preparations. It takes two years in this country to build a battleship. Cruisers would take nearly as long. Under ninety days the small torpedo boats could not be made available for use. Guns require two or three months for their construction; the larger ones can not be made in less than eight months. It takes a corresponding length of time to get up rifles and military munitions of all kinds. In most cases we should be compelled to build not only the weapons, but the plant in wdiich they are to be made in any large quantities. "Even if the enemy did not interfere with our efforts which they undoubtedly would, it would therefore take from three to six months after the outbreak of a war for which we were unprepared before we could in the slightest degree remedy our unreadiness. We must therefore make up our minds once for all to the fact that it is too late to make ready for war when the fight has once begun. The prepara- tions must come before that. In the case of the Civil War, none of ^ these conditions applied. In 1861 we had a good fleet, and the Southern Confederacy had not a ship. We were able to blockade the Southern ports at once, and we could improvise engines of war more than sufficient to put against those of an enemy which also had to improvise them, and who labored under even more disadvantages. The Monitor was got ready in the nick of time to meet the Merri- mac, because the Confederates had to plan and build the latter while 190 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. we were building and planning the former; but if ever we have to go to war with a modern military power we shall find its Merrimacs already built, and it will then be altogether too late to build Monitors to meet them." There must be adequate preparation made for possible conflict un- less we would court disaster. And preparations must take the shape of an efficient fighting Navy. America has no foe able to conquer or overrun its territory. Our not very large army should always be kept in first-rate condition, while every attention should be paid to the National Guard; but neither on the North or on the South has America neighbors capable of menacing or long resisting a serious effort on our part to invade them. "The enemies we may have to face will come from over sea; they may come from Europe, or they may come from Asia. Events move fast in the West, but this generation has been forced to see that they move even faster in the oldest East. Our interests are as great in the Pacific as in the Atlantic; in the Hawaiian Islands as in the West Indies. Merely for the protection of our shores we need a great Navy, and what is more we need it to protect our interests in the islands from which it is possible to command our shores and to pro- tect our commerce on the high seas." Tame sul^mission to foreign aggression of any sort is mean and unworthy; but it is even meaner and more unworthy still to first bluster and then submit, or else refuse to make the preparations which alone can obviate the necessity for submission. In public as in pri- vate life a bold front makes to insure peace and not strife. If we do not possess a formidable Navy war may be forced upon us at any time. When the Civil War was declared in what condition did it find the North? The ships were old and some of them unseaw^orthy, and the navies of both the South and the North were at zero. America was a PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 191 great power even then, but it had thought not enough of a navy and its defense on the sea-line was miserable. But we do not need a Navy merely for defense. Of course, our chief harbors should be fortified and put in a condition to resist attacks of an enemy's fieet, and one of our first needs is a good force of torpedo boats to use primarily for coast defense. We cannot rely on coast protection alone. Forts, heavy land guns and torpedo boats are indispensable, but in the state of naval and military knowledge to-day we must rely mainly, as all great nations always have relied, on the battleship — the fighting ship of the line. If our battleships can destroy a hostile fleet, our coasts are safe from the menace of serious attack. If we have no fleet to meet the enemy's on the high sea, or to anticipate his stroke by our own, then every city within reach from the sea must spend men and money preparing for an attack that may not come, but once attempted would cause an irredeemable disaster. "Still more is it necessary to have a fleet of great battleships if we intend to live up to the Monroe Doctrine, and to insist upon its observance in the two Americas and the islands on either side of them. If a foreign power, whether in Europe or in Asia, should de- termine to assert its position in those lands wherein we feel that our influence should be supreme, there is but one way in which we can effectively interfere. Diplomacy is utterly useless when there is no force behind it; the diplomat is the servant, not the master, of the soldier. The prosperity of peace, commercial and material prosperity, gives no weight whatever when the clash of arms comes. Even great naked strength is useless if there is no immediate means through which that strength can manifest itself. If we mean to protect the people of the lands who look to us for protection from tyranny and aggression; if we mean to uphold our interests in the teeth of the 192 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. formidable Old World powers, we can only do it by being ready at any lime, if the provocation is sufficient, to meet them on the seas where the battle for supremacy must be fought. Unless we are pre- pared so to meet them let us abandon all talk of devotion to th.t Monroe Doctrine or to the honor of the American name." If it wishes to retain its self-respect most certainly this nation can- not stand still and keep undimmed the honored traditions inherited from the men whose swords founded and preserved it, Mr. Roose- velt asks that the work of upbuilding our Navy, and of putting the United States where it should be, go forward without hesitation. The whole country should ask it, and did, not in the interest of war, but in the interest of peace. A nation should never fight unless forced to fight, but it should always be ready to fight. The mere fact that it is in trim for lighting will generally spare it the necessity of fighting. "If this country now had a fleet of twenty-five ships of battle their existence would make it all the more likely that we should not have war. It is very important that we should as a race keep the virile fighting qualities and should be ready to use them at need; but it is not at all important to use them unless there is need. One of the surest ways to attain these qualities is to keep our Navy in first-class trim. There never is and never has been on our part a desire tO' use a weapon because of its being well tempered. There is not the least danger that the possession of a good Navy will render this country overbearing toward its neighbors. The direct contrary is the truth. An unmanly desire to avoid a quarrel is often the surest way to pre- cipitate one, and utter unreadiness to fight is even surer. * * * If in the future we have war it will almost certainly come from some action or lack of action on our part in the way of refusing to accept responsibilities at the proper time, or failing to prepare for war when war docs not threaten. An ignoble peace is even worse than an un- successful war, but an unsuccessful war should leave behind it a PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 193 legacy of bitter memories which would hurt our national develop- ment for a generation to come. It is true that no nation could actu- ally conquer us, owing to our isolated position; but we could be seriously harmed, even materially, by disasters that stopped far short of conquest; and in these matters, which are far more important than things material, we could readily be damaged beyond repair. No material loss can begin to compensate for the loss of national self- respect. The damage to our commercial interests by the destruction of one of our coast cities would be as nothing compared to the humiliation which would be felt by every American worthy of the name if we had to submit to such an injury without amply avenging it. It has been finely said that 'A gentleman is one who is willing to lay down his life for little things;' that is, for those things which seem little to the man who cares only whether shares rise or fall in value, and to the timid doctrinaire who preaches timid peace from his cloistered study. Much of that which is best and highest in national character is made up of glorious memories and traditions. The fight well fought, the life honorably lived, the death bravely met — those count for more in building a high and fine type of temper in a nation than any possible success in the stock market, than any possible prosperity in commerce or manufactures. A rich banker may be a valuable and useful citizen, but not a thousand rich bankers can leave to the country such a heritage as Farragut left, when lashed in the rigging of the Hartford, he forged past the forts, and over the unseen death below, to try his wooden stem against the ironclad hull of the great Confederate ram. The people of some given section of our country may be better off because a shrewd and wealthy man has built up therein a great manufacturing business, or has extended a line of railroad past its doors, but the whole nation is better, the whole nation is braver because Gushing pushed his little torpedo boat through the darkness to sink beside the sinking Albemoi'le. 194 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "Every teat of heroism makes us forever indebted to the man who performed it. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of mis- fortune, all devotion to the ideal of honor and the gloi7 of the flag make for a finer and a nobler type of manhood. It is not only those who do and endure who are benefited, but also the countless thou- sands who are not themselves called upon to face the peril, to show the strength, or to win the reward. All of us lift our heads higher because those of our countrymen whose trade it is to meet danger have met it well and bravely. All of us are poorer for every base or ignoble deed done by an American, for every instance of selfishness or weakness or folly on the part of the people as a whole. We are all worse off when any of us fails at any point in his duty toward the State in time of peace, or his duty toward the State in time of war. If ever'we had to meet defeat at the hands of a foreign foe, or had to submit tamely to wrong or insult, ever}' man among us worthy of the name of an American would feel dishonored and debased. "On the other hand, the memory of every triumph won by Ameri- cans, by just so much helps to make each American nobler and better. Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsi- bilities of citizenship because of the perils over which in the past the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish through which in the days that have gone our forefathers moved on to triumph. There are higher things in this life than the soft and easy enjoyment of material comfort. It is through strife or the readiness for strife that a nation must win great- ness. We ask for a great Navy, partly because we think that the pos- session of such a Navy is the surest guarantee of peace, and partly because we feel that no national life is worth having if the nation is not willing when the need shall arise to stake ever)-thing on the supreme arbitration of war, and to pour out its blood, its treasure, PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 197 and its tears like water, rather than to submit to the loss of honor and renown. "In closing, let me repeat that we ask for a great Navy, we ask for an armament fit for the nation's needs, not primarily to fight, but to avert fighting. 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 W'Orth having." Imagine this speech, delivered when the troubles with Spain were fomenting, and when youth and bravery in the country was holding its head high, its eye bright, at the thought of a chance to take up arms for the land we called our own! Nor are the sentiments of this speech those of a man who sits idly by when the honor of his country is threatened. When war had been actually declared Mr. Roosevelt submitted his resignation to the President, April i6th, and tried to get an appoint- ment on General Lee's staff. Then came the Rough Rider idea — hardly thought of before realized. "Roosevelt's Rough Riders" — the name struck the popular fancy, an< the regiment became famous before it was organized. During Mr. Roosevelt's summer months on his ranch in Dakota he had learned to know and appreciate cow-boys as courageous men, strong to bear the hardships of war. From such men the Rough Riders were* chiefly recruited. Four years' membership in the Eighth Regiment of the New York State National Guard, to which Mr. Roosevelt belonged from 1884 to 1888, and in which he was for a time a captain, furnished at least a basis for his military career. But ! more than all else that induced him to go to the front was his de- votion to the cause for which the war was to be fought and his love 198 TIIECDORE ROOSEVELT. of active life. These same reasons drew to him scores of young men of prominent families from all parts of the country, who joined the Western cavalrymen to go and fight the Spaniards. The regiment thus formed was known as "Roosevelt's Rough Riders/' although it was commanded by Colonel Wood, of the Regular Army, Roose- velt being second in command, with the rank, until promoted, of Vif.\h tenant-colonel. CHAPTER X. Thf Ro'igh Riders— Mustering Places of Regiment— Colonel Wood and I.-'t"- tenant-Colonel Roosevelt— Men from Colleges, Clubs, Police Force, Cowbo>s, Miners, Indians— Personnel of Some of the Men— Appreciation of Colon'-l Roosevelt— "Remember the Maine"— Trouble in Getting Matters Organized— Drilling-grounds- Union of Rough Riders— Impatient to go into Action- Orders to Move. 1"^ HE mustering places of the regiment were in New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory. The difficulty experienced was not in selecting the men but in rejecting them, for in a day or so after it was announced that there was to be such a regiment the officers were deluged with applications from every part of the Union. Hundreds of regiments were called into existence by the National Government, and each one was sure to want equipment, and their wants would not be satisfied quickly enough for a man like Colonel Roosevelt, who had little patience with red-tapeism. Colonel Wood, who knew how unprepared the country was for war, and its needs, also knew it was very important to get in the demands of the Rough Riders as soon as possible. In spite of the slowness of bureaucrats, he succeeded in getting rifles, cartridges, revolvers, clothing, shelter tents and horse-gear just in time for the Santiago expedition. Colonel Wood was acquainted with the inesti- mable advantage of smokeless powder, and, besides, he wished the Rough Riders to have the shooting irons of regulars. This meant that the Rough Riders would form brigades with the regulars, and it was pretty sure the regulars would do the bulk of the lighting if the war did not last too long. By acting with the greatest prompt- 1.9'.) 200 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. ness he had his men armed with the Krag-Jorgensen carbine used by the regular cavalry. The regiment was allowed to be made up of companies from the four territories exclusively; but as the original number of seven hundred and eighty was raised to a thousand, chances were given to volunteers who did not come from the Terri- tories. Recruits came from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other colleges, while exclusive clubs of Boston and New York contributed to fill the vacancies; and besides these there were men who did not belong to colleges or clubs. Four policemen who had served under Colonel Roosevelt when he was President of the New York Police Board insisted upon coming, and it seemed that friends of Colonel Roosevelt in every State wished to accompany him to the scene of action in Cuba. Harvard being Colonel Roosevelt's own particular college, so many applications were made from its students that not a tenth of them could be taken; and they and the other college men did not ask for commissions, they were content to go as plain troopers. They sought to enter the ranks of the Rough Riders as though it meant anything but the hardest kind of work, rough fare and possibly death. Colonel Roosevelt said that he felt doubtful at first of letting men of this stamp come in, for he was not certain that they had counted the cost of serving in the ranks; but as they would come, and plainly knew their own minds, they were allowed to pass muster. Before having them sworn in, however. Colonel Roosevelt got them to- gether and told them that if they went in they must expect not only fighting, but to perform the laborious, wearisome labor incident to the ordinary soldier's life; that there would be privations, and fevers, and other sicknesses, and that they must obey orders unquestion- mgly and do their duty, no matter what the assignment to it might mean to their comfort. Not one of them backed out. I PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 201 Of the regiment, though, these men formed but a small fraction. Colonel Wood was in San Antonio, and this contingent was sent to him, while Colonel Roosevelt spent a week in Washington hurrying up the different bureaus and getting things generally in shape. Then he went down to San Antonio and found the men from the Terri- tories, who made up the bulk of the regiment, and gave it its peculiar character. They came from the four Teritories that yet remained in the boundaries of the United States, from lands only recently won over to wdiite civilization, and where the conditions of life were still rude and unaffected by the elegancies of the East. They were magnificent specimens of men, tall and sinewy, with stern, weather- beaten faces, and eyes that looked any m?,n in the face. They were the wild rough riders of the plains, used to handling untamed savage horses, and used to hunting with the rifle as well for sport as for a means of living. Most of them had, one time or another, herded cattle and shot big game. They were used to life in the open and to looking out for themselves under adverse circumstances, and to the lawless freedom of the plains and the hardships of the round-up and mining camps. A few had come from small frontier towns, but the majority from the wilderness, the hunters' cabins and the cow camps, and were in glaring contrast to the college men and club men used to the soft amenities of life — the opera and the ball-room, the well- ordered athletic field, and glossy horses trained by jockeys. The captains and lieutenants were after men of the regular army — men who had gone against Apache, Ute, and Cheyenne, and who, ending their terms of service, had settled in the new communities and be- come prominent men. But not all were such, there were sheriffs and deputy-sheriffs, marshals and deputy-marshals, strong men who had waged war on Indians, or upon bands of desperate white renegades. "There was Bucky O'Neill, of Arizona, captain of Troop A, the mayor of Prescott, a famous sheriff throughout the West for his feats 202 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of victorious warfare against the Apache, no less than against the white road-agents and men-killers. ffis father had fought in Meagher's Brigade in the Civil War, and he himself a born soldier, a leader of men. He was a wild, reckless fellow, soft-spoken, and of dauntless courage and boundless ambition; he was staunchly loyal to his friends, and cared for his men in every w^ay. There w^as Captain Llewellen, of New Mexico, a good citizen, a political leader, and one of the most noted peace-officers of the country; he had been shot four times in pitched fights with red marauders and white outlaws. There was Lieutenant Ballard, who had broken up the Black Jack gang of ill-omened notoriety, and his captain, Curry, another New Mexican sheriff of fame. The officers from the Indian Territory had almost all served as marshals and deputy-marshals; and in the Indian Terri- tory service as a deputy-marshal m^eant capacity to figh^ stand-up battles with gangs of outlaws. Three of our highest officers had been in the regular army. One was Major Alexander Brodie, from Arizona, afterv/ard Lieutenant-Colonel, who had lived for twenty years in the Territory, and had become a thorough Westerner with- out sinking the West Pointer — a soldier by taste as well as training, whose men worshiped him and would follow him everywhere, as they would Bucky O'Neill or any other of their favorites. Brodie was running a big mining Inisiness, but when the Maine was blown up he abandoned everything and telegraphed right and left to bid his friends get ready for the fight he saw^ impending. There w^as Micah Jenkins, the captain of Troop K, a gentle and courteous South Carolinian, on whom danger acted like wine. In action he was a perfect gamecock, and he won his majority for gallantry in battle. Finally, there was Allyn Capron, who was, on the whole, the best soldier in the regiment. In fact, I think he was the ideal of what an American regular army officer should be. He was the fifth in descent from father to son who had served in the Army of the United PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 203 States, and In body and mind alike he was fitted to play his part to perfection. Tall and lithe, a remarkable boxer and walker, a first- class rider and shot, with yellow hair and piercing blue eyes, he looked what he was — the archetype of the fighting man. He had under him one of the two companies from the Indian Territory, and he so soon impressed himself upon the wild spirit of his followers that he got them ahead in discipline faster than any other troop In the regiment, while at the same time taking care of their bodily wants. His ceaseless effort was so to train them, care for them, and inspire them as to bring their fighting efficiency to the highest possible pitch. He required Instant obedience, and tolerated not the slightest evasion of duty; but his mastery of his art was so thorough and his per- formance of his own duty so rigid that he won at once not merely their admiration, but that soldierly affection so readily given by the man in the ranks to the superior who cares for his men and leads them fearlessly in battle." Thus Colonel Roosevelt writes of his officers, appreciatively, more than kindly, himself filled with affection for brave men and fearless fighters. He had gathered round him officers for his regi- ment from every station of life — cow-boys, college graduates — and no matter what might be their social position they had come to fight in the interests of their country, hardy and brave and ready for any adventure on the field of battle. Colonel Roosevelt's name was the synonym for bravery and endur- ance, he had already served his city, his State and the country well and often when the odds had been against him, he was a college man and a gentleman, a plainsman and a hunter, and such a man, together with his personality, was bound to attract just such officers when he raised a regiment to go and battle against a foe who dared to encroach upon the land that was so dear to him and which he had so ofteu spoken of in terms of the American and the patriot. 204 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. So much for the officers. The men in the ranks to a large extent were young, though some were middle aged. Colonel Roosevelt's popularity in the far West was bound to secure for the Rough Riders just such men as now flocked to enlist— those who had killed buffalo, those who had fought the redskins when the tribes were still on the war path. The very young ones had led rough lives as well, had gone through hardship and danger, many having originally come from the East ripe for adventure, sailing around the Horn and mining in Alaska. Others had been born and bred in the West which they had never left, and had never seen a great city. Some did not go by their own names; others rejoiced in only half a name, an adjective supplying the apparent neglect — Cherokee Bill, Happy Jack of Arizona, Smoky Moore the bronco buster, so called because in cow-boy dialect a vicious horse is often a "smoky" horse. Then there was Rattlesnake Pete, who had consorted familiarly among the Moquis Indians, and taking part in snake-dances earned his sobri- quet. Among others were professional gamblers, while four of five Baptist or Methodist clergymen, in good or bad standing, helped to swell the ranks and were good fighters when the time came to show what they could do. Others again there were whose past reputations were of the shadiest kind, crime such as flourishes on the borderland between civilization and savagery having claimed them. But the larger body had served at different times in the armed bands of men who are pioneers of civilization in putting down the savagery of newly-acquired territory. Then the Indians came. There were Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks, some of full blood, others half breeds or shaded off until it was difficult to detect the dif- ference between them and the white troopers with whom they came to live in perfect equanimity. One of the best fighters and bravest men in the regiment was Pollock, a full blooded Pawnee. Pie was an educated man, as were most of the other Indians, having been THK R()OSKVKi;r CHILDREN IN 189S. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 207 taught in one of the Indian schools. He was a silent, solitary fellow and an excellent penman, and when the regiment got to Santiago he became regimental clerk. Another of the Indians came from Texas where he had been brakeman on the Soiithern Pacific Railroad. He wrote to Colonel Roosevelt, telling him he wished to enlist, and he was taken. He was named Colbert, which name at once attracted the Colonel's attention, for he was familiar with the history of the Cherokees and Chickasaws during the eighteenth century, when those tribes had foregathered East of the Mississippi. Early in the eighteenth century many traders, who were chiefly Scotchmen settled among the Indians and married dusky maidens, and the half-breed descendants of a Scotchman named Colbert became celebrated chiefs of the Chickasaws. Colonel Roosevelt had the man come to him and found as he supposed that he was a descendant of the old Chickasaw chiefs. Colbert brought into the regiment his "partner," who was a white man. The tv/o men had been boon companions for years and were always together in the regiment. There were other Indians whose names were recognized by Col- onel Roosevelt, who knew so much about the West and the tribal people there. One of the Cherokees was named Adair, and on in- quiry the Colonel discovered that he was descended from the man v;ho a hundred years ago wrote a huge volume, interesting to-day, about the Cherokees, with whom he had spent years of his life as a trader and an agent, and who also married into the tribe. "I don't know," says Colonel Roosevelt, "that I ever came across a man with a really sweeter nature than another Cherokee named Holderman. He was an excellent soldier, and for a long time acted as cook for the headquarters' mess. He was a half breed and came of a soldier stock on both sides and through both races. He explained to me once why he had come to the war; that it was because his people always Iwd fought when there had been a war, and he could 208 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. not feel happy to stay at home when the flag was going into battle. Two of the young Cherokees came to me with a most kindly letter from one of the ladies who had been teaching in the Academy from which they were about to graduate. She and I had known each other in connection with governmental and philanthropic work on the reservations, and she wrote to commend the two boys to my attention. One was on the Academy foot-ball team and the other in the glee-club. Both were fine young fellow^s. The foot-ball player now lies buried with the other dead who fell in the fight at San Juan. The singer was brought to death's door by fever, but recovered and went back to his home." A wilder type of Indians also entered the regiment, their wildness like that of the cow-boys with whom they had long associated, and some had characters which had much to be desired in them and re- quired the discipline of army life to bring them to a realization of the error of their ways. Many of the recruits came from Texas, and these w^ere, perhaps, of the highest average, for most of them had served in the famous body of frontier fighting men, the Texas Rangers. They needed no teaching in military discipline, for they knew how to obey without question and how to assume responsi- bility. These troopers to a man were fine shots, and horsemen and trailers, and having lived sO' much in the open they were capable of tremendous endurance and used to conquering almost insuperable difficulty. The Arizona and New Mexico men had, largely, taken part in the wars against the Apaches, who are the wildest of all the American red men and most formidable in their own method of warfare. Any man who had held his own, kept his nerve and a firm hand after living in a section wdiere at any moment he might come across hidden death from a foe who was sly and treacherous in the extreme, was scarcely apt to quail before an enemy arrayed in the modern mode of civilized battle. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 209 These men had fought and trailed the Apaches, were keen to face danger, and watchful and alert, while their pulses were steady and their aim good to bring down a foe that opposed them. One of the men in the exercise of his pecuHar office of peace-officer had had a half of one of his ears bitten off in an amicable tiff with a man who thoup'ht he would question the authority of an officer who wished to put him down. There were also bronco-busters from Oklahoma who never walked if they could by any possibility ride. One of them on being reproved for not keeping step on the drill ground said that all he knew was that he could keep step with any man when on horse- back, for his legs were short and marches were troublesome to him. ''One old friend of mine had come from far Northern Idaho to join the regiment at San Antonio. He was a hunter, named Fred Herrig, an Alsatian by birth. A dozen years before he and I had hunted mountain sheep and deer when laying in my winter stock of meat for my ranch on the Little Alissouri, sometimes in the bright fall weather, sometimes in the Arctic bitterness of the early Northern winter. He was the most loyal and simple-hearted of men, and he had come to join his old 'boss' and comrade in the bigger hunting which we were to carry on through the tropic mid-summer. The ability to draw men to him was never made more apparent than when Colonel Roosevelt got up his regiment. He had fra- ternized with all sorts and conditions of men, never losing his dignity in doing so, and whether it was in the far West at round-ups and with ^ cow-boys or hunting buffalo or deer, and other game; whether it was in the sordid haunts of New York city politics, making speeches at the hustings before frowzled men and the flash fraternity that had the meetings in hand; whether it was in the official precincts of politicians where rulership was vvith other sorts of men; in State Assembly; at the capital as Assistant Secretary of the Navy; among studious men and authors; in drawing rooms and clubs — it was one 210 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. and the same thing, his individuality was cecognized, his power known, his friendly, genial manner appreciated and his stern desire for justice and right comprehended. So that when he would go to war when there had been insult offered to the flag he held with so much veneration, men who had known him or heard of him in his various offices and capacities flocked to him to support him, for he was a man of men, they could trust and believe in him, and under his standard they were willing and anxious to trust their own reputations, their lives. In speaking appreciatively of the regiment that had been raised, Colonel Roosevelt finds that the temptation is great to go on and enumerate man after man who stood out from the mass — hunters, tamers of horses, men who had put down disorder in wild communities. Rocky Mountain stage drivers who had resisted road agents and saved the quaking passengers of the stages, miners, cow- punchers, ropers of wild steers in the mesquit brush of the Nueces, college men, club men, business men, clerks. Such were the men who composed the regiment, men used to hardship and privation, soldiers who were ready made so far as capacity as individual fighters was concerned; and men who knew little of the harder phases of out- door life except that learned on the athletic field, in sailing yachts or having mounts of blooded horses, but who were also soldiers at heart and in spirit, men to whom the traditioms of their country meant much and with whom the honor of America was a dear possession and in whose veins leaped the blood of patriots till they burned with the desire to go on the field of carnage and let Spain know how well they 'remembered the Maine.' " The special task of Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel Roose- velt was to teach the incongruous set of men to act together and obey orders in military manner. And the most important task was to make them ready in the shortest possible length of time. They were bound to see fighting for they were to be among the first to I>ATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 2ll leave the United States, and no one could tell how much fighting there would be nor how long the fighting would last. They were filled with enthusiasm, especially those who had never had experience outside of college, club and drawing-room, and anxious to face the enemy, being certain that enthusiasm and patriotism might well take the place of technicality of instruction. Though when it came to en- forcing discipline Colonel Roosevelt tells us that he was agreeably disappointed. The hard characters from the West who might have given trouble with few exceptions grasped the idea that without dis- cipline they would be a mere useless mob, and they set about learning the new duties; the other kind of men, the "tenderfeet," as the ruder element might dub them, were as eager to do as they were told, and however irksome the tactics might be their intelligence grasped quickly what their limited physical endurance found at first more difihcult to perform. "Of course such a regiment in spite of, or I might almost say because of, the characteristics which made the individual men ex- ceptionally formidable as soldiers, could very easily have been spoiled. Any weakness in the command would have ruined it. On the other hand, to treat it from the standpoint of the martinet and military pedant would have been almost equally fatal. From the beginning we started out to secure the essentials of discipline, while laying just as little stress as possible on the non-essentials. The men were singularly quick to respond. to pny appeal to their intelligence and patriotism. The faults they committed were those due to ignorance only. When Holderman in announcing dinner to the Colonel andjj the three Majors genially remarked, Tf you fellows don't come soon every thing'U get cold'; he had no thought of other than a kindly regard for their welfare, and was glad to modify his form of address on bcins: told that it was not what could be described as convention- ally military. When one of our sentinels who had with much labor 212 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. learned the manual of amis saluted with great pride as I passed, and added with a friendly nod, 'good evening, Colonel,' this variation in the accepted formula on such occasions was meant and was accepted as mere friendly interest. In both cases the needed instruction was given and received in the same kindly spirit. One of the new Indian Territory recruits after twenty-four hours stay in camp, during which he had steadily held himself from the general interests, called on the Colonel in his tent and remarked, 'Well, Colonel, I want to shake hands and say we're with you. We didn't know how we would like you fellows at first, but you're all right; you know your business and you mean business, and you can count on us every time.' That same night, which was hot, mosquitoes were very annoying, and shortly after midnight both the Colonel and I came to the doors of our respective tents, which adjoined one another. The sentinel in front was also fighting mosquitoes. As we came out we saw him pitch his gun about ten feet ofif and sit down to attack some of the pests which had swarmed up his trousers' leg. Happening to glance in our direction he nodded pleasantly and with unabashed and friendly feeling remarked, 'Ain't they bad?' " Though in a very little while the raw men got over these trifling peculiarities, as time wore on they recognized the fact that the observation of certain forms was very necessaiy to the observance of military discipline. They realized the truth that such forms were not intended to humiliate them or to show them that their position was inferior, but only a proper part of the discipline; they understood that the officers were as anxious to learn their own duties as to have the men learn theirs, and that the officers were as careful to pay their respect to their superiors in rank as they were prompt in exacting the respect of the rank and file for their own offices. What was equally important, the men saw that their officers were careful to look after their interests in every way, and were doing all in their power to PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 213 hasten the equipment and drill of the regiment and proceed to war. Rigid guard duty was established and the policing of the camp was attended to with the greatest vigilance. Drills went on, on foot first, and were interesting to the men and became excellent. Every night there was an officers' school, the non-commissioned officers also being schooled by the Captain or one of the Lieutenants of the troop. Every day there was hard practice by squad, by squadron, by bat- talion. Americans are proverbially intelligent, and the men of the regiment were not behind in the national characteristic. In a short time it became easy to handle the regiment in the less complex forms of close and open order. When the men had so far advanced that they marched well and were up in the ordinary manoeuvres of the drill-ground, they were trained in open-order work, skirmishing and firing. The knowledge of the far Western men helped them con- siderably in these, while to skirmishing they took naturally. The city-bred men were quick to observe and execute, and in fact caught up to cow-bows and Indians in a line of work to which they were hitherto ignorant, while the others had learned something akin to it on the plains in forays against depredators. Meanwhile horses were being purchased. Colonel Roosevelt was of opinion that the horses bought were scarcely heavy enough for the work in store for them, while nearly half of those obtained had never been broken. Therefore it was no easy task tO' handle them on picket lines and to provide for feeding and watering them, while the attempts to shoe and ride them were at first attended with con- siderable excitement. Many had come wild from the Western ranges, and these the men were compelled to throw down and tie before they could be shod. Many of the animals bucked or showed other tricks incident to their life on the ranches. But the regiment had any number of men so used to that sort of thing that they were undis- turbed in the slightest degree by any antic in which a horse might in- dulge, so the animals were brought into subjection, though many of 214 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. them remained to the end such as an ordinary rider might find some difficulty in mounting. Colonel Roosevelt's own horses were bought for him by a Texas h'iend with whom he had hunted on the Nueces. The price paid was fifty dollars apiece, for fancy prices did not obtain; the animals were not specially showy or adapted to Park riding, but they were tough and hardy and very well answered the purposes of the man who was to use them and who was so used to horses that it was said of him that he could get more out of one of them than any other man would have attempted. When it came to mounted drill with the men and their horses novelty and excitement were not far off. Having already been well drilled oii foot the men knew the simple movements to form any kind of line or column and they went through the manoeuvres with credit to themselves and those wdio had them in charge. While this drilling was going on, and amid all the arduous duties attendant on an undertaking as difficult as the getting ready a raw regiment for war. Colonel Wood was busy night and day in hastening the final details of equipment. The drilling of the men was turned over to Colonel Roosevelt. "To drill perfectly needs long practice, but to drill roughly is a thing ver}'- easy to learn indeed," he says. "We w^ere not always right about our intervals, our lines were somewhat irregular, and our more difficult movements were executed at times in rather a haphazard way; but the -essential commands and the essential movements we learned without any difficulty, and the men performed them with great dash. When we put the men on horseback there was of course trouble with the horses, blit the horseman- ship of the riders (the Western men) was consummate. In fact, the men were immensely interested in making their horses per- form each evolution with the utmost speed and accuracy, and in forcing each unquiet, vicious brute to get into line, and stay in line, whether he would or not. The guidon bearers held their plimging MR. ROOSl-.VKLT AS ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 217 Steeds true to the line no matter what they tried to do, and each wild rider brought his wilder horse into its proper place with a dash and ease which showed the natural cavalryman. In short, from the very beginning- the horseback drills were good fun, and everyone enjoyed them. We marched out through the adjoining country to drill wher- ever we found open ground, practising all the different column forma- tions as we went. On the open ground we threw out the line to one side or the other, and in one position and the other, sometimes at the trot, sometimes at the gallop. As the men grew accustomed to the simple evolutions we tried them more and more in skirmish drills, practising them so that they might get accustomed to advance in open order and to skirmish in any country, while the horses were held in the rear." Thoroughness was the main thing in Colonel Roosevelt's drilling, as in every thing else that he undertook; tireless himself in what he did he may often have drilled his men till they were well tired out, but they accomplished what it was intended they should accomplish, and this was their meed of praise. The arms of the regiment were the regular cavalry carbine, and the revolver. Some of the men carried their favorite Winchester rifles, using the new model which took the cartridge prescribed by the government. Colonel Roosevelt considered it sheer waste of time to try to train his men in the use of the sabre, a weapon totally foreign to them. Then it turned out that the regiment was to be used not mounted at all, so that all these preparations on horseback came to nothing. This was a great disappointment to the men, for they thought they would go to Havana as cavalrymen. But disappoint- ment could not damp their ardor, and so they got into the fight the horses might go. In their slouch hats, blue flannel shirts, brown trousers, leggins and boots, with handkerchiefs knotted round their throats, the regiment looked precisely as a body of cow-boy cavalry 218 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. men should look, and their easy swagger of walk and careless de- meanor, while it might suggest the plains, yet it also told of men not to be trifled with and men who if they got a chance would make a record for themselves. Colonel Roosevelt was indefatigable, the same energy which had characterized him from the beginning of his career was his characteristic now. He had always looked after the men who were under him, the cow-boys on his ranch had become his friends, the policemen in New York were his friends, and his regi- ment had old friends in it while the newest recruits appealed to him as friends yet to be. But the impatience of the men grew; they wanted to get away, to fight in Havana where, report had it, they were needed. Then why could they not get off? It was unlike "Teddy" Roosevelt to dilly-dally, so the fault could not be his, and these eternal drills were not the cause of their staying in camp so far from the scene of action. The fault must be that of the government which was always slow, and Washington was a place where red tape was of far more account than action. The impatience increased, and there would have been more than one outbreak but for Colonel Roosevelt, who tried to explain that patience was a form of endurance as much as a more positive form of that necessary virtue in affairs con- nected with government procedure, and that the government in this case was not to blame too much, for a regiment was not an easy thing to handle and that in time orders to move would come. And then one day he told the men that they were to go forward. The rejoicing was universal, and many who never returned hurrahed at the idea that at last they were to see Havana and strike a blow for their country. CHAPTER XL From San Antonio— For Tampa— On the Way— Off to Cuba— On Landing at Capron— Colonel Roosevelt Charges — Incidents — Colonel Roosevelt in Daiquiri— On the March— "Forward"— General Young's Fight — Rough Riders m Battle for the First time— "Don't Swear, Shoot"— Death of Fish and Command — Army Food — Money for Food out of Colonel's Pocket — In Cainp — Waiting for Santiago. THE journey by rail from San Antonio to Tampa, Florida, took four days. The men were hilariously joyful all the way and could not understand why "Teddy" Roosevelt should read a book at every spare moment, just as though going to war was a usual thing with him. The Colonel might have answered that, while going to this sort of war was a novelty to him, yet he had engaged in niajny a battle of another sort with faulty politicians, grabbing office-seekers, and the like, and that Spain vv-ould prove a better foe than corrupt men in office who were willing to wreck the name of their country in dishonorable conflict with the law, while Spain was a foe whose weapons might be met with weapons of the same kind by honest men. On Sunday, May 29th, the regiment of Rough Riders went from their hot, dusty camp to take the cars for Tampa, Fla, With the first three sections of troops went Colonel Wood. Colonel Roosevelt went with the remaining four. The railroad had scheduled a forty- eight hour trip, but the experience of the officers in loading the train told them that the schedule time would go for little — there were not proper facilities for getting the horses on and off the train, nor for feeding or watering them; while there was confusion and delay among the railway officials all along the line. Colonel Roose- velt's four sections went to the cars in the afternoon, Colonel Wood's three sections having taken the rest of the day in getting off. It was 219 220 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. quite dusk when Colonel Roosevelt's lines of dusty troops marched into the station yard. The men worked till past midnight before the horses and baggage were got on the train, and then they learned that the passenger cars had been delayed for some reason or other, and would not be on hand for hours. At dawn the passenger trains came up and one by one were fillled by the men till all were provided for, Colonel Roosevelt taking the last car. There were four days of hot and dusty travel. "Evepy'where the people came out to greet us and cheer us. They brought us flowers, they brought us watermelons and other fruit, and sometimes jugs and pails of milk, all of which we greatly appreciated. We were traveling through a region where practically all the older men had served in the Confederate army, and where the younger men had all their lives long drunk in the endless tales told by their elders at home, at the cross-roads taverns and in the court-house squares about the cavalry of Forrest and Morgan and the infantry of Jackson and Hood. The blood of the old men stirred to the distant breath of battle; the blood of the young men leaped hot with eager desire to accompany us. The older women who remembered the dreadful misery of war, the misery that presses its iron weight most heavily on the wives and the little ones, looked sadly at us; but the young girls drove down in bevies, arrayed in all their finery, to wave flags in farewell to the troopers and to beg cartridges and buttons as mementoes. Everywhere we saw the Stars and Stripes, and every- where we were told, half laughing, by grizzled ex-Confederates, that they had never dreamed in by-gone days of bitterness to greet the old flag as they now were greeting it. and to send their sons as they now were sending them to fight and die under it." It was all one country now; there was now only one flag and it had been threatened; there was now no "Johnny Reb," no "mudsill from the North," but only one brotherhood, one nation of Americans, and a foreign country had wronged and defied us. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 221 After four uncomfortable days the troops disembarked at Tampa. There was no one to meet them, to tell them where they were to go into camp; no one to issue food for the first twenty-four hours; tlie men liad to buy rations out of their own pockets, and they seized any Avagons that came to hand to take the spare baggage to the camping ground which they at last found had been allotted to them. Colonel Roosevelt did all he could to keep order, going about it like a veteran, as the men said; but it was only when the ground was reached that confusion was allayed. Tents were put up, pickets established, and the camp policed. However, they were to be but a few days at Tampa. Colonel Roosevelt was notified that the ex- pedition was to start for a destination, not divulged at the time; that the horses were to be left behind, and only eight troops of seventy men each taken. The sorrow of. the men at leaving their horses was outweighed by the joy of getting near the scene of action. But it was hard work to select the men who were to stay. More than one man, officer and private, burst into tears when he found he was not to go. Orders were received on the evening of June 7th that the selected troops forming the expedition were to start from Port Tampa, nine miles away, at daybreak the following morning. The transport was overloaded; the men w^ere packed in like sardines; the traveling rations issued to the men were insufficient, and the "canned beef,'"^ which afterward caused so much trouble to the Department at Wash- ington, was much in evidence. But all things seemed of small im- portance to the men alongside the fact that they were really off and that they were the first expedition to go. Next morning came word that the order to sail had been countermanded. What this meant no one could understand at the time. It turned out afterwards that this was due to the blunder of a Navy officer who mistook some of the vessels for the Spanish fleet, and by his report there was consterna- tion brought to Washington, until the matter was set to rights. 222 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Meanwhile the men packed in the troop-ships gasped in the great heat of Tampa harbor. At last, on the evening of June 13th, the Yucatan, with the Rough Riders on board, along with the other ships, received orders to start. Ship after ship weighed anchor and made for the distant mouth of the harbor. Flags flew, bands played cheerily, the troopers clustered in the rigging or swarming the decks cheered and shouted to those left behind and to the other men on the other ships. We were going at last! After the miserable wait, the heat, the bad food and the idleness we were on our way, and we might sing "The Girl I Left Behind Ale" above the din of the bands playing a Sousa March. It was glorious! It was a picnic! It was better than the plains or the counting-house; we were representing the Army; we were full-fledged soldiers now that we were off and could not be stopped till we were at the point for which we had longed ever since the organization of the regiment! Sailing southward through the tropic seas toward the unknown! The Rough Riders were young, they w^ere eager to come face to face with what lay hidden before them — wild for adventure where risk might be had, and gain for the risk. They wondered whether they were to attack Santiago or Porto Rico. They lounged in groups telling stories of their past life, of mining camps, cattle ranges; stories of hunting bear and deer; stories of war trails against Indians; stories less beautiful of deeds of violence, of brawls in saloons where cheating gamblers met their death; stories of mining-camps, sad love-tales and tales of love that had been too merry. And at night, when their laughter shot across the iridescent water and the Southern Cross glowed in the heavens, war seemed as far ofi as ever. On the morning of June 22, landing was effected at Daiquiri, a village where there had been a railway and iron works. There was plenty of excitement in the landing. First of all the smaller war ves- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 223 sels shelled Daiquiri in order to dislodge any Spaniards who might be in the neighborhood. They also shelled other places along the coast to keep the enemy puzzled as to the intention ol the "Americanos." Then the surf was very high and landing had its difficulties, and the task of getting men, ammunition and provisions ashore was not easy. Each man had to carry three days' rations and a hundred rounds of ammunition. The Rough Riders had twO' rapid-fire Colt automatic guns and a dynamite gun. There was considerable trouble in getting these ashore. Horses were being landed from another transport, together with the mules, by simply throwing them over- board and letting them swim ashore. Both of Colonel Wood's horses svvam it; one of Colonel Roosevelt's was drowned, but the little Texan steed got a foothold and was saved. Late in the afternoon the men, with ammunition and provisions were on dry land and ready for the Spaniards. Camp was made on a dusty brush-covered flat, with a jungle on one side and a fetid pool of water on the other. General Lawton had taken the advance, and he at once established outposts and placed reconnoitering parties on the trails. The afternoon of the next day orders came to the Rough Riders to march. General Wheeler was as anxious as General Lawton to have first blood, and he wished to put the cavalry division to the front as soon as possible. The Spaniards had had a skirmish with some Cubans who had been repulsed. General Wheeler made a per- sonal reconnoissance and finding out where the enemy was he directed General Young to take the Rough Riders' brigade and move forward to strike him next morning. "It was mid-afternoon," says Colonel Roosevelt, "and the Tropic sun was beating fiercely down when Colonel Wood started our regiment — the First and Tenth Cavalry and some of the infantry regiments having already marched. Colonel Wood himself rode in 224 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. advance, while I led my squadron and Major Brodie followed with his. It was a hard march, the hilly jungle trail being so narrow that often we had to go in single file. We marched fast, for Wood was bo'und to get us ahead of the other regiments so as to be sure of our place in the body that struck the enemy next morning." The men were not in the best of shape, the majority of them being cow-boys who had never done much walking. It was intensely hot and the men carried heavy burdens. Whenever a halt was called these burdens were tossed aside and the men threw themselves on their backs. Night had loug since fallen when the troopers tramped into Siboney. Camp was made for the night. Thunder was rolling in the sky, and soon there came a downpour of rain and put out the camp fires. In an hour the rain was over, and the fires were relighted and helped to dry the soaked garments of the troopers. "Wood had gone ofi to see General Young, as General Wheeler had instructed General Young to^ hit the Spaniards, who were four miles away, as soon after daybreak as possible. Meanwhile I strolled over to Captain Capron's troop. He and I, with his two lieutenants, Day and Thomas, stood aronnd the fire together with two or three non-commissioned officers and privates. Among the latter were Sergeant Hamilton Fish and Trooper Elliot Cowdin, both of New York. Cowdin, together with two other troopers, Harry Thorpe and Munro- Ferguson, had been on my Oyster Bay Polo Team some years before. Hamilton Fish had already shown himself one of the best non-commissioned officers v^e had. A huge fellow, of enormous strength and endurance and dauntless courage, he took naturally to a soldier's life. Fie never complained and never shirked any duty of any kind, while his power over his men was great. So good a sergeant had he made that Captain Capron, keen to get the best men under him, took him when he left Tampa — for Fish's troop remained behind. As we stood around the flickering blaze that night I caught PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 227 myself admiring the splendid bodily vigor of Capron and Fish — the Captain and the Sergeant. Their frames seemed of steel, to with- stand all fatigue; they were flushed with health; in their eyes shone fiery resolve and high desire. Two finer types of the fighting man, two better representatives of the American soldier there were not in the whole army. Capron was going over his plans for the fight, when we should meet the Spaniards, Fish occasionally asking a question. They were both filled with eager longing to show their mettle, and both were rightfully confident that if they lived they would win honorable renown and would rise high in their chosen profession. Within twelve hours they both were dead." Toward midnight Colonel Wood returned. The troopers were to start by sunrise toward Santiago. General Young had got from General Castillo a description of the country front. General Castillo, commander of the Cuban forces, had promised Young the assistance of eight hundred Cubans. But the Cubans had been beaten back by the Spaniards the day before and could not give the promised aid when Wood made his reconnoissance to find out the extent of the Spanish strength. General Young with a squadron of the First Regular Cavalry, Major Bell commanding, and a squadron of the Tenth Regulars under Major Morrell, with two Hotchkiss mountain guns under Captain Watson of the Tenth, started before six in the morning with Captain A. L. Mills as aide. At half-past seven Captain Mills, with a patrol of two men, discovered the Spaniards near where two roads came together, in pits and in the jungle, and on a big ranch. \\'hen General Young struck them they were on a ridge a little to his left front, the ridge separated by a wide ravine down which the Rough Riders were then advancing. General Young did not attack at once; he knew Colonel Wood had a difficult route and would need a longer time to reach the position. General Wheeler, arriving and being 228 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. infomied of the plan of attack, approved it, leaving General Young a free hand to i^ght the battle. About eight o'clock Young opened his Hotchkiss gun on the enemy. The Spaniards retorted with vol- leys. They had a couple of light guns which the Americans thought were quick-firers. The heaviness of the jungle and the Spaniards' use of smokeless powder made it difficult to locate them, and Young began to push forward. His men were on both sides of the road and in such dense jungle that only in places could they see ahead, and some confusion ensued, the support after awhile getting mixed with the advance. Captain Beck took A troop of the Tenth to the left, next to Captain Galbraith's troop. Two other troops of the Tenth were to the right. Wire fences ran through the jungle and when the troops reached the ridge they came upon precipitous heights. They were led gallantly. The advance was pushed forward until the voices of the enemy could be heard in the entrenchments. The Spanish kept up a heavy firing, but in spite of disaster the Americans climbed the ridges and the Spaniards broke and fled. Meanwhile, Colonel Roosevelt and his men began their advance at six o'clock. A great many of the men were footsore and weary from their march of the day before, and as they found the pace up the hill too hard tliey fell out of line so that the Rough Riders went into action with less than five hundred men ; for in addition to those who had dropped out a detachment had been left to guard the baggage. The Colt gun was transported by a couple of mules which Lieutenant Tiffany had corralled. The dynamite gun was not along, no mules being obtained in time. Capron's Troop was in the lead. Four men headed by Sergeant Fish went first, supported by twenty men some distance behind. Then came Capron and the rest of his troop, closely followed by General Wood with whom General Young had sent two aides, Lieu- tenants Smedburg and Rivers. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 229 Colonel Roosevelt rode behind at the head of the other three troops of his squadron, and then came Brodie at the head of his squad- ron. The men had to march single file in the narrow trail for the most part, and the tangled jungle that bordered it made it next to impossible for a man to force his way. A Cuban guide who had headed the column ran away almost as soon as the fighting began At the top of the hill the walking was pleasanter. After marching for over an hour there was a halt, and Colonel Wood sent word down the line that the advance guard had come across a Spanish outpost. In another minute Colonel Wood sent word to Colonel Roosevelt to deploy three troops to the right of the trail and to advance. Then came the crash — the Guasimas fight was on, and the Rough Riders received their baptism of blood, and it was a furious one. "Don't swear, shoot!" Colonel Wood said, when some of the men cursed. "The Spanish outposts were very near our advance guard, and some minutes of the hottest kind of firing followed before they were driven back and slipped oft' through the jungle to their main lines in the rear. Here, at the very outset of our active service we suffered the loss of two as gallant men as ever wore uniform — Sergeant Hamil- ton Fish, at the extreme front, while holding the point up to its work and firing back where the Spanish advance guards lay, was shot and instantly killed; three of the men with him were likewise hit; Captain Capron, leading the advance guard in person, and displaying equal courage and coolness in the way he handled them, was also struck and died a few minutes afterward. * * =n Very soon after I reached the front Brodie was hit, the bullet shattering one arm and whirling him around as he stood. * * * Thereupon, Wood di- rected me to take charge of the left wing in Brodie's place and to bring it forward, so over I went." 230 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. A rain of bullets fell around him. He caught a glimpse of some Spaniards, apparently retreating, and his men fired a couple of rounds after them. Then he saw that his men were being fired at from some large red-tiled buildings, part of a ranch in front, but smoke- less powder and the thick cover in front were puzzling. Colonel Roosevelt took a rifle from a wounded man and began firing. Ad- vancing, the cover got thicker and he and his men lost touch of the main army under Wood. He halted his men, and they fired industri- ously at the ranch building ahead. Hearing cheering on the right Colonel Roosevelt supposed that it meant a charge on the part ol Wood's men, so he sprang up and ordered his men to rush the building ahead of them. There was a rush, a moment's heavy firing from the Spaniards that did no damage, and then all was quiet. When the Rough Riders arrived at the buildings they found nothing but heaps of empty cartridge shells and two dead Spaniards, shot through the head. The firing was mute, "but I was still entirely uncertain as to what had exactly happened. I did not know whether the enemy had been driven back or whether it was merely a lull in the fight, and we might be attacked again. * * * a^- ^^is moment one of our men who had dropped out arrived with the information (fortunately false) that Wood was dead. Of course this meant that the command devolved on me, and I hastily set about taking charge of the regiment. I had been particularly struck by the coolness and courage of Sergeants Dame and Mcllhenny, and sent them out with small pickets to keep watch in front and to the left of the left wing." After making other arrangements for protection of his men, Colonel Roosevelt started over to the main body, and there he met Colonel Wood, alive and well. Fighting had been fierce all along . the lines, and victor}- had crowned the efforts of the men. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 231 The Rough Riders lost eight men killed and thirty-four wounded. There had been a good deal of question in the press of the country as to how the Rough Riders and the Tenth Cavalry, who were colored men, would behave in battle. "So there was a tendency," says Colonel Roosevelt, modestly, "to exalt our deeds at the expense of those of the First Regulars whose courage and good conduct were taken for granted." But the people at large were to reckon at their full value the deeds of the regiment so variously made up of men in different stations of life, and their opinion was that a good showing had been made. That afternoon the wounded were looked after. Those who could walk had gone to the small field hospital of the regiment, which was set up on the trail. All the dead and badly wounded were found. A Cherokee halfbreed was one of the first men who fired and he dis- played conspicuous bravery. He was hit seven times, and had to be sent back to the States. Another of those marked by gallantry was Elliot Cowdin, who has been mentioned before. These men of the plains were by their training philosophic as regarded life and death. Colonel Roosevelt mentions a cow-puncher who, after the fight, re- marked, "Well, some of the boys got it in the neck." To which another replied, "Many a good horse dies." Another halfbreed Cherokee was wounded no less than seven times. Up to the last wound he refused to leave the firing line. The Rough Riders had the stufT in them of which heroes are made, and they took it as a matter of course that if they were wounded it was nothing much to speak of; if they were wounded unto death it was about the same, for death had to come sometime and in some shape or form. Colonel Roosevelt cites an incident as happening in the field hospital where the wounded in the fight were lying. The injured men made no complaint — did not groan. Suddenly one of them 232 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. began to hum "My Country, 'tis of Thee." One by one the others joined in the chorus, and the song swelled out in the woods and was echoed and carried far away. If there was any panic in their bosoms durin<'- the fight the men did not show it, and they took the results of the scrimmage stolidly, while they were anxious for another engage- ment. Indeed, it would have been difficult to get rid of them once they entered the regiment. An instance is given of one of the men wounded at Siboney. The doctors decided that his injuries were of such a nature that he should be sent home. That night the man dis- appeared, slipping out of the window of the hospital and coming into camp with his rifle and accoutrements, though the wound he had received must have made walking very painful. The men, his com- panions, thereafter decided that he had the right to stay in the regi- ment, which he did, and he distinguished himself at the fight at San Juan. The morning after the fight the seven dead Rough Riders were buried, their companions standing around with bared heads, singing "Rock of Ages." On the 25th the regiment moved on a couple of miles, and camped in an open, marshy spot. General Young was attacked by fever, and Colonel Wood took charge of the brigade. This left Colonel Roose- velt in command of the regiment. He and the men knew one another by this time, and he felt that he was able to make them do their best in march or battle. They were fully aware that he paid no attention to their past, nor what was their creed, politics or social standing; that all he desired was their duty to the assumed office of soldier. Though he demanded the highest performance of that duty, and that they knew it was enough for him, he knew their courage, hardihood and obedience. Colonel Roosevelt had his own troubles. There were not enough transportation wagons or mule trains, as there had not been a suffi- cient number of landing boats with the transports; while the shelter PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 233 tents were a poor protection against the heav}^ rains that came down nearly every afternoon and converted the camp streets into quag- mires. Then the food was not sufficient nor good, and ''fitter for the Klondyke than for Cuba." Enough salt pork and hardtack were to be had, but not enough coffee and sugar. Colonel Roosevelt organized expeditions back to the sea coast, selecting the best walkers, along with some of the horses of the officers and stray mules. These expeditions brought back canned tomatoes and beans. But these were not had without great exertion on the part of the Colonel, while Colonel Weston, of the Commis- sary Department, aided him as much as possible, A regulation made it imperative that canned vegetables should be purchased only for the use of officers, but Colonel Roosevelt got around this little rule by buying the things for the men from his own pocket. Is it any wonder that the men respected him for his care and thought of them? On one of the trips after provisions Colonel Roosevelt took with him a man who had formerly been deputy-marshal of Cripple Creek, and a Wells-Fargo Express rider. In coming back with his load, through a terrific stonn, this man, Sherman Bell, slipped and opened. an old rupture from which he had suffered for years. The agony he endured must have been excruciating, though he managed to crawl back to camp. There the doctor told him he would have to be sent back to the States when an ambulance came along. The ambulance came next day, which happened to be the day before the regiment marched to San Juan. It was after nightfall when the wheels were heard on the road. Bell crawled out of the hospital tent where he had been lying and finding the jungle hid there all the long night through. The ambulance had to go on its way without him, His friends in the regiment shielded him from detection, and carried to him his gun, belt and bedding. Bell kept out of sight until the column started, and then staggered along behind it. 234 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Colonel Roosevelt found him the morning of the fight of San Juan. Bell told him that he wanted to die fighting, if he must die, and the Colonel had not the heart to send him back. Splendid was the service the man did that day, and afterward in the trenches, and though his wound opened twice and each time he was at the point of death, Bell escaped death and went back with the regiment to the United States. The Rough Riders to a man stood by their Colonel. It would not have been well for that man who said a word disparaging to "Teddy," as they called him. The plainsman saw in his leader a man who knew the plains as well as he did himself; who could round up cattle, stalk deer, hunt buffalo and take his chances with hostile Indians. They of less firm mould, the college men, the club man, the bank clerk, saw in him a man who had studied; who knew polite life; who in poli- tics had advocated the sound monetary system that makes for success in business. Though in the East disparaging remarks were made re- garding the Rough Riders and their leader, again floated the accusa- tion of "playing to the galleries," while some in Washington dis- paraged him for his anger over canned beef and the short supplies of the men, and remembered against him certain times when he had braved criticism in placing the blame where it deserved among men high in office, and who were not used to have their acts scanned. The politicians who had not profited by his adherence to the reform move- ment sneered and jeered and had a clever-sized crow to pick with the man who called by the ugly name of corruption those little acts against the lawbreakers in saloons and resorts of disorderliness which placed in their pockets the wherewithal to live sumptuously every day. Certain newspapers took it up and discounted the Rough Riders as a regiment composed of the offscourings of the Territories, and wondered in print what law of amalgamation brought the rifif- rafif of the plains so near to the heart and mind of the man who was to lead them into battle against the oppressors of Cuba. COLUNHL WOOD A^■D Lli^UT. Cul^u.NKlv RuoSt;vi^l/f PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 237 But in the marshy camp in the sultry land another story was told. The men there saw a resolute, astute man thinking of their comfort and well-being; sympathizing with them; understanding them and helping them out of many a snarl; not too hard with them; so that there was no dereliction of the duty they had promised to do, and overlooking many a fault that, while grave, was not the outcome of a bad heart or an unjust mind. The Rough Riders knew their Colonel very well, and as he passed among them they seldom saw on his face the scowl or the exag- gerated smile which became the characteristic of the comic papers. These same comic papers did not see Colonel Roosevelt in Cuba, where so much depended upon him; where the care of his men abided with him; where he planned to provide for them what he considered the necessities of the soldiers' life, and which the Govern- ment officers at Washington considered only suitable for the fare of the officers. The face of Colonel Roosevelt was never stern nor lowering to his men in Cuba unless there was a flagrant violation of military discipline. At such a time, the men could readily believe the stories detailed by those troopers from New York to the effect that Police Commissioner Roosevelt had been hated by the roundsmen who connived at blackmail and by the politicians who conducted the elections in a manner to suit themselves. The future had its tale to tell as well as the past, and that future lay in abeyance down there in Cuba where the Colonel, leading his troops into action, might yet be pierced by a Mauser bullet. The day before San Juan, the army was camped along the valley waiting anxiously for the morrow. Outposts were being established on each side of the valley. From the generals down to the privates every one was eager to march against Santiago, where surely there would be plenty of fighting. Rest was necessary now, for to-morrow or next day might require all the strength that could be mustered. 238 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The soldiers slept, the brilliant Southern stars looking doAvn upon their bronzed faces, which might be stilled to-morrow night in another sleep! The sentries paced their rounds; the relief came and went, and the men slept and dreamed, maybe of homes far away, maybe of battles won. The hours crept on; the East became a bloom of light; the stars began to fade, and night was gone. At daybreak when the long-leaved palms began to show through the rising mist the cavalry trumpets blared out another day had come. But orders did not arrive as soon as was hoped and expected. The Rough Riders were restless; they disliked idleness, and there was no place here in which to be idle with any sort of excitement. They hoped there was not to be a repetition of the tactics which had kept them so long from embarkation after they were ready for Cuba; for now that they were in Cuba they wanted to have a trial at Santiago. I CHAPTER XII. On to Santiago— El Poso Hill— General Wheeler— El Caney— Through the Lane— Kettle Hill— A Ruse to get to the Front— The Colored Troops—The Catlings- In Charge of Parts of Six Regiments— Taking the Trenches- San Juan Hill Taken— Only Forward Movement of the Spanish— Acts of Gal- lantry — Digging Trenches — Opposing Forces — Waiting to Take Santiago. RDERS were received June 30th for the regiment to hold itself in readiness to march against Santiago. The men were overjoyed. The road beside the camp was crowded with marching men already going forward when the Rough Riders struck camp and drew up in the rear of the first Cavaliy. The heat was intense and there was little or no shade except from the jungle, whose density made the air stifling. It was eight o'clock in the evening when the regiment climbed El Poso hill. Here General Wood was making preparations for the encampment of the brigade. The arrangements for the night on the part of the Rough Riders were simple. Each troop extended across the road into the jungle and the men, throwing down their belongings, slept on their arms. Next morning there was an early and scant breakfast, and there was hope that the day would bring some fighting. General Wheeler was sick, but pluckily kept to the front. He was unable to retain control of the cavalry division, which then devolved on General Samuel Sumner, who commanded it till the middle of the afternoon, when most of the fighting was over. General Sum- ner's own brigade fell to Colonel Henry Carroll. It was about six o'clock in the sultry morning that the first report of cannon from El Caney came booming across the miles of jungle. The American guns opened immediately. For a minute afterwards 2S9 24« THEODORE ROOSEVELT. no response came. General Wood remarked to Colonel Roosevelt that he wished their brigade could be moved to a more secure position, for it was directly in line of any fire aimed by the Spaniards at the battery. He had hardly spoken when there w^as a whistling in the air, and a Spanish shrapnel exploded over their heads. The officers sprang to their feet and leaped on their horses. A second shot came, and a third. A shell exploded among the Cubans, killing and wounding many. General Wood's led-horse was also shot down. Colonel Roosevelt got his men over the crest of the hill into the thick underbrush. Then General Wood formed his brigade, with the Rough Riders in front, ordering Colonel Roosevelt to follow behind the First Brigade. No reconnoisance had been made, and the exact position and strength of the Spaniards was unknown. Colonel Roosevelt was next ordered to cross the ford, march half a mile to the right and then halt and await further orders. As he led his column along through the high jungle grass the First Brigade was to the left of the Rough Riders and the firing between it and the Spaniards steadily increased. In a httle while the Riders came to a sunken lane, and as the First Brigade was then engaged in a stand-up fight. Colonel Roosevelt halted his men and sent back word for orders. "The sunken lane, which had a wire fence on either side, led straight up toward and between the two hills in our front, the hill on the left which contained heavy block houses being farther away from us than the hill on our right, which we afterward grew to call Kettle Hill, and which was surmounted merely by some ranch buildings and haciendas with sunken brick-lined walls and cellars. I got the men as well sheltered as I could. Many of them lay close under the bank of the lane, others slipped into the San Juan River and crouched under its hither bank, while the rest lay down behind the patches of PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 241 bushy jungle in the tall grass. The heat was intense, and many of the men were already showing signs of exhaustion. The sides of the hills in front were bare, but the country up to them was for the most part covered with such dense jungle that in charging through it no accuracy of formation could possibly be preserved." Fighting was on in earnest now, the enemy on the hills sending out heavy volley firing. Colonel Roosevelt sent messenger after mes- senger to try to find General Sumner or General Wood to get per- mission to advance, and was just abaut making a forward movement when the command came ''to move forward and support the regulars in the assault on the hills in front." Immediately the troopers were in motion. Guerrillas had been shooting at the men from the edges of the jungle and from their perches in the trees, and as they used smokeless powder to carry their Mauser bullets, it was next to impossible to lo.cate them. The men had also suffered from the hill on the right front where guerrillas and Spanish regulars w^ere firing. Colonel Roosevelt formed his men in column of troops, each troop extending in open skirmishing order. The Ninth Regiment and the First went up Kettle Hill with the Rough Riders. General Sumner gave the Tenth the order to charge the hills, and the three regiments went forward, keeping up a heavy fire. 'T spoke to the captain in command of the rear platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in my judgment we could not take these hills by firing on them, and that we must rush them. He answered that his orders were to keep his men lying where they were, and that he could not charge without orders. I asked where the Colonel was, and as he was not in sight, said. Then I am the ranking office here, and I give the order to charge' — for I did not want to keep the men longer in the open suffering under a fire which they could not effectively 243 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. return. Naturally, the Captain hesitated to obey this order when no vvord had been received from his own Colonel. So I said, Then let my men through, Sir,' and rode on through the lines, followed by the grinning Rough Riders. * * * When we started to go through, however, it proved too much for the regulars, and they jumped up and came along, their officers and troops mingling with mine, all being delighted at the chance. When I got to where the left wing of the Ninth was lying, through the courtesy of Lieutenant Hartwick, two of whose colored troopers threw down the fence, I was enabled to get back into the lane, at the same time waving my hat and giving the order to charge the hill on our right front. Out O'f my sight, over on the right. Captains McBlain and Taylor made up their minds independently to charge at just about this time, and at almost the same moment Colonels Carroll and Hamilton who were off, I believe, to my left, where we could see neither them nor their men, gave the order to advance. But of all this I knew nothing at the time. The whole line, tired of waiting and eager to close with the enemy, was straining to go forward, and it seems that- different parts slipped the leash almost at the same moment." The First, Ninth, Third, Sixth and Tenth Cavalry were all repre- sented in this rush. As soon as Colonel Roosevelt saw that his men were well started he galloped back to help Goodrich get his men. across the road so as to make an attack on that side. Captain Mills had thrown three of the other troops across the road for the same purpose. Colonel Roosevelt then wheeled around and once more galloped toward the hill, passing by the shouting, cheering, fighting men, and got abreast of the ranch buildings on the top of Kettle Hill. Some yards from the top his horse ran into a wire fence, when he jumped to the ground and turned "Little Texas," the horse, loose, and ran up the hill. The hill was at once covered by the troops, Rough Riders, colored troops of the Ninth, men of the First. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 243 Then the Spaniards, from the line of hills in front where they were heavily intrenched, opened fire with cannon and rifles. On the top oi the hill was a great iron kettle which had probably been used in the process of refining sugar, and behind it several men took shelter — this kettle which was to give its name to the hill. The infantry of Kent, led by Hawkins, were climbing the hill in the charge on the San Juan block-house, and they needed help. Colonel Roosevelt got the men together and started vo-lley firing against the Spaniards in the block-house and in the trenches around it. All at once above the cracking of the carbines came a strange drumming sound, and some of the men cried out that it was the Spanish machine guns. "Listening, I made out that it came from the flat ground to the left, and jumped to my feet, smiting my hand on my thigh, and shout- ing aloud with exultation, 'It's the Catlings, men, our Catlings.' " Lieutenant Parker was indeed bringing his four Catling guns into action and getting them nearer and nearer to the front. Then the infantry moved nearer and nearer the crest of the hill. "At last we could see the Spaniards running from the rifle pits as the Americans came on in the final rush." Helter-skelter, shouting, cheering went the men, until they were stopped by Colonel Roose- velt who feared they would injure their comrades. He "called to them to charge the next line of trenches on the hills in our front from which we had been undergoing a good deal of punishment. Think- ing that the men would all come I jumped over the wire fence in front of us and started at the double; but as a matter of fact the troopers were so excited, what with shooting and being shot, and shouting and cheering, that they did not hear, or did not heed me; and after running about a hundred yards I found I had only five men along with me. Bullets were ripping the grass all around us and one of the men was mortally wounded; another was first shot in the leg and 244 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. then through the body. * * * There was no use going on with the remaining three men, and I bade them stay where they were while I went back and brought up the rest of the brigade. This was a decidedly cool request, for there was no possible point in letting them stay there while I went back, but at the moment it seemed perfectly natural to me and apparently so to them, for they cheerfully nodded and sat down in the grass, firing back at the line of trenches from which the Spaniards were shooting at them. Meanwhile, I ran back, jumped over the wire fence, and went over the crest of the hill, filled with anger against the troopers, and especially those of my own regi- ment, for not having accompanied me. They of course were quite innocent of wrongdoing, and even while I taunted them bitterly for not having followed me it was all I could do not to smile at the look of injury and surprise that came over their faces, while they cried out, 'We didn't leave you; we didn't see you go. Colonel. Lead on, now, we'll surely follow you.' " Colonel Roosevelt wanted other regiments to go, so he ran to where Colonel Sumner was and asked permission to make the charge. Sumner told him to go. Then the regiments went with a rush, fol- lowing the Colonel, who wanted to make the charge — whooping, yelling, wild as boys out for a lark. Away they went across the wide valley that lay between them and the Spanish intrenchments. The Spanish saw the vortex swooping down upon them, and ran, except for a scattered few who either surrendered or were shot down. When the men reached the trenches they found them filled with the dead bodies of Spanish regulars. As the Colonel was running up at the double two Spaniards leaped from the trenches ten yards away and fired at him. He killed one of them with his revolver, missing the other. There was now much confusion, the regiments completely inter- mingled, and the men were still under a heavy fire. Colonel Roose- velt got a mixed lot of men together and pushed on from the trenches PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 247 and ranch houses which had now been taken, and drove the Spaniards through a Hne of palm trees and over the crest of a chain of hills, which, when the Americans reached, they found to overlook Santiago. , While the Colonel was reforming the troops on this chain of hills an aide from General Sumner rode up with orders to advance no farther, and to hold the hill at all risks. Colonel Roosevelt now had under him parts of six cavalry regiments which were at the extreme front, being the highest officer left there. He was the immediate commander of them for the remainder of the afternoon and night. Throughout his narrative of the stirring events of the campaign in Cuba Colonel Roosevelt is singularly reticent in placing himself forward in any of the fights that took place. It is only here and there that the first personal pronoun creeps in, and then only in conjunction with a detailing of the prowess of his regiment, except where the story must halt for more explicit description. He speaks little of his bravery, of the personal risks he ran, of his own privations and dangers; it is always his men — proud of them, exulting in their spirit and dash, never slow to give the credit where it is due and always anxious to award praise equally to other regiments besides his own. Much of what occurred during the memorable months in Cuba is detailed in Colonel Roosevelt's writing commemo- rative of it, and in every instance he singles out the men by name who did deeds of valor and were callous to danger when in action. Loving a brave man, he finds hundreds of instances in the campaign which drew him near to the men in the army and in simple language he extols them. After the trenches had been taken and orders given by General Sumner for the victors to halt and hold the hill, the artillery made more than one effort to go into action on the firing line, but the black powder used rendered the attempts of no avail. Smokeless i>owdei 248 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. beino- used by the Spanish guns it was difficult to place them. The men got no appreciable help from our guns on July ist. The soldiers were quick to realize the defects of the American artillery, but they Wire philosophic about it, not showing any concern at its failure; whenever they heard the artillery open they would grin and say, "There go the guns again; wonder how soon they will be shut up," and they usually were shut up. "On the hill slope immediately around me I had a mixed force composed of members of most of the cavalry regiments and a few infantrymen. There were about fifty of my Rough Riders, with Lieutenants Goodrich and Carr. Among the rest were perhaps a score of colored infantrymen, but, as it happened at this particular point, without any of their officers. No troops could have behaved better than the colored soldiers had behaved so far; but they are, of course, peculiarly dependent upon their white officers. Occasion- ally they produce non-commissioned officers who can take the initia- tive and accept responsibility precisely like the best class of whites, but this cannot be expected normally, nor is it fair to expect it. With the colored troops there should always be some of their own officers; whereas, with the white regulars, as with my own Rough Riders, experience showed that the non-commissioned officers could usually carry on the fight by themselves if they were once started, no matter whether their officers were killed or not." This praise of the colored men came more than once from Colonel Roosevelt. The future of the race appealed to him, and in positions where he could see many of them he had always found that they were not lacking in those essentials that go to the making of good citizens and as good soldiers. As in the Civil War it could now be said that "the colored troops fought bravely." At this particular time it was most trying for the men. They were lying flat on their faces — bullets, shells and shrapnel were sweep- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 249 ing over the hilltop and carrying death in their wake. One of the best of the Rough Riders, Sergeant Greenly, of Arizona, who was lying close to Colonel Roosevelt, said suddenly, "Beg pardon, Colonel, but I've been hit in the leg." One of his comrades helped to fix his leg temporarily, and he limped to the rear, cool and col- lected, yet suftering from a bad wound. The white regulars and the Rough Riders showed no signs of weakening under the galling conditions, but under the terrible strain the colored infantrymen, who had none of their officers with them to keep them up, grew a little uneasy, and some of them drifted to the rear, either helping wounded m.en or trying to find their own regi- ments. This Colonel Roosevelt could not allow, for by their leaving his line was weakened; so he got to his feet and went a few yards in the rear, drawing his revolver. There he halted the retreating men and told them in his quick way that while he appreciated the work they had done, admired the gallantry they had hitherto displayed and would be sorry to hurt any of them, yet he would shoot down the first man who, no matter what the reason, went to the rear. The Coloners own men here sat up and watched the proceedings with interest to see what would be the outcome. The Colonel ended his little talk to the colored men by saying: "Now^ I shall be very sovry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do," and the cow-punchers, miners, and hunters nodded their heads solemnly and sang out in chorus, as though they were in a comic opera, "He always does, he always does." The Spaniards called the colored soldiers "smoked Yankees," and now they showed their white teeth as they broke into grins, and there was no further going to the rear, for they seemed to accept the Colonel as one of their own officers at once. Other colored soldiers had already so accepted Colonel Roosevelt, the cavalrymen. 250 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. and in return the Rough Riders, although mostly Southerners who might be supposed to have race prejudice, grew to fraternizing with them as comrades and were willing, as they put it, "to drink out of the same canteen" with them. During the afternoon the Spaniards in the front of the waiting men "made the only offensive movement which I saw them make during the entire campaign; for what were ordinarily called 'attacks' upon our lines consisted merely of heavy firing from their trenches and from their skirmishers. In this case they did actually begin to make a forward movement, their cavalry coming up as well as the marines and reserve infantry, while their skirmishers, who were always bold, redoubled their activity. It could not be called a charge, and not only was it not pushed home, but it was stopped almost as soon as it began, our men immediately run- ning forward to the crest of the hill with shouts of delight at seeing their enemies at last come into the open. A few seconds' firing stopped their advance and drove them into the cover of the trenches." This was the one attempt to retake San Juan, and it proved a failure. The Spanish kept up a heavy fire for some time longer, though, and the Americans found it necessary to lie down again, only occasionally replying to the fire. All at once there came on the right the peculiar drumming sound which had sounded so welcome in the morning when the infantry were attacking the San Juan block- house. The men did not now think it the Spaniard machine gun, but knew it to be their own Catlings which were up again and coming to the fight. They sat up and listened; they heard the musical drum- ming and knew that the enemy were in for it now. Colonel Roose- velt started over to inquire as to the state of affairs, and discovered that Lieutenant Parker, not content with using his guns in support- ing the attacking forces, had had them shoved forward to the ex- treme front of the fighting line where he was handling them with telling effect on the Spaniards. From this time onward the Catlings PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 251 were on tbe rieht of Colonel Roosevelt's regiment, and Parker's men fraternized with the Rough Riders in every way. Until the last Spanish shot was fired those tantalizing drummers of Catlings were kept at the extreme front and were used on every occasion and most worthily. In truth, one of the most striking features of the campaign was the dash and efficiency with which the Catlings were handled by Parker, who showed that a first-class officer could use machine guns on wheels in battle and skirmish, in attacking and defending trenches, alongside of the best troops and to their great advantage. These are Colonel Roosevelt's words and he has always had the -most sincere appreciation of Lieutenant Parker and his guns at San Juan hill. "All day the din of battle kept up, the heat, the dust, the con- fusion; and night came down, beautiful and calm, with stars and soft airs, and only then did the firing gradually die away. However, before this occurred Captain Morton and Captain Boughton, of the Third Cavalry, came over and told Colonel Roosevelt that there was a rumor afloat to the efifect that there was some talk of retiring. To this they wished to enter a protest in the most resolute manner. "I had been watching them both as they handled their troops with the cool confidence of the veteran regular officer, and had been con- gratulating myself that they were oft' toward the right flank, for as long as I knew they were there I knew I was perfectly safe in that direction. I had heard no rumor about retiring and I cordially agreed with them that it would be far worse than a blunder to abandon our position. To attack the Spaniards by rushing across open ground, or through wire entanglements and low, almost impassable jungle without the help of artillery, and to force unbroken infantry, fighting behind breastworks and armed with the best repeating weapons, sup- ported by cannon, was one thing; to repel such an attack ourselves, or to fight our foes on anything like even terms in the open, was quite another thing. No possible number of Spaniards coming at us 252 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. from in front could have driven us from our position, and there was not a man on the crest who did not eagerly and devoutly hope that our opponents would make the attempt, for it would surely have been followed not merely by a repulse but by our immediately taking the city. There was not an officer or a man on the firing line, so far as I saw them, who did not feel this way." The Rough Riders heard the report of the rumor and asked one another if they were to give up what they had gained so hardly, by retiring. Not if they could help it; not if 'Teddy" had any say in the matter. They had not come to the war to retire, and unless the order came in the most positive language in which it could be couched they would stay where they were and "fight it out on this line if it took them all summer," as a great general had said in the war so many years ago. Retire! They were not retiring men, and their Colonel was equal to them in opposing the idea. When night had come some of the men went to the buildings in the rear and foraged for food, for they had had nothing to eat for fourteen hours and had charged and fought all day. These men re- turned to the front in high glee; they had come across wdiat was evi- dently the dinner of the Spanish officers, and it was still cooking in one of the deserted houses when they entered. They brought the viands along with them. And it was evident from the nature of their spoils that the Spanish officers were not starving, no matter how the Spanish rank and file might be suffering for want of nourishment. There were three great black iron pots, one filled with a delicate stew of beef, one with flaky boiled rice, the third with tender green peas. Also, there was a good-sized demijohn of rum, together with a goodly number of loaves of rice bread. There were even some small cans of preserved fruits and a few salt fish. The food was di- vided equally, and although among so many the shares were limited PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 253 as to size, yet what was eaten freshened up the men and put them into extra good humor. General Wheeler, for whom Colonel Roosevelt had a great admira- tion, had resumed command of the cavalry division. Soon after dark he came to the front. A very few words from him reassured the men about retiring. He had seen too much first-class fighting in the Civil War to look upon the present fight as very serious, "and he told us not to be under any apprehension, for he had sent word that there was no need whatever of retiring, and was sure we would stay where we were until the chance came to advance. He was second in com- mand, and to him more than to any other man was due the prompt abandonment of the proposal to fall back — a proposal which if adopted would have meant shame and disaster." A little while later General Wheeler sent orders for the men to intrench. The men of the different regiments were now getting themselves together again. All of Colonel Roosevelt's troops who had been kept at Kettle Hill came forward. During the afternoon a number of Spanish intrenching tools had been found in a building, and these were now used in digging intrenchments along the Ameri- can lines. The men were tired, but they went to work cheerfully, the officers joining and doing their part. Colonel Roosevelt using his spade along with the others. The Colonel mentions acts of gallantry- performed during the day on the part of his men, and while these acts were so numerous that he does not attempt to recount them all in his book, "The Rough Riders," yet he dwells on some performed by officers and the rank and file alike which stamp the men as brave as any the United States ever turned out. "We finished digging the trench soon after midnight, and then the wornout men laid down in rows on their rifles and dropped heavily to sleep. About one in ten of them had blankets taken from the Spaniards. Henry Bardshar, my orderly, had procured one for me. He, Goodrich and I slept 254 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. together. If the men without blankets had not been so tired that they fell asleep anyhow they would have been very cold, for of course we were all drenched with sweat and above the waist had on nothing but our flannel shirts, while the night was cool, with a heavy dew. Before any one had time to wake from the cold, however, we were all awakened by the Spaniards, whose skirmishers suddenly opened fire on us. Of course we could not tell whether or not this was the forerunner of a heavy attack, for our Cossack posts were responding brisk iy. "It was about three o'clock in the morning, at which time men's courage is said to be at the lowest ebb; but the cavalry division was certainly free from any \veakness in that direction. At the alarm everybody jumped to his feet and the stiff, shivering, haggard men, their eyes only half opened, all clutched their rifles and ran forward to the trench on the crest of the hill." But the shots died away, and the men went to sleep once more. Another hour and dawn broke. Then the Spaniards took to firing in good earnest. A few feet away there was a tree, and under this tree Colonel Roosevelt made his headquarters. Suddenly a shrapnel burst close at hand, not hurting those under the tree but with the sweep of its bullets dealing out death or wounding five gallant men in the rear. Up to this time officers and men had been sleeping by the trenches or in the rear, with no shelter and only one blanket to three or four men. Fortunately there had been very little rain. When the bag- gage arrived later shelter tents were put up. The next day Colonel Koosevelt snatched the time to go to the rear and visit his men who were in the hospital. Colonel Roosevelt's regiment in this engagement had numbered four hundred and ninety men only. For in addition to the killed and wounded of the first fight some had gone into hospital for sickness. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 255 while some had been left behind to look after the baggage and still others were detailed on other duty. The list of casualties among the Rough Riders was heavy, and perhaps more than anything else proves their sterling quality to dare and do as much in their foremost position in the fray. Eighty-nine were reckoned among the killed and wounded. This was the heaviest loss suffered by any regiment in the cavalry division. There had been stiff fighting, the Spaniards fighting well and standing firm until the Americans charged home. They fought with more stubbornness than at the other fight, for they were intrenched and always did good work in holding intrenchments. Colonel Roosevelt contributes his word of praise for the foe, saying that on this day they showed themselves to be brave foemen and worthy of honor for their gallantry. The total Spanish force in Santiago under General Linares was 4.000 regulars, 1,000 volunteers, 1,000 marines and sailors from the ships; 4,000 more troops came July 2d. These are Spanish figures. It is more easy to believe from American official statements that about 10,000 troops were present on the ist of July. Colonel Roose- velt says that in the attack on San Juan hills our forces numbered about 6,600, and that there were about 4,500 Spaniards against the Americans. Our loss in killed and wounded was 1,071. Of the cavalry divisions there were all told some 2,300 officers and men, of whom 375 were killed and wounded. In the division over a fourth of the officers were killed and wounded, their loss relatively half as much again as that of the enlisted men. This was as it should be, according to the military standard of thinking. The Americans very likely suffered more heavily than the Spaniards in killed and wounded. It would have been strange if the reverse were the case, for the Americans did the charging, while to carry earthworks on foot with dismounted cavalry while these same earthworks are being held 256 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. by unbroken infantry armed with the best modem rifles, is no easy task. There was to be more and serious work for the Rough Riders as the days went on, and they knew it and awaited it eagerly. They had learned the meaning of war and they wished to know more about it, to have engagements of stupendous size. With Roosevelt as Colonel over them they were anxious and willing to do their part toward the capture of Santiago which was yet to be. CHAPTER XIII. Before Santiago — Men in the Trenches — Continuous Firing — Spanish Guerilla Warfare — Lack of Medicine and Food — Red Cross Kindness — Cessation of Hostilities — Devotion of Rough Riders to their Colonel — Fort Roosevelt — Sharp-shooters — End of Truce — Fighting On — Storm and Privation — The Refugees — Surrender of Santiago — Stars and Stripes over the City — Return of Refugees — Helped by the Rough Riders. THE first night the men had dug trenches long and deep enough to shelter them and to insure safety against a.ny attacks, but they had failed to put in traverses or approaches. Besides, the trenches were not arranged at all points in the most advantageous places for offensive work, for they had been made at night and on unexplored ground. But while the work might not be scientific in construction it answered its purpose very well, as not a man was ever hit in the trenches nor in going in or out of them. The heat was intense, the men were crowded down in cramped positions in the newly-dug poisonous soil of the trenches, and they needed to be relieved every six or seven hours. Accordingly, Colonel Roosevelt arranged for their release in the late morning. On each occasion he waited till there was a lull in the firinof and then the relieving party made a sudden rush, and tumbled into the trenches. Each time this was done there was a terrific outburst of fire from the Spanish lines which proved harmless. When this firing died away the relieved men got out of the trenches the best way they could. By next day the Colonel was able to remedy this military mode of relief, which was thrilling, if primitive. When the hardtack came up that afternoon the Colonel felt much sympathy for the men in the trenches who, already hungry, ought not to go six or seven hours more without food. But he did not know how to get anything 257 258 THEODORE ROOSEVELl. to them. Then little McGinty, the bronco-buster, said that he would make the attempt to get to the men with rations. He took a case of hardtack in his arms and ran for the trenches. There was an out- burst of fire, but he was not hit. A bullet passed through the hard- tack case just as he leaped into the trench. Later, a trooper named Shanafelt repeated the act with a pail of coffee. At this time the army in the trenches footed up to ii,ooo, the Spaniards in Santiago about 9,000, their reinforcements having arrived. The firing continued all day long, both musketry and cannon. The American artillery gave up the attempt to fight on the firing line and withdrew to the rear, out of range of the Spanish rifies. The dynamite gun was put into action and did more good than regular artillery. It was fired with smokeless powder, and as it was used from behind a hill it did not betray its presence. Once a shot from the gun struck a Spanish trench and played havoc with it. Another caught a big building and from it ran Spanish cavalry and infantry, which the Colt automatic guns played upon with good effect during the minute before the men could get under cover. With pardonable pride, Colonel Roosevelt refers to his regiment as having been raised in less than sixty days, organized, armed, equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept for two weeks on trans- ports, and put through two victorious aggressive fights in a very difficult country, the loss in killed and wounded amounting to a quarter of those engaged — all this in two short months. He haa reason for pride, for it is doubtful if there was a regiment that made such a record in aiiy war in which the United States was ever before engaged. As the day (July 2d) wore on the fight, fitful at times, gradually died away. But the Spanish guerrillas gave trouble, while in the American front Spanish sharpshooters crept up before day had PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 259 dawned and lay in the thick jungle or climbed into trees with dense foliage. From these coverts they fired, their smokeless powder screening them from detection. Sharpshooter work in front was legitimate but guerrillas in the rear was another thing. At times they fired on armed men in bodies, but they preferred to shoot at unarmed attendants, doctors, chaplains, hospital stewards — at men who bore cff the wounded in litters. The Red Cross emblem w^orn by all these non-combatants, instead of acting as protection, only served to make their wearers special objects for the guerrillas' guns. The American sharpshooters showed little quarter for these guerrillas and started for a hunt for them, killing eleven, while not one of the American sharp- shooters was hit. The sharpshooters were after the guerrillas all day and did not return till night fall. Soon afterwards, Colonel Roosevelt established pickets and outposts to the front in the jungle so as to hinder the possibility of surprise. Fires suddenly shot up from the mountain passes to the right, all rising at once. The Americans, after consultation, decided that they must be signals to the Spaniards in Santiago from troops marching to reinforce them from without — for the Americans did not know that the reinforcements had already reached the city, the Cubans being unable to keep them out. At the same time, the Spanish were equally puzzled over the meaning of the fires and believed they meant an attempt at communication be- tween the insurgents and the American army. Both sides were thus on the alert. Evidently the Spanish were somewhat nervous, for after a sputter of fire they suddenly let drive their tremendous guns and rifles from their trenches and batteries. The Americans in the trenches replied well, and word was brought to Colonel Roosevelt and other commanders that the Spanish were attacking. The Colonel must know the truth. He ran up to the trenches and looked out. These bodies of Spanish pickets or skirmishers could be de- tected in the jungle-covered valley between the Spanish and Ameri- 2G0 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. can lines, the darkness of night showing flame spurts not to be seen in sunlight, though the bulk of the fire came from the trenches and showed not the slightest symptoms of advancing. Under the circumstances, he came to the conclusion, there was no use of his men firing, which conclusion was also arrived at by Captain Ayres of the Tenth Cavalry. As Colonel Roosevelt ran down his own line he could see Ayres coming up his, and he saved the Colonel all trouble in stopping the fire at the right, where the lines met, for the Rough Riders there all dropped everything to listen to him and cheer and laugh. The night was spent in perfecting the trenches and making en- trances to them. At daybreak next morning the firing began again. This day, July 3d, the only casualty was a man in the ranks wounded by a Spanish sharpshooter. This day also, on account of the ap- proaches, the men in the trenches were relieved without much diffi- culty. The Spanish sharpshooters in the trees and jungle were annoying, however, and Colonel Roosevelt made preparations to have an accounting with them the following day. He selected some twenty first-class men, in some cases the same men who had gone after the guerrillas. They were to slip into the jungle before dawn and get as close to the Spanish lines as possible and pick ofif any sharpshooter hostilely inclined, and any soldier who showed himself in the trenches. The Americans had established a little hospital under the hill in their rear. Doctor Church in command. He was very ill himself and had almost no medicines or supplies or apparatus of any sort, but the condition of the wounded in the big field hospitals was so dreadful from lack of attendants and necessary medicines that Colonel Roose- velt kept all his men that he could at the front. But some of these men were beginning to have fever. They were patient, and lay on their blankets if they had any, or in the mud if they had none, their MTRIOT and statesman. 261 fare, bard tack and pork, which they dared not eat when the fever was high. Colonel Roosevelt sympathized deeply with them but he could do nothing except encourage them. At noon on July 3d the troops were notified to stop firing, and a flag of truce was sent to demand the surrender of Santiago. The negotiations gave the men a breath- ing spell. That afternoon Colonel Roosevelt did all he could to get the baggage up. Details of men were sent to carry their own belong- ings and they impressed into service any horses or mules at hand. "Their patience was extraordinary. Kenneth Robinson, a gallant young trooper, though himself severely (I supposed at the time mortally) wounded, was noteworthy for the way in which he tended to those who were even more helpless, and the cheery courage with which he kept up their spirits. Givers, who was shot through the hips, rejoined us at the front in a fortnight. Captain Day was hardly longer away. Jack Hammer, who with poor Race Smith, a gallant Texas lad who was mortally hurt beside me on the summit of the hill, had been on kitchen detail, was wounded and sent to the rear; he was ordered to go to the United States, but he heard that we were to assault Santiago, so he struggled out to rejoin us, and thereafter stayed at the front. Cosby, badly wounded, made his way down to the sea coast in three days, unassisted." Thus the Colonel, making an in- stance of each of his men who did something good or noble, his men his family now, their troubles his. Colonel Roosevelt was of the opinion that with all volunteer troops, and even with regulars too in time of trial, men will do their best work if their officers endure the same hardships and take the same risks. In his regiment, as in the whole cavalry division, the proportion of loss in killed and wounded was greater among the officers than among the troops, "and this is as it should be." More- over, when the army got into food difficulties officers and men alike fared the same, and had the same shelter. The men had little to 262 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. grumble about, for when they saw that the officers had nothing but hard tack any man in the regiment would have been ashamed to com- plain; when all slept out in the open and when the men saw the field officers up all night during the making of the trenches, or going the rounds of the outposts, complaint or shirking of work would not have been tolerated by the. Rough Riders. When matters were easier Colonel Roosevelt had his tent and lived somewhat apart from the men, holding that an officer made a mistake in growing too familiar with his men, good though they might be, and that it was a very great mistake to try for popularity either in showing weakness or pampering the men. For the men will not respect a commander who fails to enforce discipline, who is not acquainted with his duty, and who is not willing to accept and make them accept all kinds of hard- ship and danger when necessary. He held that the soldiers who do not feci this way are not worthy of the name and should be most severely dealt with until they become the fighting men they ought to be, and not shams. At the same time, the officer should look after his men carefully; he should be sure that they are well fed and sheltered, and that in spite of grumbling that they keep the camp thoroughly policed. There was a cessation of three days fighting. The soldiers began to get their rations with regularity, hardtack and salt pork in plenty, and about half the ordinary amount of sugar and coffee. As rations for the tropics these might have been improved on, and the sick and half-sick could not be expected to get well on such fare. On several occasions during the siege Colonel Roosevelt got his improvised packtrain in tow and sent or took it down to the seacoast for beans, canned tomatoes, and the like. These stores were obtained either from the transports which were still landing things for the need of the army, or from the Red Cross Society, The supplies of food ob- tained in this way did a world of good, not only upon the men's health, but upon their spirits. t»AtRIOT AND STATESMAN. 263 "To the Red Cross and similar charitable organizations we owe a great deal. We also owed much to Colonel Weston, of the Com- missary Department, who always helped us and never let himself be hindered by red tape; thus he always let me violate the absurd regu- lation which forbade me, even in war time, to purchase food for my men from the stores, although letting me purchase for the ofHcers. I, of course, paid no heed to the regulation when by violating it I could get beans, canned tomatoes or tobacco. Sometimes I used my own money, sometimes what was sent me by Red Cross people and friends in New York. My regiment did not fare very well, but I think it fared better than any other. Of course no one would have minded in the least such hardships as we endured had there been any need of enduring them, but there was none. System and sufficiency of transportation were all that were needed." During the war with Spain we all remember the outcry against those in power for not sending the needed supplies to the soldiers, and those who fought in Cuba also know the meaning of "canned beef" and the unpleasant quarters of hours Colonel Roosevelt gave certain high officials on that score when he reached the United States again. There was an occasion when Colonel Roosevelt was visited at head- quarters by a foreign military attache. With the attache was a news- paper correspondent who had been through the Turco-Greek war. These men were both very friendly critics, and they were aware that Colonel Roosevelt knew this. The correspondent finally ventured to remark that he thought our soldiers fought even better than the Greeks, but that on the other hand the American system of military administration seemed worse than that of the other nation, the Greeks. As a nation, the correspondent went on to say, the Ameri- cans prided themselves on their business ability and adroitness in the arts of peace; while this was credited by outsiders those outsiders 264 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. did not credit the Americans with any special warlike prowess, and it was odd that when war came the Americans should have broken down precisely on the business and administrative side, while the fighting of the troops was especially fine. There could be little said in answer to this criticism, for the troops of the United States always fought well, and were fighting well now; and the "administrative side" left much to be desired in several scrimmages in which the United States had taken part, and in the case of the Cuban w^ar there had been tardiness and sometimes neglect, while the "canned beef" and the held-back stores made any criticism of unwisdom at Wash- ington worthy to be heeded. Colonel Roosevelt was touched by the devotion his men evinced for him. When the men were once convinced that he meant to share whatever hardship came their way, they would seem to have made up their minds that he should share no hardships at all if they could prevent it. When rations were short there were certain to be troopers and even troop messes on the alert and who looked out for the Colonel. If they had beans they would send over some, or the Colonel would unexpectedly receive a present of doughnuts from some one who had been a round-up cook on the plains and who had managed to get a little sugar and flour and was bent on trying his skill on what he could do with them. If the men shot a fowl, the Colonel must have it, and it was all he could do to make them keep some of it for themselves. "Wright, the color sergeant, and Henry Bardshar, my orderly, always pitched and struck my tent and built me a bunk of bamboo poles whenever we changed camp. So I personally endured very little discomfort; for of course no one minded the two or three days preceding or following each fight, when we had to get along as best we could. Indeed, as long as we were under fire or in the immediate presence of the enemy, and I had plenty to do, there was nothing of PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 265 which I could legitimately complain; and what I really did regard as hardships my men did not object to — for later on when we had some leisure I would have given much for complete solitude and some good books." There was continual watching in the camp, Tlie men were notified that while there was a cessation of hostilities, yet there was no truce, and'that vigilance was to be exerted on all occasions. In the trenches it was expected that every fourth man should keep awake at night, while the posts and pickets were pushed farther out, in advance be- yond the edge of the jungle. x\t irregular hours of the night Colonel Roosevelt would visit every part of the line, especially if it were dark and rainy. Sometimes these visits were extended and took in not only the lines of his own brigade, but of those adjoining, and he notes with pride that the lines occupied by the Rough Riders were as vigilantly guarded as the lines of any regular regiment. Long ago, in far-off New York City, he had of nights strolled through the streets and visited the patrolmen doing their rounds, and sometimes found them napping. In camp he found precious little napping, his men needing no watching to keep them at their duty, for their pride was in letting no regular soldiers surpass them in anything that was expected of them. Other officers inspecting their lines would sometimes meet the Colonel at night, and they would talk over matters, wondering what shape the siege would take. It was a foregone conclusion that Santiago was to be captured, but exactly how it was to be done no one could tell. The failure to establish provision depots on the fight- ing line was serious, for there was hardly ever more than twenty- four hours rations ahead. If a hurricane came up, as was possible in this climate, and the transports were struck and scattered, or if several days of heavy rain broke up communication, as such rains most surely would have done, the troops on the front would have 266 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. been at the point of starvation, and while they would have managed to live through it and to have captured Santiago all the same, yet it would have been accomplished after miserable experiences. Colonel Roosevelt set to work, and as soon as it was possible he got together for his regiment supplies of hardtack and salt pork which would last the men for two days. He would not allow any infringement to be made upon these stores, but kept them intact to provide for possible emergencies. It was earnestly hoped that the city would, or could, be taken without direct assault on the en- trenchments or wire entanglements which the Spanish used lavishly all over the ground. Past experience told the officers that an assault meant the loss of a fourth of the attacking regiments, and Colonel Roosevelt knew that the Rough Riders were certain to be one of the attacking regiments if such an attack were made. Of course everybody would rather have assaulted the city than risk the failure, to capture it; but it was to be hoped that Santiago would fall without the need arising of the loss of much Hfe which a further assault would entail. Colonel Roosevelt, with the other colonels and captains, had nothing to say in the peace negotiations. These negotiations dragged along till a week went by since the sending in of the flag of truce. Each day it was expected that the city would surrender or that fight- ing would begin again, and toward the last the inaction became so irksome that the men would have been glad of an assault rather than staying and doing nothing. But the week when there was no fighting was not entirely a period of truce; "part of the time was passed under a kind of nondescript arrangement, when we were told not to attack ourselves, but to be ready at any moment to repulse an attack and to make preparations for meeting it. During these times I busied my- self in putting our trenches into first-rate shape and in building bomb- proofs and traverses. One night I got a detail of sixty men from the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 267 First, Ninth and Tenth, whose officers ahvays helped us in every way, and with these and with sixty of my own men, I dug a long zigzag trench in advance of the salient of my line out to a knoll well in front, from which we could command the Spanish trenches and block- houses immediately ahead of us. On this knoll we made a kind of bastion consisting of a deep semi-circular trench with sand bags arranged along the edge so as to constitute a wall with loop holes. * * * By employing as many men as we could we were able to get the work so far advanced as to provide against interruption before the moon arose, which was about midnight. Our pickets were thrown far out in the jungle, to keep back the Spanish pickets and prevent any interference with the diggers. The men seemed to think the work rather good fun than otherwise, the possibility of a brush with the Spaniards lending a zest that prevented its growing monoto- nous." Lieutenant Parker took two of his Catling guns and taking olif their wheels he mounted them in the trenches. He also mounted the two automatic Colts which he placed where in his judgment they might do most service. When the trenches, bomb-proofs and tra- verses were completed, and the guns mounted, the fortifications assumed a stern character. The men of the guns christened it Fort Roosevelt, and it always went by this name afterward. Midday of the loth came, and then it was known all about the truce. For fighting was on, though it would seem the mode of the Spanish firing spoke volumes of the lack of spirit that controlled it. The field artillery of the Americans was now under the command of General Randolph, who fought it most effectively. There had been a mortar battery established, and though it had an utterly inadequate supply of ammunition it rendered excellent service. The Rough Riders had not much chance, the only ones who could do much firing were the men with the Colt automatic guns and the twenty selected 268 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. sharpshooters who were placed in the newly excavated little fort in the extreme front. Lieutenant Parker with his Catlings and his Colts had a fine opportunity of which he availed himself as usual. The battery in front of the Americans was completely silenced by these machine guns. This battery had caused a considerable amount of trouble at first as it could not be placed, smokeless powder once more advertising itself as the best that can be used in dealing with a foe in war. This battery was immediately in front of the hospital. From the hospital a number of Red Cross flags were flying, one directly above the battery. In consequence of this nearness to the hospital the Americans did not for sometime know that the battery was a hostile one. But finally powerful field glasses discovered its true nature. This battery, directly under the hospital, the Colts and the Catlings actually put out of action, silencing the big guns in it and the field pieces. The machine guns and the American sharpshooters made a most excellent showing in supplementing the work of the dynamite gun, for as a shell from the dynamite gun struck near the Spanish trenches, or a building in which Spanish troops were gathered, the shock was apparently so tremendous that the Spaniards almost disclosed themselves, and gave the Americans a chance to do further good work. Then the evening came on, and the parched and tired men began to make their coffee in sheltered places, and the men by this time knew so well how to take care of themselves that not a single man of the Rough Riders was touched during this second bombardment. "While I was lying with the officers just outside one of the bomb- proofs I saw a New Mexican trooper, named Morrison, making his coffee under the protection of a traverse high upon the hill. Morri- son was originally a Baptist preacher who had joined the regiment purely from a sense of duty, leaving his wife and children, and had shown himself to be an excellent soldier. He had evidently exactly PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 26l> calcuiak*iu tiie danger zone, and found that by getting close to tht> traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his supper without being cramped. I watched him solemnly pounding the coffee with the butt end of his revolver, and then boiling the water and frying his bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the round-up wagon some- where out on the plains." The Rough Riders were doing their work with the vim and pre- cision of regulars, and had become so used to war by this time that they took it as an every day affair which must be treated from a matter of fact point of view. Until late in the evening of the loth firing was kept up and Spanish and American did their best. But the American differed from the Spanish in one essential point; he did not believe it was possible to conquer him; while the Spanish soldier must have known that his was a forlorn hope, and that while he might hold out bravely in the end he was bound to go under, though he fought for his government and fought well. It would have been preposterous for a cow-boy to think that he should come out anywhere but on top in the war, and those of the Rough Riders who had not been cow-boys or miners or bronco-busters caught the contagion from the others and determined that they had come to win, that Santiago ought to be taken and should be taken so far as their personal prowess was concerned, and they would fight to the end, until there was a last man to hold out, though they did not intend that there should be a last man, for they knew how to look out for themselves as well as they knew how to fight. By noon the next day the Rough Riders with a Catling gun were shifted over to the right. They were to guard the Caney road. No fighting was done in this new position, for though they had done their part earlier in the day, by the time they reached the position to which they had been assigned the last shot had been fired. 270 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. "That evening there came up the worst storm we had had, and by- midnight my tent blew over. I had for the first time in a fortnight undressed myself completely, and I felt justly punished for my love of luxury when I jumped out into the driving downpour of tropic rain and groped blindly in the darkness for my clothes as they lay in the liquid mud. It was Kane's night on guard, and I knew the wretched Woody would be out along the line and taking care of the pickets no matter what the storm might be; and so I basely made my way to the kitchen tent where good Holderman, the Cherokee, wrapped me in dry blankets and put me to sleep on a table which he had just procured from an abandoned Spanish house." A short time after the regiment took up its new position the First Illinois Volunteers came up on their right. The following day, as the result of the fierce storm of the night before, the rivers were up to the roads and hardly any food reached the front. Colonel Roose- velt's men were secure, for he had provided for just such an emer- gency. But the Illinois men had not done so and they were without anything at all to eat. Colonel Roosevelt sent them beans and cofifee and hardtack. He then mounted his horse and rode down to head- quarters, half fording and half swimming the streams, and by evening he had got half a mule train of provisions for the Illinois regiment. Before all this, on the 3d of the month, the Spanish had driven out of Santiago thousands of women, children and other non-combat- ants. They were largely of the poorer classes, though among them were some of the best families. The poor creatures had taken very little with them in their haste. They spread through the American lines and went to El Caney in the rear, where the troops fed and pro- tected them from the Cubans. The soldiers barely had food enough for themselves, so the rations of the refugees were scant indeed. They came to the American lines begging for food, and the Rough Riders gave them all they could until the Colonel had to forbid it and insir.ted PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 273 that the refugees go to headquarters. This was the fortune of war, and hard as it seemed Colonel Roosevelt was bound by duty to keep his regiment up to the highest pitch of fighting efificiency. On the 17th of July Santiago formally surrendered. The Rough Riders, with the rest of the army, were drawn up on the trenches. Suddenly the trumpets blared, and then up in the air slowly spread- ing itself out, went the stars and stripes. The cheering, the yelling of the men, the noise and the happiness of it all! When the flag was hoisted the fighting part of the work of the soldiers was over. When the surrender of the city was an assured fact the refugees streamed down the Caney road to Santiago. They were a squalid and dreary set. The Rough Riders helped them, especially the women and the children, giving them food, even carrying ths little ones and the burdens borne by the women. Colonel Roosevelt saw one man, Happy Jack, spend the whole day going to and fro on both sides of the American lines carrying the bundles of a lot of very poor old women, or else shouldering children. The doctor at last warned the men against handling the bundles of the refugees for fear of in- fection, as disease had broken out among the refugees. At this the Colonel had to put an end to these little acts of sympathetic kind- ness on the part of his men. It w-as then that Happy Jack with due respect, but forcibly, protested that "The Almighty would never let a man catch a disease while he was doing a good action." The Colonel says that he himself did not venture to take such an advanced theological position. CHAPTER XIV. Suifering of the Soldiers — Bad Commissariat — Yellow Fever Scare — Troops not to go Home — Meeting of Officers — Famous Letter to General Shafter — Troops Ordered Home — On the "Miami"' — Talk to Men — At Home — Regiment Mascots — Present for the Colonel — Festivities before Disbanding — Farewell to the Rough Riders — Incidents of the Campaign — Colonel Roosevelt's Esti- mate of his Men. AFTER the surrender the cavalry was marched back to the foot- hills west of El Caney and there went into camp. The Rough Riders were already suffering from fever, and in the new camp they became worse. All the amiy was suffering equally, and there were but twelve ambulances, and these were quite inadequate for the work. The conditions in the large field hospitals were so bad that as long as he could do so Colonel Roosevelt kept his sick in the regimental hospital at the front. And it was not until almost the last day of their stay that the men had cots, but lay on the ground. There was no food issued that was fit for the sick, or half sick, which represented the main part of the whole command. "Occasionally we got hold of a wagon or some Cuban carts, and at other times I used my improvised pack-train (the animals of which, however, were being continually taken away from us by our superiors) and went or sent back to the seacoast at Siboney or into Santiago itself to get rice, flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, condensed milk, potatoes and canned vegetables. * * * This additional and varied food was of the utmost service, not merely to the sick, but in preventing the well from becoming sick." By July 23d fresh meat was obtainable, and from that time on matters mended. But the men were sickening all round, the fever a malarial one and recurrent. Very few of the men retained their 275 27g THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Strength, there were less than fifty per cent, that were fit for any kind of work. All the clothing was in rags, even the officers were without stockings and underwear. Yellow fever then broke out in the rear, chiefly among the Cubans. It never became epidemic, but it caused a panic — especially in the minds of the home authorities at Washington, w"ho, misled by reports they received from certain of their military and medical advisers, hesitated to have the army come home, fearing yellow fever might be imported into the United States. Colonel Roosevelt vouches for the fact that these fears were groundless, and believes there were not more than a dozen cases of yellow fever in the whole cavalry division, while when the men went home not a single case of the disease de- veloped on American soil. For a while the prospects of the troops w-ere gloomy, as the authorities seemed determined that the men should remain in Cuba. The troops would probably have spent the summer in the sick camps dying or being hopelessly shattered in health if General Shafter had not summoned a council of officers, hoping by united action of a more or less public character to wake Washington authorities to the actual condition of affairs. In the province of Santiago all the Spanish forces had surrendered, and as so-called immune regiments were on the way to garrison the conquered territory there was abso- lutely nothing for the army to do, while no purpose was served in keeping the men at Santiago. "We did not suppose that peace was at hand, being ignorant of the negotiations. We were anxious to take part in the Porto Rico campaign, and would have been more than w-illing to suffer any amount of sickness if by so doing we could get into action. But if we were not to take part in the Porto Rico Campaign, then we knew it was absolutely indispensable to get our commands north immedi- ately, if they were to be in trim against Havana, which would surely PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 277 be the main event of the winter if peace were not declared in advance." The army at Santiago included the great majority of the regulars and was on that account the very flower of the American force. It was highly imperative to keep it in good condition, and tO' force it to remain in Santiago was synonymous with meaning its purposeless destruction. The taking of the army north as soon as the surrender was an accomplished fact should have been begun at once. "Every officer from the highest to the lowest, especially among the regulars, realized all of this, and about the last day of July General Shafter called a conference in the palace of all the division and brigade commanders. By this time, owing to Wood's having been made Governor General, I was in command of my brigade, so I went to the conference too, riding in with Generals Sumner and Wheeler, who were the other representatives of the cavalry division. Besides the line officers all the chief medical officers were present at the con- ference. The telegrams from the Secretary stating the position of himself and the Surgeon-General were read, and then almost every line and medical officer present expressed his views in turn. They were almost all regulars and had been brought up to life-long habits of obedience without protest. They were ready to obey still, but they felt quite rightly that it was their duty to protest rather than to see the finest of the United States forces destroyed as the culmina- ting act of a campaign in which the blunders that had been committed had been retrieved only by the valor and splendid soldierly qualities of the officers and enlisted men of the infantry and dismounted cavalry. There was but one side of the question. Tliere was not a dissenting voice, for there could not be. To talk of con- tinually shifting camp or of moving up the mountains, or of moving into the interior (both having been suggested by the Washington authorities) was idle, for not one of the plans 278 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. could be carried out with our utterly insufficient transporta- tion, and at that season and in that climate they would merely have resulted in aggravating the sickliness of the soldiers. It was deemed best to make some record of our opinion in the shape of a letter or report, which would show that to keep the army in Santiago meant its absolute and objectless ruin, and that it should at once be recalled. At first there was naturally some hesitation on the part of the regular officers to take the initiative, for their entire future career might be sacrificed. So I wrote a letter to General Shaffer, reading over the rough draft to the various generals and adopting their cor- rections. Before I had finished making these corrections it was de- termined that we should send a circular letter on behalf of all of us to General Shaffer, and when I returned from presenting him mine, I found this circular letter already prepared, and we all of us signed it." The letter of Colonel Roosevelt bore the date of August, 1898, and was as follows: — Major-General Shaffer: Sir: — In a meeting of the medical and general officers called by you at the palace this morning we were all, as you know, unanimous in view of what should be done with the army. To keep us here, in the opinion of every officer commanding a division or a brigade, will simply involve the destruction of thousands. There is no possible reason for not shipping practically the entire command north at once. Yellow fever cases are very few in the cavalry division, where I com- mand one of the two brigades, and not one true case of yellow fever has occurred in this division, except among the men sent to the hospital at Siboney, where they have, I believe, contracted it. But in this division there have been 1,500 cases of malarial fever. Not a man has died from it; but the whole command is so weakened and shattered as to be ripe for dying like sheep when a real yellow fever PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 279 epidemic, instead of a fake epidemic like the present, strikes us, as is it bound to if we stay here at the height of the sickly season, August and the beginning of September. Quarantine against malarial fever is much like quarantine against the toothache. All of us are certain, as soon as the authorities at Washington fully appreciate the con- ditions of the army, to be sent home. If we are kept here, it will, ir all human probability, mean an appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate that over half the army, if kept here during the sickly season, will die. This is not only terrible from the standpoint of the individual lives lost, but it means ruin from the standpoint of the military efficiency of the flower of the American army, for the great bulk of the regulars are here with you. The sick list, large though it is, is but a faint index of the debilitation of the army. Not lo per cent, are fit for active work. Six weeks on the North Maine coast, for instance, or elsewhere where the yellow fever germs cannot pos- sibly propagate, would make us all as fit as fighting cocks, able as we are and eager to take a leading part in the great campaign against Havana in the Fall, even if we are not allowed to try Porto Rico. We can be moved North, if moved at once, with absolute safety to the country, although, of course, it vrould have been infinitely better if we had been moved North or to Porto Rico two weeks ago. If there were any object in keeping us here, we would face yellow fever with as much indifference ;is we face bullets. But there is no object in it. The four immune regiments ordered here are sufficient to gar- rison the city and surrounding towns, and there is absolutely nothinp- for us to do here, and there has not been since the city surrendered. It is impossible to move into the interior. Every shifting of camp doubles the sick rate in our present weakened condition, and any- how the interior is rather worse than the coast, as I have found by actual reconnoissance. Our present camps are as healthy as any camps at this end of the island can be. I write only because I cannot 280 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. see our men, who have fought so bravely and who have endured ex- treme hardship and danger so uncomplainingly, go to destruction without striving, so far as lies in me, to avert a doom as fearful as it is unnecessary and undeserved. Yours respectfully, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Colonel, Commanding First Brigade. This letter and that signed by all the officers were made public. The result was immediate. In three days the army was ordered to be ready to sail for home. As soon as the news was known the spirits of the men changed for the better; they had been ailing and despond- ent even, while now they brightened up miraculously in the hope of leaving a pestiferous climate where there was nothing to do but to wait idly for death. In Colonel Roosevelt's regiment the officers began to plan methods of drilling the men on horseback to fit them to go against the Spanish cavalry if they were to make a try at Havana in December. The Rough Riders had eyed the captured Spanish cavalry with peculiar interest. The men were small of stature, and though the horses were well built and well trained they were diminutive ponies. The Rough Riders from the plains who knew something about horse flesh felt sure that if they ever got a chance to try shock tacjtics against the Spaniards those gentlemen would go down like rows of nine pins. Colonel Roosevelt was still much occupied in looking after the health of his brigade, though his mind w^as considerably lightened by the fact that they were going home where he felt certain their health would improve. On August 6th the men were ordered to embark. Next morning the Miami took them aboard. A little while after leaving port the captain of the ship came to Colonel Roosevelt and told him that the stokers and engineers of the ship l'\ I 1 iM DINST, Washington, D. C FRHSIDKNT ROOSEVELT AT HIS DESK IN THE WHITE HOUSE PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 283 were insubordinate and drunken, a condition he thought due to the hquor the soldiers had given to them. The Colonel at once instituted a search of the ship, explaining to the men that they must not think of keeping any liquor. He told them that if they gave to him what liquor they had he would return it to them when they got ashore. He further told them that he would allow the sick to drink when they really needed the stuff. And he supplemented his remarks by saying that if the men did not of their own accord comply with his request for the liquor he would find it and throw it overboard. Many flasks and bottles were handed to him, and he found some twenty or so which he at once gave to the fishes. This action on his part put an end to all drunkenness at once. The stokers and engineers becoming sullen and rather mutinous, the Colonel sent a detail of his men down to watch them and see that they did their work, and they were soon reduced to obedience. The Miami was pretty well crowded, but not so much so as the Yucatan had been on the trip down, though the fare might have been improved on. The water was bad and the "canned beef" was uneatable, while there were not vegetables enough, nor were there sufficient disinfectants, and the sick had very poor quarters. By the exercise of great care no serious illness oc- curred, though one man who had drunk a good deal of the fiery Cuban rum died and was buried at sea. Good weather prevailed during the nine days' voyage. At last the low sandy bluffs of Long Island were sighted, and late in the afternoon of the 14th the Miami steamed through the , waters of the Sound, and cast anchor off Montauk. A gunboat of the Mosquito fleet came out and greeted the men and told them that peace negotiations were under way between Spain and the United States. Next morning the men marched ashore. Many were sick, and all presented a dilapidated appearance, unkempt, ragged and swarthy. There was a month spent at Montauk before the men 284 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. separated, and the Rough Riders who had been to Cuba met those who had stayed at home and who felt sore on that account.. They had given up a good deal to go to war aiid the war had gone on without them. "Of course those who stayed had done their duty precisely as did those who went, for the question of glory was not to be considered in comparison to the faithful performance of whatever was ordered; and no distinction of any kind was allowed in the regiment between those whose good fortune it had been to go and those whose harder fate it had been to remain. Nevertheless the latter could not be entirely comforted." There were three mascots in the regiment. Two of them were characteristic. These were a young mountain lion which the Arizona troops had brought, and a war eagle belonging to the New Mexicans. These two it had been found necessary to leave behind in Tampa. The third mascot was a disreputable but very intelligent little dog known as "Cuba." He had accompanied the regiment all through the campaign. The mountain lion was called "Josephine." She possessed a very poor temper, while "Cuba" and the eagle, which was named "Teddy," in honor of the Colonel, were noted for their good humor. In addition to the animal mascots there were two or three small boys who had also been adopted by the regiment. One was from Tennessee, and when the troops embarked at Tampa he smuggled himself on board the transport with a rifle and several boxes of cartridges. He rebelled bitterly when found and sent ashore, and the squadron which remained behind adopted him and rigging him up in a little Rough Rider uniform made him a member of the regiment. One Sunday before the regiment disbanded, in addition to the chaplain's address, Colonel Roosevelt spoke to the men. He told them how proud he was of them. But he warned them that they PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 285 were not to think they could go back home and rest on their laurels. He bade them remember that though the world for a few days might treat them as heroes, yet after those few days they would find that they must settle down to hard work just like other men, unless they wished to be looked upon as worthless do-nothings. The men took the lecture in very good part and applauded it. "They repaid me by a very much more tangible expression of affection. One afternoon, to my genuine surprise, I was asked out of my tent by Lieutenant-Colonel Brodie (the gallant old boy had rejoined us) and found the whole regiment formed in hollow square, with the officers and color sergeant in the middle. When I went in, one of the troopers came forward and on behalf of the regiment pre- sented me with Remington's fine bronze 'The Bronco-buster.' There could have been no more appropriate gift from such a regiment, and I was not only pleased with it, but very deeply touched with the feel- ing that made them join in giving it. Afterward they all filed past and I shook the hands of each to say good-by." The last night before the regiment was mustered out was a hilarious one. In the ranks every form of celebration took place, and a one-time Populist candidate for attorney-general in Colorado de- livered an oration in favor of free silver as his contribution to the festivities. A number of the college boys sang glees. But most of the men improvised dances to give vent to their feelings. The Indians took part in these dances, pure bloods and half-breeds alike, <^ the cow-boys and miners not behind in joining in and forming part of the ring that leaped and bounded around the huge bonfire that had been kindled. Next morning the colors and the standard were taken down for the last time. Horses, rifles and other regimental property had been turned over to the government, and officers and men said farewell to one another before they scattered North, South, East and West — to the great cities where business and professions 286 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. called them, to the social clubs and the homes of wealth that awaited them, and to the plains and deserts and mowntains of the West and Southwest. This was the 15th of September, and the Rough Riders went out of existence as a body, unless the country should again stand in need of their services when they would be on hand. Colonel Roosevelt's conduct at the jungle fight of Las Guasimas and in the bloody charge up San Juan Hill, which engagements he most modestly speaks of in narrating his experiences in the Spanish war, made him a popular hero and gave rise to a large number of most interesting stories concerning his personal bravery and his influence over the men he led. At the very start in drilling this band of independent, high-spirited ranchers, cow-punchers and athletes into regimental shape he was not uncertain. In one of his first speeches to them he said: "You've got to perform without flinching whatever duty is assigned you, regardless of the difficulty or danger attending it. No matter what comes, you must not squeal." These words of Roosevelt became almost a creed with his men. To do any thing without flinching or squealing was their aim, and to hear the Colonel say "Good!" was reward enough. One of his troopers who was invalided home answered a reporter who had asked if the Colonel was a good fighter, "A fighter? You'd give a lifetime to see that man leading a charge or to hear him yell. Talk about courage and grit, and all that — he's got it. Why I used to keep my eye on him whenever I could, and I've seen him dash into a hail of bullets, cheer- ing and yelling all the time, as if possessed. He doesn't know what fear is, and seems to bear a charmed life. All the Rough Riders adore him." Another told how Colonel Roosevelt acted when hurt by a frag- ment of shell on San Juan Hill. He said: "Teddy was with four or five other officers just below the brow of a hill upon which one of our batteries was placed, when a Spanish shell, well aimed, flew over PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 387 the crest and exploded just above the heads of the group. Two of the officers were painfully wounded, but Teddy, with his usual good luck, escaped with a cut on the back of his right hand. It was trivial, but it bled. I shall not forget the delight on Teddy's face as he saw his own blood leak out. Whipping out his handkerchief after a mo- ment he bound it around his hand. A little later when he was near our line he held up his bandaged hand and said gayly, 'See here, boys; I've got it, too.' I never saw anybody so anxious to be in the thick of trouble as Teddy. The first day the Rough Riders were held in reserve he chafed terribly. He kept saying, T wish they'd let us start.' We all idolized Teddy. He wears a flannel shirt most of the time, and refuses to fare any better than his men. Why, he wouldn't have a shelter-tent when they were distributed. There isn't one of our fellows who wouldn't follow Teddy to Hades if he oraered us to." General Wheeler said of the Colonel on his return irom Cuba: '•'Roosevelt is a born fighter, and his men were absolutely devoted to him. While we were together on board the transport I had an opportunity of observing Roosevelt more closely than was possible in the hustle and excitement of the camp. What impressed me most about him is his absolute integrity. I am told that he is likely to be chosen as the candidate for the Governorship of New York, and certainly no better selection could be made. Some day his splendid qualities may earn for him the highest position it is in the power o^ the United States to give." Private Palmers, of the Rough Riders, wrote home to Kansas as A follows: "When we came to make the final charge that took this position, some of the officers wanted to fall back and leave it in the possession of the Spaniards, but Colonel Roosevelt pulled his pistol and said: 'You can fall back if you want to, but my men will hold it till the last man dies.' We held it, and did not die, either. I tell you, 288 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Wood and Roosevelt are proud of their regiment. Our boys are proud of their Colonel. We fought ninety hours without sleep or rest." The Colonel never ordered his men to do what he would not do under the like circumstances. Here is what Sergeant Judson, Co. E, First Illinois Volunteers, wrote under date of Santiago, July 30th: "The Rough Riders and our regiment have for a week camped to- gether. They are a fine body of men, and Colonel Roosevelt is a fine fellow. I have talked to him personally three times. He is one of the boys. In the campaign against Santiago he was digging trenches with a pick, like his men. He sleeps in a miserable tent and chews hardtack like the rest. When we first came our food consisted of one piece of hardtack for each meal, and some water. This lasted two days, and along came Colonel Roosevelt on his horse. I was on my way to cut some grass to sleep on. He stopped me, and said, 'I know you boys are starved for food, but I am going to do all I can for you. So far I have managed to get some cofTee and a number of cases of hardtack, which will start you. We are going to fight to- gether, and I want to see you all in good trim.' If it wasn't for him I am sure we would have been without supplies for some time." A man wrote as follows to a newspaper, under date of August 9, 1898: "At the time of the long journey of the Rough Riders from San Antonio, Texas, to Tampa, made unbearable from the excessive heat and deficient food, my son, now slowly recovering from typhoid fever, taken in Texas, was prostrated by a sudden and violent attack of vomiting, brought on by the hot weather. Colonel Roosevelt, hearing of this, gave up to him his berth in the sleeper, taking the boy's place with the other men during the remainder of the journey." It is stories such as these, unstudied, spontaneous, that tell, per- haps, better than more elaborate recitals the manner in which Colonel PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 289 Roosevelt was regarded by the soldiers and in what regard he held them. Innumerable are the instances of his kindness to the men of his regiment, of his patience with them, of his encouragement of them. He had had a long acquaintance with men, and he had many times been kind and patient and full of encouragement in circumstances where his personality asserted itself. Perhaps in army life an officer is brought nearer to his men than is another superior with as many men under him. Soldiers at best are children, says an old army man; they trust and rely, and regard their captain or their colonel as their father to whom they ought to go with all their troubles and from whom they ought to expect just though most lenient treat- ment. But Colonel Roosevelt was not lenient to the point of weak- ness; his sturdy ideals precluded the possibility of that. When it came to discipline he never let his kindness of heart degenerate into anything like laxity. It is related of him that one day in camp, before Santiago, one of his troopers objected to the performance of some work which he considered menial, but which though unpleasant was necessary. Colonel Roosevelt, who had striven to impress every man while the command was being recruited at San Antonio that no picnic was ahead of them, and that there would be many unpleasant and distasteful duties to perform, was vexed that the lesson had been so imperfectly learned, or, if learned, so quickly forgotten, and he became angry when the man got obstinate. He gave him a lecture that made his ears ring. When he had finished the trooper said, "All right. Colonel, I'll do it." Then he paused for a minute. "Col- onel," he went on, "haven't you got a few beans to spare? I'm kinder holler." The commander of the Rough Riders had been scowling savagely, but the appeal for beans made the scowl die away. "I'll see," he said; "come over here." The trooper followed to where Colonel Roosevelt's belongings were lying. The Colonel found a 290 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. small can three-quarters full. "Here," he said, emptying out the half of them, "take them and fill up your 'holler,' but you buiy that dead horse at once, or there will be trouble in this camp, and you will be in it." The regiment distinguished itself in the campaign, and Colonel Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill July ist. This is the way the charge was described in press despatches from the field: "Roosevelt was in the lead, waving his sword. Out into the open and up the hill where death seemed certain, in the face of the con- tinuous crackle of the Mausers, came the Rough Riders with the Tenth Cavalry alongside. Not a man flinched, all continuing to fire as they ran. Roosevelt was a hundred feet ahead of his troops, yelling like a Sioux, while his own men and the colored cavalry cheered him as they charged up the hill. There was no stopping as men's neighbors fell, but on they went, faster and faster. Suddenly Roosevelt's horse stopped, pawed the air for a moment, and fell in a heap. Before the horse was down Roosevelt disengaged himself from the saddle and landing on his feet, again yelled to his men, and sword in hand charged on foot." Colonel Roosevelt's estimate of his regiment is characteristic. He considered them equal to the regular anny men. For the officers he has the praise one soldier gives his fellows in authority, consider- ing the regiment specially favored in Colonel Wood, a regular army man, and in Capron, who had also been in the regular service. Be- sides most of the captains and lieutenants were men acquainted with wild life and accustomed to handling and commanding other men. As for himself, he had seen three years' service as captain in the National Guard; he had been a deputy-sheriff in the cow-country of the West, in which capacity he had exerted authority; he had hunted big game and done active work on his cow-ranch, so that horses and rifles were familiar to him and he knew how to look after cow-bcys. ifi ^^H ^si 3 ■H^^^^^^E^ ^^hShI j^S^^^^^^S MRS. ROOSEVi;ivT'S CHURCH AND HER PASTOR Fold-out Placeholder This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at a future date. • Fold-out Placeholder This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at future date. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 293 hunters and miners. And then the hterature of war had long engaged his attention, more especially that of the wars of modern times, the Civil War, the Franco-German War, the Turco-Russian War. But the men, the rank and file of the regiment — they were accustomed to hardy open-air life, they were hardy and self-reliant, they were in- telligent and resolute. They were eager to fight and determined to do well, to encounter hardship and privation, and the irksome monotony of camp routine they accepted without grumbling or complaining. They had counted the cost of war before they went into it, and they were glad to pay the penalties inseparably attendant on the career of a fighting regiment, and they had in them eager- ness for action and stern determination to accept death, but never to forfeit honor. From such men comes the respect all countries give to the country that owns them as her own, and these men had come from every part of the country when Theodore Roosevelt would go to Avar and wished a regiment to go with him. I CHAPTER XV. Governor of New York — Exciting Campaign — Takes the Stump — Speeches — In Office — Appointments — Final Day of Legislature, 1899 — Pressing Measures- Original IMethods — Tenement Houses — Needs of the Poor — Charities — Labor L^nions — Labor Leaders — Self Help — Philanthropic Work — Young Men's Christian Association — Public School Teachers — College Settlements — Governor in Fullest Sense. COLONEL Roosevelt's campaign for Governor of New York, the nomination for which he obtained immediately after the end of his services in the war of 1898, was memorable for its excitement and its picturesque features concerning the poHticians. of the city and State; and though Parker (Democrat) had carried the State for Court of Appeals Judge in 1897 ^Y 61,000, Roosevelt won it in 1898 by a lead of 18,000 over Van Wyck. It is safe to say that no Governor performed better service than Governor Roosevelt. As soon as he entered upon the office, and throughout his term, he showed a conservatism in marked contrast to the beliefs of his character which som.e had entertained and expressed. His accomplishments at Albany, during a most difficult experience, would be a sufficient monument to his character, and his ability, and above all his conservatism, if he had done nothing else; for his course was as persistent as it was wise. Previous to the State Convention he was nominated by the Citizens Union, but he de- clined, replying that he was a Republican. The Democrats, it seems, would have endeavored to frustrate his nomination by trying to prove that he had lost his legal residence in the State. The plan failed, and he was nominated in the convention by a vote of 753 to 218 for Governor Black. Colonel Roosevelt took the stump and delivered many speeches. These speeches were characterized by the fire, and 295 296 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. force, and common sense that had distinguished all his public utter- ances since he had entered the field of politics; and it is safe to say in this connection as well that his virility of manner, as much as what he said, influenced the people in his favor. As usual, corrupt politics came in for a goodly share of his contempt; unwise legisla- tion and faulty poHtical reasoning, and the wrongs the people were willing to heap on themselves by not caring to assert theirpreroga- tive, engaged his attention; and his voice rang out and his words brought conviction till enthusiasm woke the echoes and shaky voters became firm partisans, for the candidate was convincing. When Governor Roosevelt arrived in Albany it was felt that the State would have an executive of such high integrity that every officeholder in Albany would understand that his accounts must be absolutely correct; that there would be no stealing or peculations, and that there would be attempted no jobbery in the Legislature. It was also felt that the standard of ofificial efficiency would be raised; that inefficient public servants would be retired, and that their places would be filled by men whose capacity was beyond a doubt. Gov- ernor Roosevelt, impetuous as he was currently reported to be, must have seen that he must go cautiously if he meant to achieve the high standard he determined on in the offices of his subordinates. The newspaper correspondents could testify to the great care he took in appointing heads to both the Insurance Department and the Depart- ment of Public Works. Under the care of Francis Hendricks the Insurance Department became an honor to the State, and Governor Odell was applauded later when he reappointed Colonel John N. Partridge as Superintendent of Public Works, who had been selected for that position by Colonel Roosevelt. It had been predicted by Democratic orators that Governor Roose- velt would be "too impetuous" at times. To this Governor Roose- velt good-humoredly replied that he acknowledged that he was PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 297 rather impetuous in temperament, but that he believed he had sub- dued this trait in his make-up. But a day came when his impetuous spirit blazed up, though no one of eminence has ever criticised him for that day's action. It was the final day of the session of the Legisla- ture of 1899, when he frankly expressed his opinion that the Fran- chise Tax Act ought to be passed, and it was passed. The members of the Legislature felt that public opinion was supporting the Governor, and they did not venture to defeat this measure. It is therefore a law to-day. Another "impetuous" act of the Governor was the removal from office of the District Attorney of New York County — Asa Bird Gardiner — on the charge that he "gave aid and comfort to Chief of Police Devery" after that officer had been indicted for issuing a seditious order to the police force regarding violence at the polls. The record made by Eugene Philbin, an independent Democrat whom the Governor appointed to succeed Gardiner, soon disarmed the criticisms of all those who desired an honest administration of that important office, and proved Governor Roosevelt's ability to estimate men correctly. Measures which he pressed with his personal as well as official in- fluence provided for the prevention of the adulteration of food products and fertilizers; the betterment of wage-workers in tenement houses; improvements in the labor law and the system of factory inspection; the protection of game, and especially the honest and efficient administration of the State canals, and the extension of Civil Service regulations. The notorious Ramapo job found in him an insurmountable obstacle, and by the "Confessions of Judgment" bill the strong hand of the Governor saved New York City's treasury from much heavy legalized looting. His administration as Governor was original in methods, lofty in standards, and almost unprece- dentedly rich in results. He never made an unfit appointment,, and 298 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. he succeeded in inducing scores of capable and worthy men to enter the service of the State, some of them at great sacrifice. He found the State administration thoroughly political, and he left it businesslike and efftcient. Whatever Colonel Roosevelt undertook to do must be well done; he seems not to have understood how to scamp a piece of work assigned for his performance, and what he could not understand in himself he refused to recognize in others, and throughout his incumbency at Albany he exacted a pre- cision and thoroughness in the work done which predicated good in the future for those whom the work intimately concerned. He kept three times over, and good measure, every promise he had made to the people in his canvass. He could not override the con- stitution and the laws, nor could he invent facts in order to punish those charged with defrauding the State by means of the canal service; but he could and did appoint a Commissioner of Public Works who kept to the line in every detail of his work. He helped to frame, supported, and caused to be enacted the best and most far- reaching Civil Service law in the country, and he saw to it that it was lived up to throughout the State. He faced the whole power of his party "machine" in defeating the project to put the New York City police under partisan control at Albany, and again in compelling the passage of a bill providing for the proper taxation of the franchises of the great public-service corporations. He performed wonders for the dwellers in tenement-houses and the workers in sweat-shops. He made it possible to secure a revision of the charter of New York City, and appointed the best possible men to prepare the revision, which, with a few very unimportant changes, w^ould go into effect January I, 1902. As Governor, Colonel Roosevelt so improved the whole tone of the State administration, and so efifectually educated his party and public opinion generally, that future governors would find easy what was, before his incumbency of the ofBce, almost impossible. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 299 Those two years of strict, businesslike administration of the Gov- ernorship of a great State were an invaluable preparation for any higher office to which he might be appointed by the will of the people. Colonel Roosevelt's tenderness and gentleness, his devotion to the needs of the poor, are traits to make him admired in those circles where too much of such tenderness and devotion on the part of a high executive are not common. Nothing about Colonel Roosevelt is more touching than the fact, related by ]\Ir. Riis, that shortly after Mr. Riis had published his book, "How the Other Half Lives," he found on his desk the card of Theodore Roosevelt, and written on it: 'T have read your book and have come to help." For the poor have always been with Colonel Roosevelt, He thinks that there are many ugly things about wealth and its posses- sions, and that there are many rich people utterly lacking in patriot- ism and who show such sordid and selfish traits of character, or lead such mean and empty lives that all persons who are right-minded must regard them with contempt. But the first lesson to teach the poor man is that, taken in the long run, the wealth of a community is beneficial to him — that he is better off because other men are well off. As to the power of the State in regard to the poor he said it might be found necessary to interfere more than has already been done in the right of private contract, and to hold in cunning as the State holds in force. But there must be sureness of ground before getting legislation, and nothing must be expected to be done at a jump. Above all, it is criminal to excite anger and discontent without proposing a remedy, or only proposing a false remedy. He considers the labor leader, whether he be a political leader or a philanthropist, the worst foe of the poor man when he would try to teach the poor man that he is kept down by conspiracy or injustice, when in truth the poor man is working out his fate, hardly and sadly though it is SOO THEODORE ROOSEVELT. done, as the tremendous majority of men who are worthy of th« name are doing and always will do and have done. Law can do much, but the difference between what can be done by law and what not is well exemplified by the experience of the country in the negro problem. Slavery was formerly the state of the negro in the United States. This was a great wrong which could be remedied by legisla- tion, and which could not be remedied except by legislation. There- fore, the law set the negroes free and made citizens of those who had before been chattels. When this was done many of the friends of the colored people believed that in some way or other additional legislation could immediately put the race on an intellectual, social and business equality with the whites. It is fair to acknowledge that this effort has failed. In many sections of the country the colored race is not treated as it should be treated, and in politics the frauds upon the negroes have been gross and shameful and have roused not only indignation but bitter wrath. "Yet the best friends of the negro admit that his hope lies, not in legislation, but in the constant work- ing of those often unseen forces of the national life which are greater than all legislation." Great advances in general social well-being can hardly be met by the adoption of a far-reaching political or other scheme, but must come by gradual growth, and by never-ceasing effort to do first one thing and then another till the difficulties be overcome. Social re- formers often decline to favor schemes for practical reform because people with sane and wholesome minds refuse to have to do with the wild ideas of these reformers. "There has been an honest effort in New York to give the city good government, and to work intelligently for better social con- ditions, especially in the poorest quarters. We have cleaned the streets; we have broken the power of the ward boss and the saloon keeper to work injustice; we have destroyed the most hideous of the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 303 tenement houses in which poor people were huddled like swine in a sty; we have made parks and playgrounds for the children in the crowded quarters; in every possible way we have striven to make life easier and healthier, and to give man and woman the chance to do their best work; while at the same time we have warred steadily against the pauper-producing maudlin philanthropy of the free soup- kitchen and tramp lodging-house kind. In all this we have had practi- cally no help from either the parlor socialists or the scarcely more noxious beer-room socialists who are always howling about the selfishness of the rich and their unwillingness to do anything for those who are less well off." These words, written in 1896, show the practical way in wdiich Theodore Roosevelt holds the condition of the poor and its ameliora- tion. He believes that certain labor-unions, bodies of organized labor, such as the organizations which include railway conductors, locomotive engineers and firemen, and the like, embody one of the better hopes for healthy national future growth. But experience has taught men who have reform at heart that the usual labor leader and demagogue who shout aloud for depreciated currency or the over- throw of the rich will do very little to help those who do what they can to make civic conditions better. Vast numbers of workingmen can be appealed to with confidence, but a large proportion of the men who call themselves labor leaders are influenced by short-sighted hatred of what they do not under- stand. What is more to be deplored is the fact that sincere and earnest men of high character and honest intention go far astray in their methods at times and thus are prevented from doing the good work they started out to do. A man when he gets out of the right road can do very little to help those who are already on the wrong road. Many and grievous wrongs should be righted, many measures for relief should be pushed, and it is discouraging that when -01 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. good men and women are fighting the bad and championing the good those persons who ought to be their more effective alhes should de- prive themselves of their usefulness by the wrongheadedness of the position in which they have put themselves. Both rich and poor men do wrong at times, and whenever a particular instance of this wrong-doing can be pointed out all good citizens should join in punishing the doer of the wrong. But honesty and uprightness should be the tests, and not w^ealth or poverty. The municipal administration in New York (for example) has acted with equality in dealing with wrong-doers of both high and low degree. The Board of Health condemns tenement houses which are the property of rich landowners, whether that landowner be priest or la}man, banker or railway president, lawyer or manager of a real-estate business. At the same time, the Police Department has its orders to suppress not only the criminal, but the rioter of no matter what station in life. "Many workingmen look with distrust upon laws which really would help them; laws for the intelligent restriction of immigration, for instance. I have no sympathy with mere dislike of immigrants; there are classes and even nationalities of them which stand at least on an equality with the citizens of native birth. But in the interest of our workingmen we must in the end keep out laborers who are ignorant, vicious and with low standards of life and comfort, just as we have shut out the Chinese." Labor leaders and the like often denounce the present social conditions, more especially those of poli- tical life, and accuse them of shortcomings w^hich they themselves are instrumental in bringing about. In cities the faulty government is due not to the misdeeds of the rich, but to the peculiar standard of honesty and morality of citizens in general; and the corrupt politician has nothing that helps him so much as substituting wealth or poverty histead of honesty as the standard by which to try a candidate for PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 305 office. Good laws can do something, but more can be done by honest administration of the laws. Most of all can be done by discounting the preachers of vague discontent among the poor and the laboring i classes, and by upholding the doctrine of self-help and self-reliance. This is a doctrine which sets forth many things. Among them is the fact that while a man may now and then be helped when he stumbles, yet it would be useless to try to carry him along when he will not or cannot walk, while it would be worse than useless to depreciate and lower the work and reward of the intelligent and thrifty man to the mean level of the weak, the shiftless or the idle one. The same doctrine of self-help shows that the sentimental philanthropist and the maudlin sentimentalist are nearly as bad as the blatant demagogue, and that it is even fairer and more necessary to temper mercy with justice than to temper justice with mercy. Colonel Roosevelt also thinks that it is the worst possible lesson to teach a man that he can rely on others and at the same time whine over his troubles. An American should have more pride than to accept defeat as his portion. If an American amounts to anything he should rely upon himself and not upon the State; he should have so much pride in his work that he has little time to sit idly down and envy the luck of others, and should face life with manly courage and try to win victory, while if defeat should come instead he should accept it and not try to place on his fellows a responsibility which is not theirs. The men with whom Colonel Roosevelt had worked most closely, while in New York he was dealing with efforts to better the con- dition of the people, were not capitalists except as men who earn money by their own toil and with prudence save it, are capitalists. They included reporters on the papers, principals in the public schools, young lawyers and architects, young doctors and young men of business who were struggling to rise in their professions by 306 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. working hard and faithfully, but who gave much of their time to doino- what they could for the city, while a number of hard-worked priests and clergymen also rallied under the standard of reform. But there were no men of great wealth, nor any men who make for o-reatness in the public eye as being identified with immense and powerful business houses and corporations. Most of those who afforded assistance had at one time or another in their lives faced poverty and knew what it meant ; some of them had been born here, some were of foreign birth; but in their hearts and souls they were Americans, and as Americans fought for themselves their battles of life, sometimes being defeated, and sometimes coming out victorious. Thus Colonel Roosevelt preaches his evangel of self-help for the poor and the worker who earns weekly wages, calling upon their best efforts for their own good, bidding them be men and good American citizens. The submerged he would place upon their feet a reasonable number of times, but if they fell too often they were either too weak to compete with life or they were too lazy to avail themselves of its privileges and advantages, and in either case they must make room for other and stronger and better men. It might seem hard to the weakling, but the world has never progressed through the weaklings in it, and the world dare not stand still, but must go onward though it throw under it those unable or unwilling to get out of the way of the inevitable movement. While Governor of New York and dealing with the weighty matters of his office, Colonel Roosevelt kept well before him the problem of the poor. In a country such as ours it seems pitiful that all men who are declared in the Great Writing of our land to be born free and equal should not prosper and succeed. We are an exceptionally blessed people, our country teeming w^ith industrious advantages, and yet many fail where the one succeeds, and this ought not to be. There is room for all, there is paying work for all, but the difficulty often con- fronts the willing man as to where and how his abilities and endeavors PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 807 may get their chance. Discouragement follows on repeated defeat, and the heart of a man may fail him when time after time he finds no avenue of escape from the thrall of want that seems to hedge him around and has no outlet. The Governor's sympathies were roused by the sufferings of the unemployed. In great cities there are districts "populated to the point of con- gestion, where hardly any one is above the level of poverty, though this poverty does not by any means always imply misery. Where it does mean misery it must be met by organization, and above all by the disinterested, endless labor of those who by choice, and to do good, live in the midst of it, temporarily or permanently. Very many men and women spend part of their lives or do part of their life-work under such circumstances, and conspicuous among them are clergy- men and priests. * * * ]Most men and women, even among those who appreciate the need of the work and who are not wholly insensible to the demands made upon them by the spirit of brotherly love for mankind, lack either the time, the opportunity, or the moral and mental qualities to succeed in such work, and to very many the sheer distaste of it would prevent their doing it well. There is nothing attractive in it save for those who are entirely earnest and disin- terested. There is no' reputation, there is not even any notoriety to be gained from it." Without doubt the best type of philanthropic work is that which helps men to help themselves. The Young Men's Christian Associ- ations and the Young Women's Christian Association are now spread over all the country. They are invaluable because they can reach everyone. Colonel Roosevelt is a beneficiary oi these associations. He has often used them as clubs and reading- rooms when he has been in some city or town where he was not acquainted with the citizens. The associations develop the good qualities of those who join them. They have gymnasiums and read- 308 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. ing-rooms, and thus furnish means for a man or woman to pass un- occupied leisure hours profitably or in amusement. The ordinary man or woman will not spend hours when there is no work in doinp- what is unpleaeant, says Colonel Roosevelt, and the only way per- manently to draw the average man and woman from occupations and amusements that are not healthy for soul or body is to give an alterna- tive which is acceptable to them. To forbid all amusements or to treat vicious and innocent amusements as on the same footing, simply gives recruits to the vicious amusements. When Mr. Roosevelt was Commissioner of Police in New York he got one of his policemen from the Bowery branch of the Young Men's Christian Association. He tells the story that he had gone to the branch of the Association one night and the secretary mentioned the fact that they had a young man who had just rescued a woman from a burning building, showing great coolness and courage. Naturally the Commissioner was interested, as he was always inter- ested in brave men. He asked to see the young man, who was a Russian who had some years ago come to America during one of the waves of persecution in the realm of the Czar. He had been studying in the association classes for some time and wanted employ- ment. Physically he was the right type, and he passed his exami- Aation for the force. He made one of the best policemen in the city, and in consequence of his pay he was able to provide for his mother and his old grandmother and to start his small brothers and sisters in life. Says Colonel Roosevelt characteristically, "He was already a good son and brother, so that it was not surprising that he made a good policeman." The work of the State charitable institutions en- gaged the attention of the Governor who believed that the relief of poverty meant the relief of much stress on the State itself, that as the State is only an enlarged family the protection of its less fortunate classes would lead to a betterment of the energies of those classes and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 309 gradually produce good citizens from what is too often reckoned as the scum of civilizations. He has a good word for the public school teachers. The women teachers, especially, who carry on their work in the poorer districts of the cities, he says, form as high-principled :,nd useful body of citizens as is to be found in the entire community, and render an amount of service unparalleled by any other equal number of women. These teachers are a great force for producing good citizens. They represent, moreover, the most potent power in Americanizing and humanizing the children of newcomers of every grade who come to America from other lands. The children of the very poor of foreign birth would be greatly handicapped if it were not for the teachings in the public schools. The teachers instil into the minds of the pupils loyalty to the flag and loyalty to the principles of good citizenship. Another element of good in big cities is the university settlements and the college settlements, where devoted men and women brine closer together the fortunate and the unfortunate in life. Much good result from these settlements lies in the fact of the "practical methods and the spirit of comradeship shown by those foremost in these or- ganizations. One particularly good feature has been their tendency to get into politics. Of course this has its drawbacks, but they are outweighed by the advantages. Clean politics is simply one form of applied good citizenship. No man can be a really good citizen unless he takes a lively interest in politics from a high standpoint. Moreover, the minute that a move is made in politics, the people who are helped and those who would help them grow to have a common interest which is genuine and absorbing instead of being in any degree artificial, and this will bring them together as nothing else would. Part of the good that results from such community of feeling is pre- cisely like the good that results from the community of feeling about a club foot-ball team or base-ball nine. This in itself has a good side; 310 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. but there is an even better side, due to the fact that disinterested motives are appealed to, and that men are made to feel that. they are working for others, for the community as a whole as well as for them- selves." Beside all these methods to reach the not well-to-do, there are an army of workers which are not to be classed in any of the foregoing classes. These men and women do most good when they are in touch with organizations, though many individually meet the cases which are not provided for by the organized relief. Philanthropy deserves better than it has received at the hands of those who have sporadically gone into it ostentatiously and by those who are indiscriminate in their charity. An unmixed evil is any act that tends to pauperizing or to lower the self-respect of the poor. Colonel Roosevelt considers the soup-kitchen form of charity as de- moralizing to the self-respect of those who patronize it as some forms of vice or oppression. Though when sudden and wide-spread disaster overtakes a community, as a flood, an earthquake, a blizzard or an epidemic, there is the best of reasons for an extension of charity on the largest possible scale to any one who needs it. But these cases being exceptional, the forms of relief employed to meet them must also be regarded as exceptional. The one thing to bear in mind in all charity is that while any man may slip and should be assisted to his feet, yet no man can be carried to his own advantage or to the advantage of the community. The really hard-working helping and charitable men and women who devote their lives in doing good to the poor neighbors as a class do not belong to the ultra-sentimental class, and they entirely realize that unwise and indiscriminate giving results in no good, any more than do wild and unformed plans for social refonnations. Not any of us can make the world move very far or very much faster, but the world only moves at all when each individual in a large number of individuals does his duty. The con- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 313 tinually helped man rarely does his duty, any more than the con- tinually helped nation would look out for itself for long or have anv desire to take a proud part in the congresses of the world. The strife to keep in with the passing throng, to struggle on against odds, to keep the head up when a weight is bearing it down, these make for bravery and self-reliance and must in time lead to^ results immeasur- ably finer than weak charity can ever hope to do. As Governor of New York Colonel Roosevelt had to do with many most momentous questions and all he did was from a lofty standpoint of duty to those he represented and duty to himself. The executive is poor indeed and may be classed with the moral pauper who inflicts his helplessness upon his constituents and makes himself a beggar in their sight. The corrupt politician is a beggar and a pauper of the worst kind, hiding his real purpose under an exterior of seeming need of the good opinion of his party. Colonel Roosevelt from the beginning of his career never flinched before his party, he was true to it because he had standards of a high character and lived up tO' them as an indi- vidual and not alone as the representative of a political creed. Many times when he was Governor he went opposite to the wishes of his party, but in each case his actions redounded to its credit, and whether in opposing iniquitous legislation or in efforts to have nulli- fied bills whose execution would not benefit the State he firmly stood for what he knew was the right thing for him to do, and thus gave an impetus to his party it had never before possessed. As Governor he was upright, active and sincere, and New York has never had any reason to regret placing in power a man who worked for its good and lifted it above any possible criticism on the score of injustice to the welfare of its citizens. The people made him Governor of New York. In this office he was misunderstood and misrepresented to a certain extent. He had always been against boss rule, and yet he openly consulted Mr. Piatt as the leader of the party. At the same 814 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. time, he was his own Governor. He was deeply cut by misunder- standing of his motives. He had a duty to his party to perform, and there were those who were constantly urging him to split his party,. The responsibility of avoiding strife of a factional character and of leaving the party in as good condition as when he came into office was his. His conservatism was mistaken for subserviency. But hp had to deal with things as he found them. For the first year of his term of office the results were what might be termed negative. He said repeatedly in pubhc that if little good legislation could be en- acted at least he was certain that no bad laws would be put on the statute books. In the second year of his term much good legislation was secured. He had always resented the domination of money in public life and he never showed to greater advantage his opinions in this direction than in the passing of the franchise tax law in spite of the bitterest op- position. In addition to this, numerous reform laws were passed. Jobs were turned down, and the Legislature was fast rallying around him. He was beginning to be a Governor in the fullest sense of the word, when he was called to accept the nomination of the Vice- Presidency. As Governor of New York his work was not yet done, and he desired to finish some reforms that w^ere essential to the wel- fare of the State. A great work regarding the public school system was under way. His nomination for Vice-Presidency deprived the people of the State of his tremendous assistance and influence in this respect. But he had been called to Washington, and for the nation's good the State made a sacrifice and gave up his services in its behalf. CHAPTER XVI. Convention of 1900 — Senator Hanna and Mr. Quay — Senator Depew— Gover- nor Roosevelt Seconds the Motion Nominating JNIr. McKinley for Presi- dent— McKinley and Roosevelt — "In the East, we call him Teddy" — "For Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt" — Colonel Young Nominating Roosevelt —Enthusiasm and Excitement— For the Campaign— Speeches— The Country Knows tlie IMan — His Work and his Christian Manliness — A Tribute — Vice- President of the United States. THE National Republican Convention of 1900, held at Phila- delphia, was unique in political history in that it nominated for Vice-President a man skilled in convention methods, a man of notably independent character, who used all his skill and asserted all his independence to prevent the nomination coming to him. It was asserted that Governor Roosevelt was a party tO' a most clever piece of political work, whereby he aided in creating a demand for his nomination, by insisting that he would not consent to it; that he still wished to be Governor of New York only. There is some- thing intensely humorous in the notion of Rough Rider Roosevelt turning play-actor in this way, though the argument v/as put forth by certain of the critics with perhaps humorous intentions; for it would seem they would have had the country believe that the man was struggling for a prominent position in the eyes of his countrymen with all the fervor of a young "leading man'' on the stage. The fact is, Governor Roosevelt, with the desire to make the Fall fight at the head of the State ticket, did not want to run with Mr. McKinley; and Senator Hanna, for an equally strong reason (that is, his desire to make it a "business ticket"), was sincerely willing to accommodate the Governor in his wish. Certainly, these conditions 315 316 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. would discourage any ordinary movement in behalf of the Governor; but, as it turned out, the movement was very extraordinary and soon became complicated. Senators Piatt and Quay were first to realize the full strength of the Roosevelt movement, and first to see that it could not be checked without a jar to the organization they knew Senator Hanna would not permit; so, said critics, they posed as boomers instead of discoverers. One effect of this was to strengthen Governor Roosevelt's opposition to himself, and Senator Hantia's willingness to accommodate the objector. If on Tuesday, June 19th, Senator Hanna had flatly announced that the Administration did not want Roosevelt, perhaps he might have carried his point. "But to have done so would have been to open the campaign without a trace of the hurrah spirit, and possibly to have strained some parts of the machine to the danger point/' says a spirited paper that was jeering at the time. Senator Hanna and his chief advisers found by the next night that a large majority of the nine hundred and twenty-six delegates were under a spell of enthusiasm about the Rough Rider's character. Then the situation was accepted, and what earlier threatened to be a Convention lacking the spirit of enthusiasm came to a close in such a furore as had never before been exceeded in a Republican Convention. Except Governor Roosevelt alone, the most popular men in the convention were those who had been most scolded and lectured, condemned and caricatured, for their political methods. Wolcott and Lodge, two prominent United States Senators, temporary and permanent chairmen respectively, aroused no enthusiasm; Senators Hanna and Quay, neither playing any very great importance offi- cially, were greeted with immense enthusiasm. Senator Hanna's sole official duty as chairman of the National Committee was to call the Convention to order. When he arose to do this he was surprised, almost startled, at the reception he received from the delegates. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 317 When he had been speaking but a minute or two he received another surprise in the way the audience of fifteen thousand cheered him. It resulted from the unexpectedness of everything about him — his manner, voice, excellence of orator}^ Senator Quay was unlike Senator Hanna in every physical char- acteristic. His first conspicuous appearance on the Convention floor was as the proposer of certain amendments to the rules, cutting down the South's representation in Convention. This was scarcely a bid -for a popular ovation, at least from the Southern section of seats; but the noted Pennsylvania leader received a greater cheer than even the national leader. He stood oii the main floor several minutes before complying with the* roars of demands to take the platform. When he did so, Senator Lodge was scarcely warm in welcome. The Massachusetts Senator stood facing Pennsylvania's ex-Senator, his hands clasped behind his back, his face not very hospitable (for he never liked what he called "boss" politicians). These two receptions are mentioned here solely for their human interest. Their contrast was the failure of Senators Wolcott and Lodge to enthuse the con- vention. This was surprising in the case of the former, for the Col- oradan was a master of popular oratory which was calculated to efifect immediate results when fifteen thousand people were addressed; but instead of using the methods so successfully employed later by Senators Depew and Foraker and Delegate Knight, of California, the Colorado Senator went into a fine analysis of President Mc- Kinley's administration. The audience scarcely wanted this, and the principal oration of the second day did not improve matters. This was Senator Lodge's speech. It was a strong, well phrased presenta- tion of the Party's attitude on all the subjects considered in the plat- form, but it lacked the spark for which the audience waited. Senator Foraker aroused by main force; Senator Depew by skillfully-used humor; Knight by florid imagery. None of these appeared i'.i 318 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Senator Lodge's effort, and the second day was closing with the nearly one thousand delegates listless, the fifteen thousand spectators with little to interest them to the point of enthusiasm. Senator Fairbanks read the Platform. The reading was long, with many "Whereases," and the delegates began to leave the hall by hundreds, the spectators by thousands. There was such confusion that Senator Fairbanks could not be heard, when up jumped Chair- man Lodge, interrupting the speaker, and severely lectured the dele- gates. He reminded them that they were listening to their Party's declaration of principles — the most important utterance of the Con- vention. But listlessness had settled on the convention, and Senator Fairbanks fairly hurled at the disappearing backs of the delegates the ringing periods of the ''Resolved," which are usually wildly cheered. But next morning! The air was tingling with political electricity which produces those wonders which the experienced organizer re- joices to note. Bliss, Dolliver, Woodrufif, Scott, Long — any one of these could have been nominated to an accompaniment of cheers, music, waving of flags and handkerchiefs. An official of the building said that the Convention hall seated fifteen thousand people, but it is believed eighteen thousand were within the walls when Senator Foraker rose to nominate William McKinley. When he had finished, scenes of excitement prevailed for fifteen minutes — madness, glorious cheering and equally glorious yelling for the man who, finishing one term of the Presidency, was demanded by the whole country for a second term. Then the singing of "The Union Forever" by the wrought-up thousands! People who heard either sang or — cried! You must do one or the other at such stupendous moments. Then Governor Roosevelt faced that stirred audience, seconding the motion for the nomination. If he was moved to any degree he PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. Sl'J did not show it. He held a type-written copy of his speech in one hand, but he did not look at it once. His ordinary manner of speak- ing is torrential. It was so that day. He was all that the idolizing thousands wanted — strong in body and manner, dashing, fearless; and for all these the people liked him — and for what he lacked they did not blame him. His speech seconding another was his own nomination, for the people hailed him Vice-President and screamed for McKinley and Roosevelt. And Senator Depew said, drawlingly, slowly, ''In the East we call him Teddy.' " At that there was no stopping the shout- ing, it rolled out in volleys, in shrieks, in thunders. "Teddy Roose- velt! Teddy Roosevelt!" When Young, of Ohio, who was to have presented Dolliver's name, made the formal presentation of Roosevelt, tlie crowd began to call for the vote, and only Senator Depew held them, so eager were they to record the vote which should make the ticket beyond peradventure or change — McKinley and Roosevelt! But it was done at last, and the convention that promised so little enthusiasm concluded with uncontrollable floods of it that swept all over the City of Penn and scattered to the four quarters of the country. Philadelphia w^as in gala array; when the result of the convention was known the streets were crowded, baiids w^ere playing, flags were everywhere, and fakirs did a big business in hawking badges of the candidates. At night the city w^as brilliaait with illuminations, while there were receptions for the delegates in the clubs, the hotels and in many private residences. Mr. McKinley's nomination had been a foregone conclusion; his four years in office had shown him to be a wise executive and a thoroughly sound man, while he had recently brought the country out of a war that redounded to its credit and .■^20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. gained for it the respect of the civilized world. But the Vice-Presi- dential nominee was another thing; there might have been any of the men thought of chosen, though as a matter of fact Roosevelt had from the first been a prime choice with the people at large. A number of the Rough Riders had come East to be on hand during the convention, and one of them who had never doubted that his Colonel would be the choice, held forth in the lobby of one of the hotels. ''We had been engaged in the hottest kind of work," he said, ''and it had lasted for hours, and after taking the first line of Spanish trenches at San Juan we were fixing them up for our own use. The Spaniards had been driven back, but the sharpshooters were still at it, picking ofif our men now and then. Mauser bullets were whizzing around us pretty lively and I noticed that one of our men, Johnson, was get- ting more and more impatient every minute and acting as if he was just aching to get at those Spanish sharpshooters. Finally he turned to me and said it was tongh we could not get a chance at them. But just as dusk began we were ordered tO' advance beyond the trenches our forces had captured. When we arrived on the spot we were halted on the edge of a wood. Johnson and I were talking of the day's fighting when we suddenly heard the sound of a dry twig breaking. We thought it was one of the sharpshooters on the look- out. Johnson smiled. A little later the sound was repeated. It sounded directly ahead of us, and was certainly the sound of the cautious tread of a horse. Then a dark object appeared just above the top of the brush. Johnson said, 'A sharpshooter. I've got him.' He raised his gun. Then he let it drop. 'My God!' he said 'it's Roosevelt.' And it was the Colonel coming to look after the soldiers as usual, tireless and with the interests of his men at heart. And he's going to be Vice-President." He was going to be Vice-Presi- dent! And what had Colonel Young of Iowa said in nominating Governor Roosevelt for Vice-President? "On the ship Yucatan was COLONEL ROOSEVELT AT MONTAUK POINT PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 323 that famous regiment of Rough Riders of the far West and the Mis- sissippi Valley. In command of that regiment was that fearless young American, student, scholar, plainsman, reviewer, historian, statesman, soldier, of the middle West by adoption, of New York by birth. That fleet sailed around the point, coming to the place of landing, stood off the harbor, two years ago to-morrow, and the navy bombarded that shore to make a place for landing, and no man who lives who was in that campaign as an officer, as a soldier, or as a camp follower, can fail to recall the spectacle; and if he closes his eyes he sees the awful scenes in that campaign in June and July, 1898. And the leader of that campaign of one of those regiments shall be the name that I shall place before the Convention for the. office of Vice-President of the United States. Now, gentlemen of the Convention, I place before vou this distinguished leader of Republicanism of the United States; this leader of the aspirations of the people, whose hearts are right, and this leader of the aspirations of the young men of this country. Their hearts and consciences are with this young leader, whom I shall name for the Vice-Presidency of the United States — Theodore Roosevelt, of New York." The words and the manner in which they were delivered were in the ears of the city that night after the nomination and in every heart, whether it beat for the Republican party or the party controlled by the Democracy, was the throb that told the fact that the choice had been made aright. A country may be grateful for deeds of valor and desire to reward the doer of them, but in this instance the Spanish war, while it had made a popular hero of the nominee for Vice-Presi- dent, did not alone vouch for his eligibility for an office which was a reward for work well done. Theodore Roosevelt was a sound man, a statesman and a man of exalted national sentiment, and with these characteristics, rather than as a soldier, he was to come before th^ country as the proposed Vice-President. 324 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The nomination was the most popular move the Convention could have made; that it would strengthen the ticket in certain sections of the country there could be no doubt. It was impossible, in view of the tremendous enthusiasm with which the country recorded its con- viction, to accuse the Convention of having erred in its choice of the man. Colonel Roosevelt's name was hailed from one end of the land ,D the other. He was the sort of person to find opportunities where ^-^w others would look for them, and while the Vice-Presidency is not an office of very great importance from an outside point of view, yet it was quite conceivable that in his administration of it Colonel Roosevelt would develop potentialities hitherto not dreamed of. The times in the United States Senate when Theodore Roosevelt would wield the gavel as its presiding officer were to be looked forward to with interest. That he would handle that gavel vigorously and honorably and for the best interests of everybody concerned there was not a doubt. It was the common conviction that the old order of things was about to be changed, and that the Vice-Presidency instead of being the graveyard of political ambition would turn out to be something radically different, something in which there would be seen a live man and an active mind. Colonel Roosevelt's wishes were not for the Vice-Presidency, and even the adverse papers said as much, and congratulated the Republican Party in its choice of a man who even if averse to the office proposed for him would be a shining light in that office. The platform, which was received with the same acclaim as greeted the candidates, was conceded by even the grudging ones to be about as satisfactory a document of its kind as could be washed. It was singularly free from clap-trap, and it said enough and not too much about the main features of the policy of the administration. It re- affirmed the gold standard, and in its wisely-framed paragraph relating PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 325 to expansion and the duties of the United States in connection there> with, it successfully offset the Anti-imperialistic agitators. It made no promises that were not in a fair way to be fulfilled already, and it was altogether a most excellent and sincere presentation of the principles and policy of the Republican party. The campaign undertaken by Colonel Roosevelt was never equalled in the number of States covered. He was indefatigable, tireless, going thousands of miles and addressing millions of people, no two addresses alike, his mind fresh and vigorous at all times and in sym- pathy with every word he uttered. The interest excited and the number of persons addressed make this campaign unique in the annals of the country. He traveled twenty-two thousand miles, made six hundred and seventy-three addresses, many of them of more than an hour duration, visiting five hundred and sixty-seven towns, and speaking to three millions and five hundred thousand people. The campaigns which Douglas made in i860, Greeley in 1872, and Blaine in 1884, were historic in these respects, but not one of these candidates at those dates made a tenth as many speeches as Colonel Roosevelt in the campaign of 1900. Most of his itinerary was in the middle West and the trans-Mississippi region, throughout all of which he had always been a favorite and where he was now hailed as no man before him had been hailed. One of Colonel Roosevelt's gatherings was especially notable for its size, its exuberance, the number of ele- ments which it represented, and the enthusiasm and impartiality with which it musically voiced the feelings of all sections. It was in St. Louis, that central point of the meridians and the parallels, the ming- ling place of the North and the South, the East and the West. The meeting was held in the Coliseum, the largest auditorium met by Colonel Roosevelt in his tour. In the great hall were crowded fifteen thousand people, and as many more were close to the building on the outside so as to catch a glimpse of him as he passed into it and out 326 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of it. As he entered the hall the cheers shook the structure, and thousands of flags and handkerchiefs waived like a forest in a tornado. The audience sang "America." The bands successively and miscel- laneously played "John Brown's Body," "The Bonnie Blue Flag," "Marching Through Georgia," "Maryland, My Maryland," "The [Red, White and Blue," "Dixie," and "The Star-spangled Banner." The demonstration was a magnificent tribute to the popularity of Colonel Roosevelt. The list of qualifications of the nominee for any office of the land was long and varied. Neither Washington nor Monroe ever traveled so far or mingled with so many varieties of people before attaining office. Jefferson had as broad an array of accomplishments and in- tellectual interests, but no other statesman except John Quincy Adams and Garfield equaled him in education and in knowledge of the countiy's history and politics. Colonel Roosevelt's success as Governor of New York evinced his ability in high executive station. The Vice-Presidency had commonly been considered the last stop- ping place on the downward road to oblivion. Tlie number of invi- tations for addresses received by Colonel Roosevelt from all parts of the country during his incumbency, and the enthusiasm which his appearance evoked wherever he went, disclosed the fact that this supposed fatality attaching to the Vice-President depends as much on the man as it does on the office. Compared with other Vice-Presi- dents, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Jackson and Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt had some striking and significant ad- vantages. He had a much wider pubhc experience, civil and military, than the others. He was far better acquainted than they with all sections of the country, and with their peoples and ideas. He was on better terms with the leaders of his party than any of those four had been, while his mental equipment was larger than was that of PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 327 any of them, and at the same time his personality made an imm<»as- urably greater appeal to the imagination of his countrymen than theirs ever did. "The administration of each of these 'ixcept Arthur's was a failure, and Arthur's made a break in the continuity of his pre decessor. The fierce factional fight precipitated by Ck\y in pushing to the front his project for the re-establishment of the ITiiited States Bank, which Jackson had killed a few years earlier, provo.Ved Tyler's vetoes. These sent all his cabinet into retirement except Secretary of State Webster, who also stepped down not long aftej h>- had finished the treaty which settled the controversy with Englano'. This Clay-Tyler feud wrecked Tyler's administration and seriously iiainp- ered the Whig party. Fillmore, the Northern man, was more obse- quious to slavery than the Southern man and slave-holder Taylor would have been had he lived, and he signed all the measures col- lectively called the compromise of 1850. One of these, the fugitive slave law^ sent tens of thousands of persons out of the Whig party, and was one of the reasons for the overwhelming defeat of the Whigs in the canvass af 1852, in which they carried only four states — Ver- mont, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Tennessee — as compared with twenty-seven which went to Pierce, the Democratic candidate. Lincoln's reconstruction policy, which w^ould have taxed his powers if he had lived, Johnson attempted to carry out, after Lincoln's death, without having any of Lincoln's tact or any of his influence over the dominant Republican party. Arthur organized a conserva- tive and acceptable administration, which surprised as well as pleased, the country. At the outset, however, he was an object of consider- able distrust. Arthur's accession to power was a triumph of one faction of his party — the faction wdiich had been beaten in the national convention — over the element w'hich had w'on the chief prize in the assemblage." 328 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. But in the party which controlled the government of 1900 there were no factions, differences, or distractions. President McKinley was trusted and honored and his cabinet largely exhibited the quali- ties that went to make the chief a man of the people's choice. The election came and passed, and Colonel Roosevelt was Vice-President. The enthusiasm of the campaign followed him up the steps of the Capitol at Washington, when on the 4th of March, 1901, he took the oath of office. The crowds, the multitude, representing all sorts and conditions of people, from every section of the country, North, East, South, West, had eyes for him rather than for the President. The President had been tried and not found wanting, he had done many wise things in the four years of his previous incumbency and his party had carried him out in nearly every way that he wished. Vice-Presi- dent Hobart had been a good and respected man, and had filled his office commendably, notably during the Spanish war, when he had had much to do and had acted well. But a new man had come in, a man who had reconstructed the corrupt Police Department of New York against great odds and with only his own courage and probity to carry him on, and that he had not failed in his efforts at the time told that he was not only a true administrator but that he was also a fighter of rings and political coalitions. And he had fought other things than rings and coalitions; there was behind him a Western record when he had been a hunter of animals and a controller of wild men, while the Spanish war was a page of only yesterday's read- ing, and in that war he had done deeds that spoke not only of the soldier, but also of the man who was determined and resolute, pro- viding for the best for those under him; and a wise ruler of a few must be a wise ruler of the many. The office of Vice-President pre- cluded the possibility of much activity, and hitherto it had done little for the good of country or party, but Theodore Roosevelt was not a negative man, and his virility v/ould assert itself in no matter v»'hat PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. S29 office he held. He was no figure-head, and the chances were that occasions would arise when he would let it be seen that the new office he had assumed was not to be a tomb for dead ambitions, as it would seem had several times been the case in the history of the country, and that if there was a loophole for active service the man just going into office would discover it and make what use of it he thought best. Whatever use he might make of that loophole would be honorable, for never yet in all the offices he had held, never yet by spoken or written word, never by deed or intent had he been dishonorable to his city, his State or his country. He was an American of the Americans, adaptable, energetic, choosing arduous tasks and accom- plishing them well. He is Vice-President, he presides in the Senate, he understands his duties, and he will do them at no matter what sacrifice to his personal comfort. He has not sought the office; he preferred to keep it out of his experiences; he knows that his abilities are circumscribed by it, but he is a patient man, even though an "impetuous" one, and he will wait for the chance when he can bring into better prominence than has hitherto been attempted the rather vague office of Vice- President of the United States. He is one of the very few scholarly politicians. There are many men v.ho are scholars and politicians, but in Theodore Roosevelt the two are completely fused. His char- acter is enriched but not complicated by the presence of the two elements. Each element lights up the other; as, for instance, where in his "Life of Cromwell" he is able to interpret some events in the great Protector's career with a precision which the more erudite historians have missed, and where in his political papers and addresses a helpful historical parallel or a happy quotation lends force and con- creteness to his argument. One evening at Philadelphia, in June, 1900, when his rooms were crowded with powerful men discussing whether or not his impending nomination for the Vice-Presidency S30 THEODORE ROOSfiVELT. was wise, and while an immense body of cheering paraders crowded the street below% Theodore Roosevelt sat in an inner room, alone, absorbed in reading Thucydides. He was resting". As Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, is associated forever with his policy of "Thorough," so Theodore Roosevelt has made his ow^n the "Strenuous Life." This is almost universally misunderstood. For him, the "strenuous life" is the contradiction of a life of selfish in- dulgence, of unproductive dreaming and mind-wandering, and of careless neglect of personal and civic duties. The "stenuous life" of Theodore Roosevelt is not an active military life, much less a life of contention, bustle, arid noise. Theodore Roosevelt is primarily a man of peace. He has long supported the cause of arbitration as the best means of settling differences between nations. He detests war, unless it be that conditions make peace for the moment dishonorable. He went to war himself against the urgent appeals of his family and of every intimate friend he had, not from love of fighting or of glory, and not from ambition, but from the sternest sense of duty. Great thinkers, great poets and artists, great men of affairs, are as much his heroes as are the world's greatest military and naval captains. It is the fact that they did, and not the particular thing which they did, that claims his attention and his admiration. For him, the philoso- pher Kant, who never left his native province, and whose eighty years of long life were given over wholly to abstruse thinking and to teach- ing the results of his thought, led a strenuous life as truly as did Crom- well, Napoleon, or Lincoln. A life which finds no expression, which contributes nothing to humanity, which aims persistently at no lofty ideal, is the life that is not strenuous, as he uses the word which has come to be associated with his name. Theodore Roosevelt's activity is not impetuous. Few public men weigh courses of action more carefully than he, and few are so well equipped to w^eigh them quickly and accurately. A sluggish nature PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 331 is not necessarily a wise one. Mr. Roosevelt's actions are prompt, firm, and decisive, not because he does not reason and weigh, but because he reasons and weighs while others are searching for some- thing to put upon the scales. He acts often upon his instinctive feel- ings and judgments, but this is an unsafe course only for him whose instincts are bad. The man of clear intellectual vision and of right feeling must act quickly if he is to act effectively. Theodore Roosevelt believes that the world is a good world, that it is ruled by a divine Providence whose eternal purposes are just, and he relies with absolute confidence upon the results of a direct and clear appeal to the sense of right and of honor in his fellow-man. But another class of citizens would know of the man. He con- sorted largely with this class when Police Commissioner of New York — they were the men and women who did good work for the poor, clergymen, priests, men and women who spend their lives for the up- lifting of brothers and sisters who have gone under and need a friendly hand. These men and women do their goodly work largely upheld by a belief in that Providence that reckons no life of small account, and who notes even the fall of a sparrow. What is the attitude of Theodore Roosevelt toward that Providence as a man? Says Jacob A. Riis: "The bitterest critics of his administration of the police in New York know now, if they were capable of learning, that his practical wisdom in dealing with that task was as great as his unhesitating courage. That task was to rescue the police from its partnership with corruption, and with uiijerring instinct he struck at the slough in which the corruption grew — the saloon. In no man's hands that lives and owns American citizenship to-day are the country's honor and welfare safer than in Theodore Roosevelt's. And the country knows it well. Men who called him hasty in the old days have lived to heartily wish that they had spent their energies pushing on the load he 332 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. dragged almost alone, instead of trying to persuade him from doing his duty in the interest of expediency, or denouncing him for not heeding them. Not that the one thing or the other made any differ- ence to him. That the load was there to be dragged up the hill was enouo-h for him. He stopped neither to consider the size of it, nor how steep was the hill. Above all, he did nothing hastily, but of deliberate purpose, most carefully weighed and thought out. In those days I was with him every day, almost every hour, and I knew not only what he did, but how he did it. One difference between him and his critics was that he had given his life to the patient study of the problems upon which they jumped with such headlong haste, anxiotis only to prevent "trouble," and hence that he was able to see clearly where their fears made them blind; another was that, fore- seeing clearly, among other things, the consequences to himself, he was not afraid, for beyond and behind them he saw ever the duty he had sworn to do faithfully. So it came about that during those turbulent times Mr. Roosevelt's appeal was ever to the moral forces of the community, to the forces making for decency and order, and it was their support that was his backing. The direct way to a thing was always his. When there was trouble with labor he sent for its leaders, and put the question straight —what they wanted; and when, not knov.-ing the manner of man they had to do with, they tried blustering, he put them right in ten words, showing them clearly that they were their own worst enemies in fomenting trouble, and that, meeting him on that ground, they would lose the fight, — then turned back to the subject under advisement as if nothing had happened. And they applauded the man, and showed that they themselves were men in doing it. When he was governor, and wanted to see how the laws regarding sweating were carried out, he sent first for the labor men, told them what he wanted, and asked them to help him. Afterward he went himself, and saw what was PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 333 done and what was not done. It was so always. It was thus that he, as a very young man serving in the Legislature, went to the bottom of the tenement-house cigar-makers' grievous troubles, and, having made out their side very clearly, took it without hesitation, to the amazement of the cynics, who, speechless, beheld a "silk stocking" take up the cause of the poor because it was the cause of right. And it was so that as police commissioner and governor, he gave his nights, as his days, to personal inspection of the wrongs he was asked to right. Having ascertained the facts, he went to the men who ought to help, and told them so. During the deadlock in the police board his appeal was constantly to the churches and the clergy, that of his opponents as constantly to politics and the politicians. The result we see in New York to-day: the police force, since his grip upon it was loosened, is deeper in the rut of politics and corruption than ever, but in the battle against the conspiracy, which is bound to win, the clergy and the churches lead. They are fighting Roosevelt's fight to-day, with the Bishop of New York at the forefront of battle. If there be any yet who believe him "hasty," they will find them- selves disappointed in that, as always before. Roosevelt has per- sistently disappointed his enemies from the very beginning. Seeing his rapid rise, they compared him to a rocket, and said that he would come down a stick presently. And so he would have done had he been, as they thought, a politician. But he was a statesman — a man of destiny because a man of duty. That is the key-note of his life. It was his father's, one of the most useful and public-spirited men who ever lived in New York, — a man whose life was, and is, a lesson to us all, and whose death moved the metropolis to such sorrow as it has seldom felt for any citizen. His high ideals of citizenship he got from him; his sanity, too, I fancy, for it was a distinguishing mark of one, and is of the other. So was his fairness, his sober sense of justice, for which the policemen in 534 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Mulberry Street love him yet in secret. They dare not mention his name openly in these days of Tammany rule. For once, and once only, the honest policeman who did his duty, but had no pull, had an equal chance with the schemer. Neither kind will soon forget the two years of Roosevelt. I well remember the time I clashed with all three of the qualities in him which I have mentioned. It was when a woman was condemned to death for the foul and wicked murder of her step-daughter, and he, as governor, was beset by an endless array of more or less maudlin petitions praying for pardon. I, too, labored with him. I did not like the execution, but more — I never owned it before, he would have been the last man to bring that argument to — • I feared the effect of it on his career. I was weak and foolish, I know it now. I went to Albany, and all that evening and night, till the i A. M. train went back to the city, I argued it with him in his study. I pleaded on every ground I knew how, and I saw in his face the yearning to see it as his friend did. But he could not. He had pardoned others before, and I knew it was his dear delight to temper justice with mercy where it could rightly be done. Roosevelt is farthest from being a hard man; his heart is as tender as a woman's where it may be, as hard as steel where it must be. In this case he was absolutely right. Every consideration of fairness and justice de- manded that the law take its course if the prisoner was responsible. That fact he ascertained by the strictest scrutiny, and then stood aside, heedless of the clamor. It was with something almost of awe that I saw him do it, for I knew what it cost him. Theodore Roosevelt loves children. When he was a police com- missioner, we would sometimes go together to the Italian school of the Children's Aid Society, or some kindred place, and I loved of all things to hear him talk to the little ones. They did too. I fancy he left behind him on every one of those trips a streak of little patriots to whom, ae they grow up, the memory of their hour with "Teddy" PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 335 will be a whole manual of good citizenship. I know one little girl out on Long Island who is to-day hugging the thought of the hand- shake he gave her as the most precious of her memories. And so do I, for I saw him spy her, — poor, pale little thing, in her threadbare jacket, — way back in the crowd of school-children that swarmed 'ibout his train, and I saw him dash into the surging tide like a strong swimmer striking from the shore, make a w^ay through the shouting mob of youngsters clear to where she was on the outskirts looking on hopelessly, catch and shake her hand as if his very heart were in his, and then catch the moving train on the run, while she looked after it, her face one big, happy smile. That was Roosevelt, every inch of him. His home is one of the happiest I know of, for love is at the helm. It is his harbor of refuge, which he insists on preserving sacred to him and his, whatever storms rage without. And in this also he is faithful to the highest of American ideals, to his country's best tra- ditions. The only time I saw him so angry as to nearly lose his temper was when he was told that his enemies in the police depart- ment, who never grasped the kind of man they had to do with, or wxre able to do it, were shadowing him nightly from his office to his home, thinking to catch him 'n some wrong. He flushed hotly. "What!" he said, "going home tp my babies?" But his anger died in a sad little laugh of contempt. That was their way, not his. When, soon after, the opportunity came to him to pay them back in their own coin, he spurned it with loathing. He fought fair even with scoundrels. A just man and a fair; a man of duty and principle, never, by any chance, of expediency, political or personal; a reverent man of few public professions, but of practice, private and public, ever in accord with the highest ideals of Christian manliness. In fact, I kltiow of no one who typifies better the Christian gentleman. In the hands of 336 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. such a man, no one but a frightened newspaper editor, whose secret wish is father to his fears, need be afraid to leave the destinies of our country." A Christian gentleman, a reformer and a soldier became Vice-Presi- dent of the country in 1901. That he appreciated his office, that he had studied to comprehend its relation to the country was not to be doubted. CHAPTER XVII. The Office of Vice-President Unique — History of the Office — Electoral Col- Itjge — Distrust of Party Government — The Vice-President's Theory of Vice- Presidency — Examples Cited — List of Books Written by Roosevelt — Address in Minnesota— Life of Effort— Right Start— Law and Prosperity — Amassing Fortune — Say what you Mean — Dealings with Cuba — Essential of Civiliza- tion — President McKinley Shot. A UNIQUE office is that of the Vice-President, both in his char- acter and ftnictions. There is Uttle for him to do while he remains Vice-President, and yet at any moment he may be called to become the head of the nation. The history of such an office cannot but be interesting. The men who drew up the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the government, in some instances failed entirely to achieve what they had endeavored to do by a most elaborate gov- ernmental arrangement, while in others they builded most wisely of set purpose. What would now be called "pure democracy" they distrusted, and they dreaded v.hat we would now^ call party government. "Their distrust of democracy induced them to construct the Electoral College," says Theodore Roosevelt in his paper on the Vice-Presi- dency, "for the choice of a President, the original idea being that the people should elect their best and wisest men, who, in turn, should, untrammeled by outside pressure, elect a President. As a matter of fact tb.e functions of the electorate have now by time and custom become of little more importance than those of so many letter- carriers. They deliver the electoral votes of their States just as a letter-carrier delivers his mail." The distrust felt by the founders of the Constitution for party government took shape in the scheme to 337 338 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. provide that the majority party should have the foremost place, and the minority party the second place, in the national executive. The man who got the greatest number of electoral votes was made Presi- dent, and the man who received the second greatest number was made Vice-President, on a theory somewhat akin to that by which certain reformers hope to revolutionize our system of voting at the present day. In the article to which we refer, Mr. Roosevelt reviewed the history of the Vice-Presidential nominations, and criticised sharply the cus- tom "of offering the Vice-Presidency as a consolation prize to be given in many cases to the very men who were most bitterly opposed to the nomination of the successful candidate for President." Mr. Roosevelt went on to show how, on the death of the elder Harrison, "the Presidency fell into the hands of a man who had but a corporal's guard of supporters in the nation, and who proceeded to oppose all tiie measures of the immense majority of those who elected him." In the case of the death of President Lincoln, Mr. Roosevelt remarks that "Johnson was put on the ticket largely for geographical reasons, and on the death of Lincoln he tried to reverse the policy of the party which had put him in ofifice." His historical comment upon a more recent case proceeds as follows: "An instance of an entirely different kind is afforded by Garfield and Arthur. The differences between these two party leaders were mainly merely factional. Each stood squarely on the platform of the party, and all the principles advocated by one were advocated by the other; yet the death of Garfield meant a complete overturn in the personnel of the upper Republican officials, because Arthur had been nominated expressly to placate the group of party leaders who most objected to the nomination of Garfield. Arthur made a very good President, but the bitterness caused Ijy his succession to power nearly tore the party in twain." PATRIOT AND STATESiMAN. 3S9 Mr. Roosevelt's own theory was that the Vice-President should be selected with very distinct reference to the fact that he might at any moment be called upon to act as President, in view of which he ought, at the outset, to be in recognized harmony with the Presi- dent's policy and practical administration, and ought, further, to be kept in touch by close consultation. Under these circumstances, the Vice-President, being part and parcel of the administration, so to speak, would step quietly into the executive office in case of the President's death, and continue the administration with as little 'shock, uncertainty, or change as possible. On these matters Mr. Roosevelt expressed himself, in words that have now a peculiar interest, as follows: "The Vice-President should, so far as possible represent the same views and principles which have secured the nomination and election of the President, and he should be a man standing well in the councils of the party, trusted by his fellow-party leaders, and able, in the event of any accident to his chief, to take up the work of the latter just where it w-as left. The Republican party has this year nominated such a man in the person of Mr. Hobart. But nominations of this kind have by no means been always the rule of recent years. No' change of parties, for instance, could w^ell produce a greater revolution in policy than would have been produced at almost any time during the last three years if Mr. Cleveland had died and Mr. Stevenson had succeeded him. "One sure way to secure this desired result would undoubtedly be to increase the power of the Vice-President. He should always be a man who would be consulted by the President on every great party question. It would be very well if he were given a seat in the Cabinet. It might be well if in addition to his vote in the Senate in the event of a tie he should be given a vote, on ordinary occasions, and per- chance on occasions a voice in the debates. A man of the character S40 THEODORE ROOSEVELT of Mr. Hobart is sure to make his weight felt in an administration, but the power of thus exercising influence should be made official rather than personal." While the late Vice-President Hobart was in no official sense a member of the cabinet, it is well known that President McKinley consulted him constantly and freely, and that Mr. Hobart was on intimate personal and official terms with the members of the cabinet, while also exercising a great deal of practical influence among the Senators, over whose deliberations it was his function to preside. It will be remembered that Mr. Roosevelt was the speaker at the Phila- delphia Convention who seconded Senator Foraker's nomination of President McKinley for another term, and that his speech was a fine tribute to l^.Ir. McKinley's administration as well as a strong plea for Mr. McKinley's policies. Thus, it was perfectly well known that Mr. Roosevelt was in accord with the President who had made him a high official in the Navy Department, and had afterward commis- sioned him to high rank in the army. Furthermore, it is no secret that President McKinley, on his own part, sent word to Mr. Roose- velt, as Vice-Presidential nominee, that he would treat him exactly as he had treated Mr. Hobart, in case the ticket should be elected. Thus, Mr. Roosevelt went to Washington as Vice-President to enjoy the full confidence of Mr. McKinley in all matters of public impor- tance, and also to enjoy the friendship and confidence of all the mem- bers of the Cabinet. These were the circumstances under which Mr. Roosevelt's action, when the great emergency arose, was not one about which he had any occasion to falter or hesitate. The con- ditions were totally unlike those that had existed when former Presi- dents had died in ofBce, and they were diametrically opposite to those at the time of President Garfield's assassination, when the Vice- President was one of the leaders in an intense factional fight against the political plans and methods of the administration. Mr. Roose- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. S41 velt's relations with the administration were thus so normal and ap- propriate that there was every reason to expect that in the case of Mr. IMcKinley's death he would take up the reins of administration exactly where they were laid down, and proceed as best he could with existing instrumentalities. He went to Washington as Vice-President and for the little while that he remained in the Capitol in his ofiicial capacity he enjoyed the friendship of Mr. IMcKinley to a very close degi^e. He was a far younger man than the President. Said a friend: "He goes to Wash- ington to take a position under the government not of his choosing, but which he accepts because the people would have it so." But he was fully equipped for any constitutioual duties that might be re- quired of him, and he was a well-known man who was not only city- born and city-bred, but for over two hundred years his family had been intimately connected with the commercial and the political de- velopment of New York, whose historian he himself has been. His father, whose name he bears and whose sturdy good-citizenship he justly reveres, was prominent in the city's life. \Miat this city ex- perience has meant for him is not as well known as it should be, but Mr. Roosevelt himself expressed it with emphasis in the preface to his volume on New York in the "Historic Towns Series." He says: In speaking to my own countrymen, there is one point upon which I wish to lay especial stress; that is, the necessity for a feeling of broad, radical, and intense Americanism, if good work is to be done in any direction. Above all, the one essential for success in any political movement w'hich is to do lasting good, is that our citizens should act as Americans; not as Americans with a prefix and qualifi- cation, — not as Irish-Americans, German-Americans, native Ameri- cans, — but as Americans pure and simple. It is an outrage for a man to drag foreign politics into our contests, and vote as an Irishman or German or other foreigner, as the case may be; and there is no worse §42 tHEODORE ROOSEVELT. citizen than the professional Irish dynamiter or German anarchist because of his attitude toward our social and political life, not to mention his efforts to embroil us with foreign powers. But it is no less an outrage to discriminate against one who has become an American in good faith merely because of his creed or birthplace. Every man who has gone into practical politics knows well enough that if he joins good men and fights those who are evil he can pay no heed to lines of division drawn according to race and religion. * * The most important lesson taught by the history of New York City is the lesson of Americanism, — the lesson that he among us who wishes to win honor in our life, and to play his part honestly and man- fully, must be indeed an American in spirit and purpose, in heart and thought and deed. Mr. Roosevelt's city cosmopolitanism long since became national. Educated at Harvard University; plunging into the study of the law; serving a city district for three terms in the lower house of the State Legislature; delegate-at-large to his party's national convention at twenty-five; living an out-of-door life on a ranch on the Little Missouri; traveling, hunting, and climbing in his vacations; studying and writing works of history and books on sport, on politics, and on literature; serving as civil-service commissioner at Washington, presi- dent of the police commission in New York, and returning to Wash- ington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy; volunteering for service in the Spanish War, and serving brilliantly; taking up the arduous and responsible duties of the governorship of the great commonwealth of New York for two years, and finding time while discharging them well to write a critical interpretation of Cromwell's career and a history of his regiment organized for the Spanish War; and finally presiding for a few days over the Senate of the United States as Vice- President — surely here is a training such as America alone can give to "one of Plutarch's men." 1 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 348 What Other statesman or what other man of letters could have written, or would have been asked to write, sympathetic studies of two such typical but widely different Americans as bluff old Tom Benton, of Missouri, and the polished Gouverneur Morris, of New York? Theodore Roosevelt alone, of all living Americans, could penetrate to the common secret of the greatness of these contrasting t3^pes, and could reveal it. His life in New York and his college train- ing at Harvard had brought him in touch with the characteristics and the environment of Morris, while his travels in the West, his life on the plains, and his insight into frontier stcindards and conditions re- vealed to him those of Benton. The Vice-President took to Washington with him a well-known reputation as an author. Had he done nothing but contribute to the field of literature the ambitious list of works given below, he would be entitled to rank with the noted men of the period, but at every point of contact with life he has equally distinguished himself. The ac- companying list gives all his books now in print and in the order of their publication. "The Naval War of 1812." "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman." "Life of Thomas Hart Benton." (American Statesmen Series.) "Gouverneur Morris." (American Statesmen Series.) "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail." "Winning of the West." 4 vols. 'New York." (Historic Towns.) "Wilderness Hunter: Account of the Big Game of the United States." (Roosevelt and Grinnell eds.). "American Big Game Hunting." (Book of the Boone and Crockett Club.) "Hero Tales From American History." (Lodge and Roosevelt). 344 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "Hunting in Many Lands." (Book of the Boone and Crockett Club.) "American Ideals and Other Essays, Social and Political'' t (Grinnell and Roosevelt eds.). "Trail and Campfire," (Book of the Boone and Crockett Clubo) "The Rough Riders." "Oliver Cromwell." "The Strenuous Life." The country was at peace, its prosperity was phenomenal, and it would seem that after all the new Vice-President would have little to do until after the warm weather of the Summer. He might go to Oyster Bay and join his family there, or he might go West where he so often went for a breathing spell after the arduous life of a political excitement. And surely the campaign for McKinley had been arduous, and such as no man without his vast reserve force of health, gained on the prairies and the mountains, could have stood. The winter would come soon enough, when, his books unopened, his domestic life interrupted, he should be in the Capitol. The ist of September found him in Minnesota, where he had promised to make an address at the State Fair. On the morrow this address was made. Its incisiveness, its direct eloquence, and its energetic force are thor- oughly characteristic of him, while its high ethical spirit and political recommendations will attract deserved attention. He says: "In his admirable series of studies of twentieth-century problems, Dr. Lyman Abbott has pointed out that we are a nation of pioneers; that the first colonists to our shores were pioneers, and that pioneers selected out from among the descendants of these early pioneers, mingled with others selected afresh from the Old World, pushed westward into the wilderness, and laid the foundations for new com- monwealths. They were men of hope and expectation, of enterprise and energy; for the men of dull content, or more, dull despair, had PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 345 no part in the great movement into and across the New World. Our country has been populated by pioneers, and therefore it has in it more energy, more enterprise, more expansive power, than any other in the wide world. "You whom I am now addressing stand, for the most part, but one generation removed from these pioneers. You are typical Americans, for you have done the great, the characteristic, the typical, work of our American life. In making homes and carving out careers for yourselves and your children, you have built up this State; through- out our history the success of the homemaker has been but another name for the upbuilding of the nation. The men who with axe in the forest and pick in the mountains and plow on the prairies pushed to completion the dominion of our people over the American wilderness have given the definite shape to our nation. They have shown the qualities of daring, endurance, and farsightedness, of eager desire for victory and stubborn refusal to accept defeat, which go to make up the essential manliness of the American character. Above all, they have recognized in practical form the fundamental law of success in American life — the law of worthy work, the law of high, resolute en- deavor. We have but little room among our people for the timid, the irresolute, and the idle, and it is no less true that there is scant room in the world at large for the nation with mighty thews that dares not to be great. "Surely, in speaking to the sons of men who actually did the rough and hard and infinitely glorious work of making the great Northwest what it now is, I need hardly insist upon the righteousness of this doctrine. In your own vigorous lives you show by every act how scant is your patience with those who do not see in the life of effort the life supremely worth living. Sometimes we hear those who do not work spoken of with envy. Surely the willfully idle need arouse in I 346 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. the breast of a healthy man no emotion stronger than that of con- tempt — at the outside, no emotion stronger than angry contempt. 'The feeling of envy would have in it an admission of inferiority on our part, to which the men who know not the sterner joys of life are not entitled. Poverty is a bitter thing, but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual fiabbiness to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits — the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself. The willfully idle man, like the willfully barren woman, has no place in a sane, healthy, and vigorous community. Moreover, the gross and hideous selfishness for which each stands defeats even its own miserable aims. Exactly as infinitely the happiest woman is she who has borne and brought up many healthy children, so infinitely the happiest man is he who has toiled hard and successfully in his life-work. Tlie work may be done in a thousand different ways, — with the brain or the hands, in the study, the field, or the workshop ; if it is honest work, honestly done and well worth doing, that is all we have a right to ask. Every father and mother here, if they are wise, will bring up their children, not to shirk difficulties, but to meet them and overcome them; not to strive after a life of ignoble ease, but to strive to do their duty, first to themselves and their families, and then to the whole State; and this duty must inevitably take the shape of work in some form or other. You, the sons of pioneers, if you are true to your ancestry, must make your lives as worthy as they made theirs. They sought for true success, and therefore they did not seek ease. They knew that success comes only to those who lead the life of endeavor. "It seems to me that the simple acceptance of this fundamental fact of American Hfe, this acknowledgment that the law c^ work is the fundamental law of our being, will help us to start aright in facing not a few of the problems that confront us from without and from LIEUT. COLONEL ROOSEVELT AND CAPT. DOWNES PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 349 within. As regards internal affairs, it should teach us the prime need of remembering that, after all has been said and done, the chief factor in any man's success or failure must be his own character; that is, the sum of his common sense, his courage, his virile energy and capacity. Nothing can take the place of this individual factor. "I do not for a moment mean that much cannot be done to supple- ment it. Besides each of us working individually, all of us have got to work together. We cannot possibly do our best work as a nation unless all of us know how to act in combination as well as how to act each individually for himself. The acting in combination can take many forms, but of course its most effective form must bir when it comes in the shape of law; that is, of action by the community as a whole through the lawmaking body. "But it is not possible ever to insure prosperity merely by law. Something for good can be done by law, and a bad law can do an infinity of mischief; but, after all, the best law can only prevent wrong and injustice, and give to the thrifty, the farseeing, and the hard- working a chance to exercise to the best advantage their special and peculiar abilities. No hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to where our legislation shall stop in interfering between man and man, be- tween interest and interest. All that can be said is that it is highly undesirable, on the one hand, to weaken individual initiative, and on the other hand, that in a constantly increasing number of cases we shall find it necessary in the future to shackle cunning as in the past we have shackled force. "It is not only highly desirable, but necessary, that there should be legislation which shall carefully shield the interests of wage- workers, and which shall discriminate in favor of the honest and humane employer by removing the disadvantages under which he stands when compared with unscrupulous competitors who have no conscience and will do right only under fear of punishment. 350 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "Nor can legislation stop only with what are termed labor ques- tions. The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast com- binations of capital, which have marked the development of our in- dustrial system, create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of the State and the nation toward property. "It is probably true that the large majority of the fortunes that now exist in this country have been amassed, not by injuring our people, but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits upon the com- munity; and this no matter what may have been the conscious pur- pose of those amassing them. There is but the scantiest justification for most of the outcry against the men of wealth as such, and it ought to be unnecessary to state that any appeal which directly or indirectly leads to suspicion and hatred among ourselves, which tends to limit opportunity and therefore to shut the door of success against poor men of talent, and finally, which entails the possibility of lawlessness and violence, is an attack upon the fundamental properties of Ameri- can citizenship. Our interests are at bottom common; in the long run, we go up or go down together. Yet more and more it is evident that the State, and if necessary the nation, has got to possess the right of supervision and control as regards the great corporations, which are its creatures; particularly as regards the great business combinations, which derive a portion of their importance from the existence of some monopolistic tendency. The right should be exer- cised with caution and self-restraint ; but it should exist, so that it may be invoked if the need arise. "So much for our duties, each to himself and each to his neighbor, within the limits of our own country. But our country, as it strides forward with ever-increasing rapidity to a foremost place among the world powers, must necessarily find, more and more, that it has world duties also. There are excellent people who believe that we can shirk those duties and yet retain our self-respect; but these good PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 351 people are in error. Other good people seek to deter us from tread- ing the path of hard but lofty duty by bidding us remember that all nations that have achieved greatness, that have expanded and played their part as world powers, have in the end passed away. So they have, and so have all others. "The weak and the stationary have vanished as surely as, and more rapidly than, those whose citizens felt within them the life that impels generous souls to great and noble effort. This is another way of stating the universal law of death, which is itself part of the universal law of life. The man who works, the man who does great deeds, in the end dies as surely as the veriest idler who cumbers the earth's surface; but he leaves behind him the great fact that he has done his work well. So it is with nations. While the nation that has dared to be great, that has had the will and the power to change the destiny of the ages, in the end must die, yet no less surely the nation that has played the part of the weakling must also die; and whereas the nation that has done nothing leaves nothing behind it, the nation that has done a great work really continues, though in changed form, for evermore. The Roman has passed away, exactly as all nations of antiquity which did not expand when he expanded have passed away; but their very memory has vanished, while he himself is still a living force throughout the wide world in our entire civilization of to-day, and will so continue through countless generations, through untold ages. *Tt is because we believe with all our heart and soul in the great- ness of this country, because we feel the thrill of hardy life in our veins, and are confident that to us is given the privilege of playing a leading part in the century that has just opened, that we hail with eager delight the opportunity to do whatever task Providence may allot us. We admit with all sincerity that our first duty is within our own household; that we must not merely talk, but act, in favor of 352 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. cleanliness and decency and righteousness, in all political, social, and civic matters. No prosperity and no glory can save a nation that is rotten at heart. We must ever keep the core of our national being sound, and see to it that not only our citizens in private life, but above all, our statesmen in public life, practise the old commonplace virtues which from time immemorial have lain at the root of all true "national well-being. "Yet, while this is our first duty, it is not our whole duty. Exactly as each man, while doing first his duty to his wife and the children within his home, must yet, if he hopes to amount to much, strive mightily in the world outside his home, so our nation, while first of all seeing to its own domestic well-being, must not shrink from play- ing its part among the great nations without. "Our duty may take many forms in the future, as it has taken many forms in the past. Nor is it possible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule for all cases. We must ever face the fact of our shifting national needs, of the always changing opportunities that present themselves. But we may be certain of one thing: whether we wash it or not, we cannot avoid hereafter having duties to do in the face of other nations. All that we can do is to settle whether w^e shall perform these duties well or ill. "Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick — you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 35S is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. Whenever on any point we come in contact with a foreign power, I hope that we shall always strive to speak cour- teously and respectfully of that foreign power. Let us make it evi- dent that we intend to do justice. Then let us make it equally evident that we will not tolerate injustice being done us in return. Let us further make it evident that we use no words which we are not pre- pared to back up with deeds, and that while our speech is always moderate, we are ready and willing to make it good. Such an atti- tude will be the surest possible guarantee of that self-respecting peace the attainment of which is aiid must ever be the prime aim of a self- governing people. "This is the attitude we should take as regards the Monroe Doctrine. There is not the least need of blustering about it. Still less should it be used as a pretext for our own aggrandizement at the expense of any other American state. But, most emphatically, we must make it evident that we intend on this point ever to maintain the old American position. Indeed, it is hard to understand how any man can take any other position now that we are all looking forward to the building of the isthmian canal. The Monroe Doctrine is not international law, but there is no necessity that it should be. "All that is needful is that it should continue to be a cardinal fea- ture of American policy on this continent; and the Spanish-American states should, in their own interests, champion it as strongly as we do. We do not by this doctrine intend to sanction any policy of aggres- sion by one American commonwealth at the expense of any other, nor any policy of commercial discrimination against any foreign power whatsoever. Commercially, as far as this doctrine is con- cerned, all we wish is a fair field and no favor; but if we are wise we shall strenuously insist that under no pretext whatsoever shall there 354 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. be any territorial aggrandizement on American soil by any European power, and this no matter what form the territorial aggrandizement may take. "We most earnestly hope and believe that the chance of our having any hostile military complication with any foreign power is very small. But that there will come a strain, a jar here and there, from com- mercial and agricultural — that is, from industrial — competition, is almost inevitable. Here again w^e have got to remember that our first duty is to our own people; and yet that we can best get justice by doing justice. We must continue the policy that has been so bril- liantly successful in the past, and so shape our economic system as to give every advantage to the skill, energy, and intelligence of our farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and wage-workers; and yet we must also remember, in dealing wdth other nations, that benefits must be given where benefits are sought. It is not possible to dogmatize as to the exact way of attaining this end, for the exact conditions can- not be foretold. In the long run, one of our prime needs is stability and continuity of economic policy; and yet, through treaty or by direct legislation, it may, at least in certain cases, become advanta- geous to supplement our present policy by a system of reciprocal benefit and obligation. "Throughout a large part of our national career our history has been one of expansion, the expansion being of different kinds at dififerent times. This explanation is not a matter of regret, but of price. It is vain to tell a people as masterful as ours that the spirit of enterprise is not safe. The true American has never feared to run risks when the prize to be w'on was of sufBcient value. No nation capable of self-government, and of developing by its own efforts a sane and orderly civilization, no matter how small it may be, has any- thing to fear from us. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 355 "Our dealings with Cuba illustrate this, and should be forever a subject of just national pride. We speak in no spirit of arrogance when w^e state as a simple historic fact that never in recent times has any great nation acted with such disinterestedness as we have shown :n Cuba. We freed the island from the Spanish yoke. We then earnestly did our best to help the Cubans in the establishment of free education, of law and order, of material prosperity, of the cleanliness necessary to sanitary well-being in their great cities. We did all this at great expense of treasure, at some expense of life, and now we are establishing them in a free and independent commonwealth, and have asked in return nothing whatever save that at no time shall their independence be prostituted to the advantage of some foreign rival of ours, or so as to menace our well-being. To have failed to ask this would have amounted to national stultification on our part. "In the Philippines we have brought peace, and we are at this moment giving them such freedom and self-government as they could never under any conceivable conditions have obtained had we turned them loose to sink into a welter of blood and confusion, or to become the prey of some strong tyranny without or within. The bare recital of the facts is sufficient to show that we did our duty, — and what prouder title to honor can a nation have than to have done its duty? We have done our duty to ourselves, and we have done the higher duty of promoting the civilization of mankind. "The first essential of civilization is law. Anarchy is simply the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny and despotism. Law and order enforced by justice and by strength lie at the foundation of civilization. Law must be based upon justice, else it cannot stand, and it must be enforced with resolute firmness, because weakness in enforcing it means in the end that there is no justice and no law — nothing but the rule of disorderly and unscrupulous strength. With- out the habit of orderly obedience to the law, without the stem en- forcement of the laws at the expense of those who defiantly resist 356 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. them, there can be no possible progress, moral or material, in civili- zation. There can be no weakening of the law-abiding spirit at home if we are permanently to succeed, and just as little can we afford to show weakness abroad. Lawlessness and anarchy were put down in the Philippines as a prerequisite to inducing the reign of justice. "Barbarism has and can have no place in a civilized world. It is our duty toward the people living in barbarism to see that they are freed from their chains, and we can only free them by destroying barbarism itself. The missionary, the merchant, and the soldier may each have to play a part in this destruction, and in the consequent uplifting of the people. Exactly as it is the duty of a civiHzed power scrupulously to respect the rights of all weaker civilized powers and gladly to help those who are struggling toward civilization, so it is its duty to put down savagery and barbarism. As in such a work human instruments must be used, and as human instruments are im- perfect, this means that at times there will be injustices — that at tim-es merchant, or soldier, or even missionary, may do wrong. "Let us instantly condemn and rectify such wrong when it occurs, and, if possible, punish the wrongdoer. But, shame, thrice shame, to us if we are so foolish as to make such occasional wrongdoing an excuse for failing to perform a great and righteous task. Not only in our own land, but throughout the world, throughout all history, the advance of civilization has been of incalculable benefit to mankind, and those through whom it has advanced deserve the higher honor. All honor to the missionary, all honor to the soldier, all honor to the merchant, who now in our own day have done so much to bring light into the world's dark places. "Let me insist again, for fear of possible misconstruction, upon the fact that our duty is two-fold, and that we must raise others while we are benefiting ourselves. In bringing order to the Philippines, our soldiers added a new page to the honor-roll of American history, and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 359 they incalculably benefited the islanders themselves. Under the wise administration of Governor Taft, the islands now enjoy a peace and liberty of which they have hitherto never even dreamed. But this peace and liberty under the law must be supplemented by material, by industrial, development. Every encouragement should be given to their commercial development, to the introduction of American industries and products; not merely because this will be a good thing for our people, but infinitely more because it will be of incalculable benefit to the people of the Philippines. "We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from work, we shall show ourselves weaklings. Half a century ago, Minnesota and the two Dakotas were Indian hunting-grounds. We committed plenty of blunders, and now and then worse than blunders, in our dealings with the Indians. But who does not admit at the present day that we were right in wresting from barbarism and adding to civilization the territory out of which we have made these beautiful States? And now we are civilizing the Indian and putting him on a level to which he could never have attained under the old conditions. "In the Philippines, let us remember that the spirit and not the mere form of government is the essential matter. The Tagals have a hundredfold the freedom under us that they would have if we had abandoned the islands. We are not trying to subjugate a people, — we are trying to develop them and make them a law-abiding, in- dustrious, and educated people, and, we hope, ultimately, a self- governing people. In short, in the work we have done, we are but carrying out the true principles of our democracy. We work in a spirit of self-respect for ourselves and of good-will toward others; in a spirit of love for and of infinite faith in mankind. We do not blindly refuse to face the evils that exist or the shortcomings inherent in humanity; but across blunderings and shirking, across selfishness and 360 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. meanness of motive, across shortsightedness and cowardice, we gaze steadfastly toward the far horizon of golden triumph. "If you will study our past history as a nation, you will see we have made many blunders and have been guilty of many shortcomings, and yet that we have always in the end come out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and defeats — have recognized them, but have persevered in spite of them. So it must be in the future. We gird up our loins as a nation with the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate triumph; and therefore we turn scornfully aside from the paths of mere ease and idleness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of endeavor, smiting down the wrong and battling for the right as Greatheart smote and battled in Bunyan's immortal story." This was to be the last public utterance of Colonel Roosevelt as Vice-President of the United States. Only five days after it had been delivered the electric current sprang to every part of the globe to tell the world a terrible fact — President McKinley had been shot! CHAPTER XVIII. President McKinley at Buffalo— At the Zenith of His Fame— His Popularity— His Hopes— The Address at the Pan-American Exposition— A Famous Speech— A Farewell Benediction — At Niagara Falls— The Reception at the Exposi- tion, September 7th— "The President is Shot!"— Forgiving his Assassin— Hopes of Recovery— A Turn for the Worse— "It is God's Way'"— Last Scenes— The Whole World Anxious— The End not Far Off— September 14th— President McKinley is Dead! RESIDENT McKINLEY was in excellent health and spirits when he arrived in Buffalo, September 4th, to> visit the Pan- American Exposition. For a month he had been at his old home in Canton, Ohio, enjoying a rest from official cares. He had walked the streets of Canton with friends, and visited his fami a few miles distant and was happy in throwing off as far as possible the consciousness of being President, and was once again a simple Ameri- can gentleman. His wife had recovered from an illness which carried her to the very portals of the grave; she was now stronger than she had been for several years. His own health was most excellent; the strain and stress of two Presidential campaigns, and of nearly four years of unremitting toil in the executive chair — probably the most trying post to be found in all the world — had left no marks upon him. All his family and private affairs were in a most desirable condition. Thanks to economy and good management, he had recovered from the financial disaster which a few years before left him bankrupt, and had now a modest but sufficient competency. He was able to look forward with fond anticipations to his retirement from public life, and could see therein the probabiHty of many years of quiet, dignified happiness. 361 862 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. When the President went to Buffalo he was, as a pubHc man, at the zenith of his fame. He felt that he had had great work to do, and that he had done it well. He knew the estimate the w^orld was placing upon him and his achievements, and he was content there- with. He had grown amazingly since he first took hold of the reins of government, and he was conscious and properly proud of his growth. He knew that he had piloted the country through a stormy period, and had piloted it so well that even his political opponents had little criticism to offer. He was aware that more than any other President since Washington he had softened the rancor of party opposition; that he was hked and trusted by all the people; that the last remnants of sectionalism had disappeared under his gentle minis- trations; that the people were more united in spirit, in good-will, in optimistic outlook, than they had ever been before. These things the President often spoke of to his intimate friends; he found keen satis- faction in them, — not in any egotistic or vain spirit, but in the con- sciousness of having done much for his country, for its material pros- perity, for the uplifting of his people to a higher and better view. He was prouder of this than of any of his other achievements. He knew, too, that the world's estimate of him had changed. He knew that he had grown abroad as well as at home. Though by instinct and training his horizon had in earlier years been virtually bordered by the frontiers of the United States, though domestic affairs had then engrossed his thoughts, the Presidency had broad- ened him. Circumstances had made his administration a world activity instead of a purely domestic concern. He had met, and met successfully, all these problems coming from without. He had risen tO' his opportunities. He had done as well in the international as in the purely national field. He had failed in nothing. He had im- pressed himself so favorably upon the nations that their respect for PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 363 him as man and leader, their respect for the Government and the people whose spokesman he was, had visibly heightened. Mr. Mc- Kinley found natural and proper satisfaction in the consciousness that he had been able to take this high place in the world's esteem, that the earlier estimate of him as a man of single idea and of wholly insular view had given way to a broader appreciation. He was especially pleased with the knowledge that in one international episode — that of China — he and his Secretary of State, Mr. Hay, had been able to pitch the world's concert in a hig-her key, and to make the United States the moral leader of the nations. Thus, Mr. McKinley went to Buffalo in a most happy frame of mind. He was not unaware of his popularity, which was phenomenal in its character^ and he w^as human enough to appreciate it; for the nation had expressed its plaudits without regard to party Hues. He was most glad of these evidences that the masses of the population had responded to his teachings, and his examples that kindliness and behef in America and Americans, hopefulness and work, belief in meeting responsibilities in w^hatever quarter of the world they might arise, of a growing nation that must rise to its opportunities as to its duties, had fallen upon fertile soil. So far as his individual outlook was concerned, he felt a new confidence. He had only entered upon his second term. He had a united people behind him. He had voluntarily thrust aside once for all the temptation to stand for a third term. He had so cleared the way that during the three and a half years of the Presidency which remained to him he could enter upou new efforts to promote the prosperity and add to the strength of his country without subjecting himself to the slightest suspicion of self-seeking. At last, as he often remarked to his friends, he was to be President as he wanted to be. He had now no need of fearing foe or of rewarding friends. He was independent, unrestrained, free- handed. Already he was laying plans for the future. This visit to the 364 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo he had intended to mark as something more than a mere hoHday. President McKinley and his party were received at Buffalo with every demonstration of popular regard. He lost no time in speaking the words which he had come to speak. He trusted the people and he believed they had the right to know in advance the intentions of their leaders. Said Mr. McKinley, September 5th: — "President Milburn, Director-General B,ichanan, Commissioners, Ladies and Gentlemen: — I am glad to be again in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous hospi- tality I am not a stranger, and with whose good-will I have been repeatedly and signally honored. To-day, I have additional satis- faction in meeting and giving welcome to the foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and participation in this exposition have contributed in so marked a degree to its interest and success. To the commissioners of the Dominion of Canada and the British colonies, the French colonies, the republics of Mexico and of Central and South America, and the commissioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we give the hand of fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art, science, education, and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the new century. Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world's advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise, and intellect of the people, and cjuicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step. Com- parison of ideas is always educational, and as such instructs the brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial improvement, the inspiration. to useful invention and to PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 365 high endeavor in all departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts, and even the whims of the people, and recognizes the efHcacy of high quality and new prices to win their favor. The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business to • devise, invent, improve, and economize in the cost of production. Business life, whether among ourselves or with other people, is ever a sharp struggle for success. It will be none the less so in the future. Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and anti- quated processes of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century. But though commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not be. "The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly, pre- senting in its exhibits evidences of the highest skill, and ihustrating the progress of the human family in the Western hemisphere. This portion of the earth has no cause for humilation for the part it has performed in the march of civilization. It has not accomplished everything; far from it. It has simply done its best; and without vanity or boastfulness, and recognizing the manifold achievements of others, it mvites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce, and will cooperate with all in ad- vancing the highest and best interests of humanity. The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too great for the world's work. The success of art, science, industry, and invention is an international asset, and a common glory. "After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world! Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and made them better acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but distances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade 866 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's prod- ucts are exchanged as never before, and with increasing transporta- tion facilities come increasing knowledge and larger trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter space of time and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the fathers. Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom. The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the press fore- shadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of the nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions are conducted, and international ex- changes are made, by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin, and are only made pos- sible 1)y the genius of the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of the Government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from tlie city of Washington to New Orleans with a message to General Jackson that ihe war with England had ceased and a treaty of peace had been signed. How different now! "We reached General Miles in Porto Rico by cable, and he was able, through the military telegraph, to stop his army on the firing line with the message that the United States and Spain had signed a protocol suspending hostilities. We knew almost instantly of the first shots fired at Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was known at Washington within less than an hour of its consummation. The first ship of Cervera's fleet had hardly Copyright George Grantham Bain CAMPAIGNING IN 1900— MR. ROOSFA'ELT SPKAKING IN THE OPEN AIR PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 36!> emerged from that historic harbor when the fact was flashed to onr capital, and the swift destruction that followed was announced im- mediately through the wonderful medium of telegraphy. So accus- tomed are we to safe and ea.sy communication with distant lands that its temporary interruption, even in ordinary times, results in loss and inconvenience. We shall never forget the days of anxious waiting and awful suspense when no information was permitted to be sent from Peking, and the diplomatic representatives of the nations in China, cut off from all communication, inside and outside of the walled capital, were surrounded by an angry and misguided mob that threatened their lives; nor the joy that thrilled the world when a single message from the Government of the United States brought, through our minister, the first news of the safety of the besieged diplomats. "At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam railroad on the globe; now there are enough miles to nrnke its circuit many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have a vast mileage traversing all lands and all seas. God and man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other, the less occasion is there for misunderstand- ings, and the stronger the disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settlement of international disputes. "My fellow-citizens: Trade statistics indicate that this country is in a state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appall- ing. They show that we are utilizing our fields and forests and mines, and that we are furnishing profitable employment to the millions of vvorkingmen throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their homes, and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and disability. That all the people are participating in this 370 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. great prosperity is seen in every American community, and shown by the enormous and unprecedented deposits in our savings-banks. Our duty is the care and security of these deposits, and their safe in- vestment demands the highest integrity and the best business ca- pacity of those in charge of these depositories of the people's earnings. "We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil and struggle, in which every part of the country has its stake, which will not permit of either neglect or of undue selfishness. No narrow, sordid policy will subserve it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and producers will be required to hold and increase it. Our industrial enterprises, which have grown to such great proportions, afTect the homes and occupations of the people and the welfare of the country. Our capacity to produce has de- veloped so enormously, and our products have so multiplied, that the problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate at- tention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. In these times of marvelous business energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial and commercial systeiijs, that we may be ready for any storm or strain. "By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production, we shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus. "A system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible, it would not be best for us or for those with whom we deal. We should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our industries and labor. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our w^onderful industrial development, under PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 371 the domestic policy now firmly established. What we produce be- yond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell ever3-where we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor, 'The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are un- profitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade relations will pre- vent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. "If perchance some of our tariffs are no longer needed, for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad? "Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New lines of steamers have already been put in commission between the Pacific coast ports of the United States and those of the western coasts of Mexico and Central and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship Hnes between the eastern coast of the United States and South American ports. One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that we have but barely touched. Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the convenience to carry it to the buyer. We must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They must be under the American flag, built and manned and owned by Americans. These will not only be profit- able in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace aiid amity wherever they go. We must build the isthmian canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water communi- cation with the western coasts of Central and South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable cannot be longer post- poned 372 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "In the furtherance of these objects of national interest and con- cern you are performing an important part. This Exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the new world. His broad Ameri- can spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated with the Pan-American movement which finds this practical and substantial expression, and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the Pan-American Congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico. The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will disappear; this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight, but their influence will remain to '"Make it live beyond its too short living, with praises and thanksgiving.' "Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this Exposition? Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, no conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world's good, and that out of this city may come, not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. "Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe pros- perity, happiness and peace to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and Powers of earth." So he delivered his famous Buffalo speech. It was heard around the world, and it roused the nations as it roused the American people. One expression of his caught the imagination of men — "God and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 373 man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be in- different to any other." This gospel of commercial friendliness and peaceful rivalry, this recognition of the golden rule in the relations of nations, coming from the lips of William McKinley, the former apostle of protection, naturally startled the many who did not know how rapidly and how^ splendidly his philosophy had broadened. The Buffalo address may be regarded as the farewell of William McKinlev, a benediction on the people of the country he so well loved. The day after the delivery of the address, Friday, September 6th, the President visited Niagara Falls. His light was very bright that day; he was at peace with himself and all the world. He was planning to spend the following week with his friend. Senator Hanna, at Cleve- land. To this visit he looked fonvard with fond anticipation. At Mr. Planna's house he was to meet a number of friends of wdiom he had seen little during these later years. Best of all, one or two be- tween whom and himself a small cloud of misunderstanding had arisen were now to take his hand again. There was to be complete recon- ciliation. Thoughts of these things were uppermost in his mind this day; he often spoke of them. His sweet nature was never sweeter than in these last hours of health and strength. His tenderness toward his wife was never better shown than during this holiday excursion. He was not content to view^ any of the beautiful scenery unless she were by his side. While on the inclined railway, going down into Niagara Gorge, Mr. McKinley turned every moment, with an anxious look upon his face, to learn if Mrs. McKinley was incon- venienced by the novel and somewhat startling descent. When assured that instead of being frightened she was greatly enjoying it, his eyes lighted with satisfaction, and then for the first time did he permit himself to gaze uninterruptedly at the beauties of nature all about him. 374 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. This sixth day of September the President may not have been con- scious of the fact, but at this moment he was without doubt the best- beloved man in all the world. The millions who looked up to him with affection and trust vastly exceeded in number and excelled in devotion the millions who looked up to any other living man. His power for good without doubt surpassed that of any of his con- temporaries in the leadership of thought and action among the nations. Yet at this moment there was lurking upon the Exposition grounds at Buffalo a man planning to strike down this lofty spirit. The special train from Niagara Falls arrived at the Exposition grounds about 3.30 o'clock. ]\Irs. McKinley was sent away in a car- riage to the house of Mr. Milburn, president of the Exposition, where the President and his wife were guests. Then the President, accom- panied by Mr. Milburn, Secretary Cortelyou, and others, drove to the Temple of Music, where it had been arranged the President was to hold a public reception. Twenty thousand people were gathered in front of the building, and as they sav/ the well-known face tliey set up a mighty shout of welcome. The President bowed to right and left and smiled. Then the great organ in the Temple pealed fc-rth the national air, and the throngs fell back from the entrance, that the President might pass. Inside the building, a space had been cleared for the Presidential party; the people were permitted to enter one door, pass by the President, and emerge at the opposite side of the auditorium. Usually a secret-service agent is stationed by the Presi- dent's side when he receives the public, but on this occasion President Milburn stood at the President's left. Secretary Cortelyou was at his right, and a little to the rear. Opposite the President was Secret Service officer Ireland. Eight or ten feet away was Officer Foster. ^^ hen all was ready, the line of people was permitted to move, each one pausing to shake the hand of the President. He beamed upon them all in his courtly way. When one stranger timidly permitted PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 375 himself to be pushed along without a greeting, the President called out, smilingly, "Hold on, there; give me your hand." Mr. McKinley would never permit any one to go past him without a handshake. He was particularly gracious to the children and to timid women. Here, as we have often seen him in Washington and elsewhere, he patted little girls or boys on the head or cheek and smiled at them in his sweet way. A woman and a little girl had just passed, and were look- ing back at the President, proud of the gracious manner in which he had greeted them. Next came a tall, powerful negro named Parker. After Parker, a slight, boyish figure, a face bearin_g marks of foreign descent, a smooth, youthful face, with nothing sinister to be detected in it. No one had suspected this innocent-looking boy of a murderous purpose. He had his right hand bound up in a handkerchief, and this had been noticed by both of the secret-service men as well as by others. But the appearance in a reception line of men with wounded and bandaged hands is not uncommon. In fact, one had already passed along the line. Many men carried handkerchiefs in their hands, for the day was warm. So this youth approached. He was met with a smile. The Presi- dent held out his hand, but it was not grasped. Supporting his bandaged right hand with his left, the assassin fired tw^o bullets at the President. The first passed through the stomach and lodged in the back. The second, it is believed, struck a button on the Presi- dent's waistcoat and glanced therefrom, making an abraison upon the sternum. The interval between the two shots was so short as to be scarcely measurable. As the second shot rang out. Detective Foster sprang forward and intercepted the hand of the assassin, who was endeavoring to fire a third bullet into his victim. The President did not fall. He was at once supported by Mr. Milburn, by Detective Geary, and by Secretary Cortelyou. Before turning, he raised him- self on tiptoe and cast upon the young man before him, who was at 876 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. that moment in the clutches of a number of men, a look which none who saw it can ever forget. A few drops of blood spurted out and fell on the President's waistcoat. At once the wounded man was led to a chair, into which he sank. His collar was removed and his shirt opened at the front. Those about him fanned him with their hats. Secretary Cortelyou bent over his chief, and Mr. McKinley whispered, "Cortelyou, be careful. Tell Mrs. McKinley gently." A struggle ensued immediately between the assassin and those about him. Detective Foster planted a blow upon the assassin's face and he fell. Even after he was down Czolgosz tried to twist about and fire again at the President. Mr. Foster threw himself upon the wretch. Parker, the colored man, struck him almost at the same instant that Foster did. Indeed, a half-dozen men were trying to beat and strike the murderer, and they were so thick about him that they struck one another in their excitement. A private of the artil- lery corps at one moment had a bayonet-sword at the neck of Czol- gosz, and would have driven it home had not Detective Ireland held his arm and begged him not to shed blood there before the President. Just then the President raised his eyes, saw what was going on, and with a slight motion of his right hand toward his assailant, exclaimed: "Let no one hurt him." While the guards were driving the people out of the building, Secretary Cortelyou asked the President if he felt any pain. Mr. McKinley slipped his hand through his shirt-front and pressed his fingers against his breast.. *T feel a sharp pain here," he said. On withdrawing his hand he saw that the ends of his fingers were red with blood. Then his head fell back. At that moment Ambassador Aspiroz, of ]\Iexico, forced his way to the w^ounded man's side, and in his excitement cried: "Oh, God, Mr. President, are you shot?" The President roused himself and smiled sadly into the face of the ambassador. "Yes, I beheve I am," he replied, faintly. His head PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 3/9 sank back again, but only for a moment. Suddenly straightening up in his chair, he gripped its arms tightly and thrust his feet straight out before him with a quick, nervous movement. Thus he sat till the ambulance arrived. The assassin was quickly taken away by the police and the detec- tives. By a ruse and quick work, they managed to place him in a cell before the maddened people could rend him to pieces. Mr. Mc- Kinley was placed on a stretcher and carried out to the ambulance. The automobile ambulance quickly carried the wounded President to the Exposition hospital. After the operation the wounded President was taken to the residence of Mr. Milburn. Dr. Rixey undertook the sad task of conveying the news to ]\Irs. McKinley. "The President has met with an accident — he has been hurt," were his first words. "Tell me all — keep nothing from me!" cried Mrs. McKinley; "I will be brave — yes, I will be brave for his sake!" Dr. Rixey then told her the whole story. Cablegrams of inquiry and regret from all governments poured in upon the State Department at Washington. King Edward, Emperor William, and other sovereigns sent personal messages. Vice-Presi- dent Roosevelt, members of the cabinet, and friends of the President started for Buffalo by special trains. The assassin, who first gave his name as NIeman, was quickly dis- covered to be Leon Czolgosz, a Pole, twenty-eight years of age, whose home had been at Cleveland, Ohio, where his parents were found to be hard-working, well-meaning people. The assassin made no other confession to the police than the simple statement that he was an anarchist, that he had "done his duty," and that he had been inspired by the preachments of anarchists. By Saturday night the reports of the President's condition were favorable; Sunday they were more and more so. Monday, the news was still better. Secretary Cortelyou issued a statement declaring 380 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. that nothing was being withheld from the public; that the people had a right to the truth, and should have it. This naturally helped to restore public confidence. Announcement was made that the surgeons had decided not to use the X-ray apparatus sent them, at their request, by Thomas A. Edison, and that for the present, at least, no efforts were to be made to locate the missing bullet. The doctors and friends of the President began to talk of taking him back to the White House by the ist of October. The patient's two sisters, con- vinced that their brother was on the way to recovery, returned to their home in Ohio. Senator Hanna left for Cleveland. Vice-Presi- dent Roosevelt, assured by the surgeons that the crisis was passed and the danger now at a minimum, started for the Adirondacks. Secretary Gage and Attorney-General Knox went to Washington. This day the President asked for the newspapers, and Senator Hanna smilingly predicted that he would soon ask for a cigar. On Tuesday, the President was declared convalescent. By Wed- nesday, the whole country was convinced that the President was re- covering. The last bulletin of the day was the best yet issued. Thursday morning, the President was given a little solid food; he relished it, and it appeared to do him good. "He feels better than at any time before," said the forenoon bulletin. Dr. McBurney left for New York, convinced that it would not be necessary for him to return. But the unfavorable turn which a few had feared came at last. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the President was not so well. By 8.30 in the evening he was decidedly worse. Then the heart began to show signs of weakness, and failed tO' respond to stimulation. In the early hours of Friday morning the scenes about the Milburn house were almost dramatic. Lights burned in all the windows. Carriages and automobiles rushed up at frantic pace every few moments, bringing doctors and members of the family. Across the street, the soldiers paced up and down; newspaper men darted to and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 381 fro; In the tents and booths which had been put up for their use, the correspondents and telegraph operators were making the wires throb with dread tidings. ■ During the day there were faint flickers of hope. At 9 o'clock in the morning the bulletin said the President was concious, free from pain; his condition had somewhat improved; there was a better re- sponse to stimulation. At 2.30 in the afternoon, hope was a little stronger, for the doctors said their patient had more than held his own; they looked for further improvement. But an hour and a half later even this meager encouragement ceased. By 5.35, the surgeons could not disguise the fact that the President was dying. He was suffering extreme prostration. Oxygen was given, but it did not produce the desired effect. A little after 6 o'clock a report that the President was dead was circulated. But it was premature. The President still Hved. Most of the time he was unconscious. Occasionally he opened his eyes and tried to smile. At this time he knew he was fated; for once, as the surgeons were administering the oxygen, he looked up and whispered: "What's the use?" About 7 o'clock he summoned enough strength to ask for Mrs. McKinley. They led her to his bedside; then all retired from the room. The dying husband's face lighted up as he saw his life- companion bending over him. She kissed and caressed him; she stroked his hair; she crooned over him like a mother over a stricken child. Each tried to be brave for the other's sake. In this last period of consciousness, which ended about 8 o'clock, the President's lips were seen to be moving. The surgeons l)ent down to hear his words. He chanted the first lines of his favorite hymn, "Nearer, My God, to Thee." A little later he spoke again; Dr. Mann wrote the words down at the bedside, — and the last con- scious utterance of William McKinley was: "Good-by, all; good-by. It is God's way. His will l^e done." 38'2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The President soon afterward lapsed into unconsciousness, and did not rally again. His heart-beats came more and more faintly. His extremities chilled. It was only a question of a little time. One by one, members of the family stood by his side, kissed his pallid brow, spoke his well-loved name, and drew away in anguish. Most of the members of the cabinet came to say farewell. Each took the moist limp hand — the hand that had so well guided the helm of the ship of State— and held it for a moment in a parting^ clasp. Senator Hanna, ashen-faced, Hmped to the bedside of his great friend, and called: "Mr. President! Mr. President!" Hearing no response, he cried, in choking tones, "William! William!" But it was in vain. Thus the hours passed. The President's life slowdy slipped away. At times it was difihcult to say if the heart were still beating. The end was not far off, and at 2.15 A. M., Saturday, September 14th, President McKinley was dead! In all his hours of suffering no word of complaint or petulance crossed his lips. He met his fate bravely, forgiving his murderer, ana g'oing' out of this life in the full faith of another and a better lire beyond! A CHAPTER XIX. }n the Aflirondacks— Start for Buffalo— Ride Through Storm — At Buffalo Crowds Silent — Dismisses Military Escort — Visit to Mrs. McKinley — The Oath of Office — Funeral of Mr. McKinley — Christian Manliness of Air. McKinley — President Roosevelt's First Cabinet — Cabinet to Remain — An Estimate of Chances Made by a Change of Presidents — First Proclamation of President Roosevelt — Young Rulers of the World — Roosevelt the Young- est President — No Doubt of Him. HEODORE ROOSEVELT was at the Tahawiis Club hunt- ing-camp in the Aclirondacks when the tidings of President McKinley's death reached him. He at once started for Buffalo. When Mr. Roosevelt and his guides left the Tahawus Club, in the Adirondacks, early Friday morning o-n a hunting expedition the then Vice-President fully believed tliat President McKinley was entirely out of danger and on the rapid road to reco«very. That th.is was so is made manifest by his private secretary, William Loel), while the special train which bore him to Buffalo was on its recard-break- ing rush to the scene of the nation's tragedy. During the brief stop of the train at Rochester Secretary Loeb said: "The President wishes it understood that when he left the Tahawus Club-house yesterday morning to go on his hunting trip into the mountains he had just received a dispatch from Buffalo stating that President McKinley was in sp'lendid condition and was not in the slightest danger." The Roosevelt hunting party moved in the direction of Mount Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondack region. They had not been gone over three hours when a mounted courier rode rapidly into Tahawus Club with messages to the Vice-President stating that President McKinley was in a critical condition. The messages had 383 384 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. been telegraphed to North Creek, and from there telephoned to a point ten miles south of Tahawiis Club. Extra guides and runners were at once deployed from the club in the direction of Mount Marcy with instructions to sound a general alarm in order to find the Vice- President as soon as possible. The far-reaching megaphone code and the rifle-cracking signals oi the mountain-climbing guides, as hour after hour passed away, marked the progress of the searching mountaineers as they climbed the slope of Mount Marcy. Just as the afternoon began to merge with the shades of early evening, and as the searchers were nearing the sum-mit of the lofty mountain, the responsive echoes of distant signals were heard and answered, and gradually the scouts and the Roosevelt party came within hailing distance of each other. When Colonel Roosevelt was reached and informed of the critical condition of the President he could scarcely believe the burden of the messages personally delivered to him. Startled at the serious nature of the news, the Vice-President, at 5.45 o'clock, immediately started back for the Tahawus Club. In the meantime the Adirondack stage- line placed at his disposal relays of horses covering the thirty-five miles to North Creek. A deluging thunderstorm had rendered the roads unusually heavy. All through the long, dreary night the stage-coach with the dis- tinguished passenger hurried along through the woods, the thick foliage trees furnishing a somber canopy which somewhat protected the party from the downpour of rain. Hours passed with the Vice- President torn by conflicting emotions, in which grief at the unex- pected tidings was uppermost. The gray of the morning had not yet begun to light the heavens when Alden's Lane was reached at 3.15, and although he was then within the reach of telephone communica- tion he was not apprised of the death of President McKinley. The stop at Alden's Lane was only of sufficient duration to allow a change PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 885 of horses, and again the stage-coach dashed forward. From the latter place to North Creek, where the special train was waiting, the road was through heavy forest timber, and the journey wa& attended with actual p^ril. The driveways are very narrov^ in many places, with deep ravines on either side. A slight deviation would have meant a broken carriage or more serious trouble. But the expert guides piloted the Vice-President safely to his objective point and Colonel Roosevelt, looking careworn but expressing no fatigue, alighted at North Creek. That was 5.22 o'clock Saturday morning, and for the first time the traveler of the night learned that President McKinley liad passed away at Buffalo at 2.15 o'clock. Mr. Loeb, his secretary, was the first to break the news to him. The new President was visibly affected by the intelligence, and expressed a desire to reach Buffalo as soon as possible. Within one minute after his arrival at North Creek he boarded the special train, which at once started in the direction of Buffalo, via Saratoga and Albany. The trip was a record-breaker in point of speed, in many places exceeding a mile a minute. There was a brief stqp at Ballston to permit the Vice-President to send some telegrams. It was 7 o'clock, and a crowd at the little station received the new Pres>ident in sympa- thetic silence. The train made record time to Syracuse. One mile was made in 42 seconds on a stretch west of Oneida. A three-minute stop was made at Rochester, the train leaving that city for Buffalo at 12.18 P. M. and at 1.40 the special rea'ched Buffalo. He had had a hard night's ride from the North Woods to Albany, and then a swift rush across the State by special train, but his bronzed face showed no signs of fatigue as he stepped from the train to the platform. He looked grave and saddened, but not in the least tired. The crowd that greeted him was small, because it had been under- stood that he would go to Union Station. There people in great 386 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. numbers were assembled to see him, but it was not in the plans to gratify the crowd with the spectacle. Precisely for the purpose of avoiding any demonstration it was arranged that the train should stop at the Terrace Station, where President Roosevelt was met by Mr. Anslcy Wilcox and Mr. George Williams with Mr. Williams's carriage. A detachment of the Fourth Signal Corps, mounted, and a squad of twenty mounted police were on hand. With the police and military moving at a rapid trot in front of and behind the carriage, the President drove swiftly up Delaware avenue to the Wilcox house, which now had become one of the historical mansions of the country. It is a brick house, painted white, with a row of six stately pillars in front of a deep veranda, in the style of half a century ago. It is in one of the most beautiful parts of beautiful Delaware avenue and is surrounded by tall overbranching trees, which throw a deep shade over the handsome lawn all the way down to the terrace, five or six feet high, which rises up from the sidewalk and on which elevation above the street the house stands. It is not the old mansion's first experience in being identified with Government matters. Away back in the early part of the century it was used by the United States officers in command of the military post here, and stood in a large park or square that was a part of the military reservation. From between the pillars in the front of the house there hung a large American flag. A large crowd had gathered in the vicinity of the house as the President and his cavalcade came clattering up the avenue, and stood silently by as Mr. Roosevelt left the carriage and walked rapidly up the terrace steps and so on to the house. It had become a fixed habit with Buffalo crowds now to be silent, a habit formed by the anxious watchers just beyond the rope barriers two blocks away from the Milburn house, and it seemed to have spread to all gatherings of PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 387 people in the city with only one very notable exception — the fierce angry throngs that two or three times had assembled in the vicinity of the prison where Czolgosz was confined, or where he was supposed to be confined, for he was very wisely and very adroitly removed when the President was dying and safely lodged within the walls of the penitentiary. There was not so much as a murmur when the President alio-hted or when he reappeared a short time afterward to start for the Mil- burn house. It was as a private citizen that Mr. Roosevelt went to the house where President McKinley lay dead. When his eye lio-hted on the military and police escort still drawn up in the street, he entered a vigorous objection, and as he was getting into the carriage and the military were lining up to follow him he called upon them in a short, sharp command to "Halt." Then he said that he would only have two policemen go with him. So this arrangement w^as made, and with a mounted policeman on each side of his carriage he drove off toward the house that was nearly a mile away. It was solely to pay his respects to Mrs. McKinley that the Vice- President made his visit to the Milburn house, and although nearly all the members of the Cabinet were there when he arrived it was only as private citizens mourning for a common friend that they met. The stay there was short, and when Mr. Roosevelt started back to the Wilcox house it was understood that he was to be followed quickly by the Cabinet members, who were to take part in the cere- mony of administering the oath as President of the United States. Various rumors were current as to this ceremony. It was even re- ported that the new President had been sworn in on his way down from the North Woods. It was asserted that the oath was to be administered at the Milburn house, but a crowd still hovered about Mr. Wilcox's residence, and when the Vice-President reappeared there, followed a fevv^ moments later by Judge Hazel and the members 888 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of the Cabinet, the patient waiters knew that they had not erred in judgment and that they were at least to see the outside of a house in which was being enacted a scene which would make it ever memor- able in history. In the presence of the members of the Cabinet, a few friends and a score of newspaper men, he prepared to qualify as the head of the State. Simple as was the ceremony it was exceedingly impressive. Requested by Secretary of War Root, speaking for the Cabinet, to take the oath, he repHed: "I am ready to take the oath. And I wash to say that it shall be my aim to continue, absolutely unbroken, the policies of PresidentMc- Kinlev for the peace, the prosperity, and the honor of our beloved country." "Theodore Roosevelt," said District Attorney Hazel, "hold up your right hand." Erect, self-possessed, Mr. Roosevelt repeated after Judge Hazel the words: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability pre- serve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. And thus I swear." It was all over in a few minutes, and the youngest man who had ever assumed the Presidency was in ofBce. All day Sunday the remains of President McKinley lay in state in the City Hall at Buffalo, after simple services at the Milburn resi- dence. From every part of the world came messages of condolence, — Kings, Emperors, Ministers contributing their meed of praise for the dead, commiseration for the closely-connected mourners, and sympathy for the American people wdio had lost a wise and benelicent ruler. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 389 Monday morning a special train bore the body to Washington, and all along the way there was a pathetic demoiistration of the sor- row of the people. Bells were tolled, hymns sung by choral societies, flowers strewn upon the track. For four hundred and fifty miles the train ran between two parallel lines of citizens standing with bared heads. Not a few of them were in tears. The schools were dismissed, and the pupils stood by the side of the track with flowers or tiny furled flags in their hands. At the national capital the remains of President McKinle>;^ rested for the night in the White House, scene of his labors and his triumphs. ]Mrs. McKinley occupied her old room, full of bitter-sweet associ- ations. President Roosevelt went to the house of his sister. Next day a solemn procession swept up historic Pennsylvania Avenue, and impressive funeral services were held in the rotunda of the Capitol. The catafalque which bore the body of President McKinlev had carried also the remains of President Lincoln and President Garfield. President Roosevelt and all the officials of the Government, Army and Navy officers, Supreme Court judges, many Senators and Repre- sentatives, and members of the diplomatic corps attended the obsequies. The only living ex-President, Mr. Cleveland, was present. Tuesday night a special train bore the funeral cortege to Canton, and the next day the remains of the President lay in state among his neighbors and townsmen. Deep was the grief, innumerable were the pathetic incidents, as the men and women who had so well known and loved the dead statesman pressed forward to look upon his face. On Thursday, services were held in the Methodist Church of which Mr. McKinley had long been a member. That same day services were held in the churches in every city of the Union — memorial services for a great and good man and a loved President. In the afternoon of Thursday all that remained of William McKinley was deposited in the vault at Westlawn Cemetery, near to the graves 390 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of his two children. Only two weeks elapsed since the President in full health and happiness, and with the star of his fame shining brighter than ever before, had left Canton for his visit to Buffalo. Is it not fitting to here give the estimate of the Christian manliness of lli: McKinley? Mr. Riis, the reformer and the friend of the poor, has spoken of that same Christian manliness of Theodore Roosevelt. Let Rev. Dr. Bristol, the Washington pastor of the late President, do as much for Wilham McKinley. Says he: "The civilized v.'orld mourns with our own country the untimely death of President McKinley, and echoes the words of the bereaved widow, 'The country cannot spare him.' But throughout Christen- dom there has mingled with the profoundest grief a sweet consolation and spiritual satisfaction inspired by his pure life and exalted char- acter, and by his triumphant victory over the terrors of death through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Once more has it been illustrated that the most impressive and commanding greatness of man resides in character. The final question with the common heart of humanity is not what w^as he as a statesman, or soldier, scholar, or genius? but What was he as a man? In a distant though a kindred land, mourn- ing the loss of his country's President and of his own friend, the writer has been comforted to hear, from humblest Methodist Chapel to stately Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, the most tender and eloquent tributes paid to the exalted character and pure unselfish life of William McKinley. The Church Universal rejoices in his Christian virtues, and exultingly adds his name to the immortal heroes, saints, and martyrs who have fought the good fight, who have kept the faith, and who have left to the w^orld the rich heritage of a new ideal, and the undying testimony of the saving, sanctifying power of the gospel. "In all the deepest meaning of the words, William McKinley was a man of God. He enjoyed the personal, conscious experience of salva- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 391 tion. From childhood, his was a hfe of faith and prayer. Rehgion was to him a divine reahty. Jesus Christ was not only his ideal, 'the chief among ten thousand,' but his living, individual Saviour, From a godly Methodist mother he had learned the way of life, and from his youth up was ever under the control of a clean, quick, authoritative conscience, the voice of the Holy Spirit within him. "Early in life he became a devout student of the Bible ana a suc- cessful Bible teacher. To him, what the Bible said God said. In- terested as he always was in every phase of thought, in literature, pohtics, economics, and education, when he attended church he was eager to hear the Word; no other theme was a substitute for the gospel to his heart. When assured by his pastor that he would not be embarrassed by any pulpit politics, he said, with a kindly smile of satisfaction, 'I hope not. I have politics enough during the week. What I need, when I go to church, is Christ, and Him crucified.' The sermons most highly commended by him, whoever may have preached them, were spiritual, heart-feeding sermons on Christian ex- perience, the love of God and man, the Holy Spirit, peace, brother- hood, providence, the beauty of holiness, and the sublime self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. "He was a member and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canton, Ohio, which he always spoke of as his religious home, a place very dear to his heart. When he experienced religion and joined the church, he entered upon the active duties of the Christian life, becoming a Sunday-school teacher and superintendent. It has been the privilege of the writer to meet men who belonged to his class and Sunday-school when they were boys. Always fond of children, ^Ir. McKinley was most successful in his Sunday-school work; it is safe to say that many of the young people under him became members of church through his ministrations. He was greatly interested in revivals, and attended them even when the 392 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. duties of his official life were most pressing. His faith seems never to have wavered, and his belief in the fatherly love of God abided to the last. Devoted to his wife, there was a time when during a o-rievous spell of illness her life was despaired of by all around him, but he never lost hope, or doubted that God would spare her life. So from these minute and pathetic details of his private life to all the hurrving, unfolding events of the history with which he was identified, he believed in a ruling and overruling Providence. During the days of the Spanish-American war, the concern of this great, Christian, praying, God-trusting President was, not to know what mere politi- cians thought, but to know what God and the people thought. He believed God was with the people. If he waited, it was only to be sure of the providential indications. When he believed that he knew the will of God, he never hesitated. If he was slow to resort to the sword, it was because he loved peace; but, when in the providence of God war was inevitable, he w^as swift as the eagle. "Not alone in state papers, proclamations, and public addresses, but much more in private conversation, did he show that he possessed the magnificent faith of our fathers. He not only dared to follow where Providence seemed to lead, but, having followed, he dared humbly, and yet bravely, to throw the responsibility upon Providence, and then give God the glory for all our victories and successes. Speaking of his frequent references to Providence in his speeches and proclamations, and of the criticisms which his political opponents jest- ingly made upon them, he said: 'They may sneer at the idea of Prov- idence, if they will, but no man who doubts there is a Providence controlling the events of history will ever sit here,' and he tapped the table to indicate that such a man would never be trusted by the people, or elected to the Presidency. "In the last moments of his life, and in the triumphs of that calm and peaceful death, this faith in Providence rose to the sublime: PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 393 *Good-by, all; good-by. It is God's way. His will be done, not ours.' "His love of the sweet hymns of his Christian faith, — hymns of his home and his church, — inspired the last words that fell from his stain- less lips. Among his favorite hymns were: " 'Jesus, lover of my soul;' " There's a wideness in God's mercy Like the wideness of the sea;' " 'How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord;' " 'It came upon the midnight clear;' and " 'Nearer, my God, to thee, Neare'- to thee. E'en though it be a cross.' These words he murmured, saying, 'This is my constant prayer,' when " 'God's finger touched him, and he slept.' " While these eloquent words were in the mind of the sorrowing clergyman who penned them, in the darkness of a prison cell lay the man who had done the terrible deed, and who, on October 29th, was to die for it, unrepentant to the last, refusing the consolations of religion, and going to judgment exulting in what he had done. But "the fierce light that beats about a throne" was now leveled upon the man who had had the reins of government thrust in his hands. He had been made President; he had taken the oath of of^ce in the Wilcox house. Immediately it was done he said: 'T should like to see the members of the Cabinet a few minutes after the others retire." This was the signal for the score of people who had witnessed the ceremony to go. As they turned to leave the room the President said in a far firmer voice than had been his when he took the oath of office: "I should gladly shake hands with you all," he said. He shook hands vnth every one in the room, and then all except th< members of the Cabinet filed out 394 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. President Roosevelt's first Cabinet meeting was held in the same room in which he had been sworn in. It lasted for nearly an hour. When it was over it was announced with authority that the delibera- tions had all tended toward ascertaining the best way in which the sentiment which the President had expressed in accepting office might be carried into action. It was agreed in the consultation that the first and most important step was the retention in ofifice of all the members of President McKinley's Cabinet. The members of the Cabinet were urged to retain their portfolios, even at the expense to themselves of some personal sacrifice. It was announced that the President had received assurances from Secretary Hay and Secretary Gage that they would follow the same course. There is no Constitutional requirement that Congress shall be called together upon the succession of the Vice-President to the Presidency, and it seemed advisable in pursuing the one object which the President and his Cabinet had in view that the even tenor of the country's way would be better preserved if Congress were not called together until its regular time for meeting. Five minutes after he took the oath President Roosevelt called Mr. Cortelyou, President McKinley's private secretary, to one side and asked him to continue as private secretary to the President. Mr. Cortelyou promised to do so, and suggested that he would be glad of the assistance of Mr. Loeb, Mr. Roosevelt's private secretary. The members of the Cabinet had retired to a room in the Wilcox residence and there President Roosevelt joined them. What might be designated as an informal Cabinet meeting was held fifteen minutes after the President was sworn in. At its conclusion it was announced that no action had been taken which was of public interest, and that no Cabinet action need be looked for until after the body of President McKinley was interrred at Canton. In fact no questions of politics or policy were discussed openly. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 395 After the conference President Roosevelt said to the newspaper men present: "Following out the brief statement I made when taking the oath, that I would follow the administrative lines laid down by President McKinley, I requested the members of the Cabinet who were present to remain in their positions at least for the present. They have assured me that they will, and I may say that I have assurances also from the absent members." It was less than half an hour after President Roosevelt had taken the oath that a carriage drove up to the Wilcox home, containing Senator Mark Hanna and his private secretary. The Senator seemed to have aged ten years in a day. His face, usually florid and wreathed in smiles, was pallid and drawn. Usually active on his feet, he actually tottered a: he moved aljout with stooped shoulders and bowed head. As he stepped from the carriage and proceeded toward the door of the Wilcox house, leaning heavily on the arm of his secretary. Presi- dent Roosevelt saw him coming and advanced to meet him. It is not necessary to tell those who are familiar with the political status of Senator Hanna and President Roosevelt that the moment was an em- barrassing one for both of them. When the President courteously held out his hand to Senator Hanna the latter shifted his cane and his soft white felt hat from his right to his left hand and returned the greeting cordially. "Mr. President," said Senator Hanna, "I wish you success and a prosperous administration, sir. I trust that you will command me if I can be of any service." The President did not reply, except by a pressure of the hand. Senator Hanna's thoughts seemed to be far away. As he moved towards the door President Roosevelt accompanied him, still holding his hand. They parted without any further exchange of words. As Senator Hanna walked back toward his carriage several men] 396 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. greeted him. He responded in a most perfunctory manner, as though he did not hear what they said. When he was asked to make some statement for publication he said: "I cannot say I shall not try to utter sentiments of tribute. For many years the President has been my dearest friend. My devotion to the President during all these years ought to indicate how I esteemed the man and what I thought of him." The first official act of President Roosevelt was the issuing of the following Proclamation, the appropriateness and felicitous expression of which could not be improved: "By the President of the United States of America, a Proclama- tion: "A terrible bereavement has befallen our people. The President of the United States has been struck down; a crime committed not only against the Chief Magistrate, but against every law-abiding and liberty-loving citizen. "President McKinley crowned a life of largest love for his fellow men, of most earnest endeavor for their welfare, by a death of Chris- tian fortitude; and both the way in which he lived his life and the way in which, in the supreme hour oi trial, he met his death, will re- main forever a precious heritage of our people. "It is meet that we, as a nation, express our abiding love and reverence for his life, our deep sorrow for his untimely death. "Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do appoint Thursday next, September 19, the day in which the body of the dead President will be laid in its last earthly resting-place, as a day of mourning and prayer throughout the United States. I earnestly recommend all the people to assemble in their respective places of divine worship, there to bow down in submission to the will of Almighty God, and to pay out of full hearts PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 397 their homage of love and reverence to the great and good President, whose death has smitten the nation with bitter grief, "In witness whereof I have hereunto' set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. "Done at the city of Washington, the 14th day of September, A.D,, one thousand nine hundred and one, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-sixth. "(Seal.) THEODORE ROOSEVELT." "By the President, "JOHN HAY, Secretary of State." The transfer of the Presidential office by the death of the in- cumbent, w^iich has occurred five times in the history of the countr}% involves far less of change in the government than is usually expected from its transfer by the regular process of election. It is the awful suddenness, the violence, of the present change that so disturbed the country. But in unexpected emergencies men's characters are best tried, and it is not different with a nation. This was a time for calm- ness, for confidence, for patriotic faith. The universal execration not only of the miserable assassin but of every manifestation of that reckless spirit of discontent that inspired him, was the sufficient assurance that anarchism can never attain a dangerous lodgment on our soil. It is doubtful if the murder of the President was more than the mad act of one unbalanced youth; but in - any case, it indicates no widely-spread disease that cannot and will not be stamped out by the sober sense of the American people. While the terrifying crime had increased our sorrow in the country's loss, it need not add apprehension to our grief. McKinley died at the summit of his fame, at a time when he pos- sessed, as few Presidents have done, the respect and confidence of the whole people and when the bitterness of party conflict had been 898 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. allayed In the broad advance of the national life and activity. This advance would still continue, and the respect and confidence that McKInley earned as a type of the patriotic and purposeful American character, might freely be transferred to^ his successor, Mr. Roosevelt brought to his high office a different temperament and training from Mr. McKInley's, but certainly no less of intellectual character, of serious purpose, of unselfish patriotism. The abound- ing energy of his physical and mental nature, his constant and stren- uous activity in many fields of endeavor, had possibly obscured, in some degree, the forceful earnestness of his public character and the real measure of his public achievement. He had never been a self- seeker, yet in posts of high responsibility he had never faltered nor failed. He came to the Presidency with a fuller equipment of knowl- edge and experience than many of our Presidents have had, with ripened judgment and untarnished honor. If It were felt for the moment that the ship of State had lost its pilot, the assurance came that the helm again was strongly and firmly grasped, by one familiar with the chart. That Mr. Roosevelt's accession would produce some uncertainty in the combinations of party politics was probable; that it implied any early change In public policies was not. With all his broad human sympathies, Mr. Roosevelt was a man of sound practical sense, whose high Ideals were grounded on the nature and history of our institu- tions and whose ambition would be to conserve and protect all true interests ol the nation in a spirit of justice and uprightness, of unity and peace. In the great task that devolved on him he deserved the sympathy and support of every American. The loss that had fallen on the country had wiped out all the differences and disagreements of the past and brought the nation into close accord. In this common senti- ment the people could hail the young President with confidence and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 899 hope. The nation is greater than any man, and Its great life cannot be hindered by any man's going or coming. Presidents do not rule the nation; the nation rules Presidents, who succeed or fail as they express its purposes and answer its ideals. The people could honor McKinley's memory best by cordial trust in his successor, not merely as the able and upright man that he was but as the personal repre- sentative of unshaken constitutional government, which rests upon the patriotic devotion of the American people. A young man, indeed; but were there not other young, or com- paratively young, men in the world who were rulers? By the ordering or that Providence which shapes alike the destinies of men and nations, the three leading powers of the world to-day — the United States, England, and Germany — are under the supreme executive guidance of comparatively young men. These three, the President of the United States, the Emperor of Germany, and King Edward of England, together wield a tremendous power, and should they choose to act together in any given line of policy not all the rest of the world, united could withstand their will. Together they rule over nearly one-half the population of the globe, or more than 529,000,000 people of every race, color, and creed, scattered over a territory of not less than 13,000,000 square miles extending into every clime in every corner of the earth. These three young men, the rulers of England and Germany, and our Presi- dent, are Saxons of the purest and sturdiest type, and they represent that. Saxon civilization which stands for the highest, noblest, and most brilliant achievements of the human race, the freest forms of, government, and the most exalted standards of human conduct, a civilization which is destined yet to lead the whole world up to a higher range of life and action. All three are avowed Protestants in religions belief, and exercise authority over Protestant nations. Two of them are explicitly com- 400 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. mitted by their vows of office to the support and protection of the Protestant faith, one of the Church of Luther, and the other of the Church of England. Yet under the governments of all three, and in all lands wherever their authority extends, the largest freedom of religious worship is enjoyed and the fullest liberty accorded in all matters of rehgious belief. Between William of Germany, Edward of England, and Theodore Roosevelt certain remarkable resemblances exist, and some interesting contrasts may be drawn. William of Germany came to the throne thirteen years ago-, when he was only thirty-one years of age. Like Mr. Roosevelt, the German ruler has often been charged with being impulsive and hot-headed, and given to rash and inconsiderate speech. These cjualities have at times subjected William IL to not a little ridicule and to much severe criticism from those who were in a posi- tion to indulge in that luxury without fear of the penalties of Icse majcstc. At times grave apprehensions have arisen lest these pro- pensities of the German Emperor should precipitate some crisis upon his nation or involve him in a war with some other Power. But thus far these fears have proved groundless, and the world is beginning to recognize and to concede that the young German monarch is, after all, a man of brilliant capacity, with a genius for government which no one suspected at the start. Li all his apparent madness there has been a method, and under his aggressive and pro- gressive policy Germany has grown stronger, richer, and more power- ful than it ever was before. With all his slips of tongue, and all his grandiloquent assumptions, it is generally conceded that William IL is a man of pure and blameless personal character, of remarkable gifts, and of lofty and unselfish aims. King Edward of England is older than either of the other men by more than fifteen years, but when he came to the throne a year ago he had had as little experience in public affairs, and his capacity for PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 401 government was as much of an unknown quantity as that of his young nephew, William of Germany, when he began his sway, and far less than that of Mr. Roosevelt when he succeeded to the Presi- dency. And there were not a few things in the career of the present King of England when he figured as Prince of Wales which afforded ground for the fear that he would rule neither wisely nor well. But thus far he has done both and shown himself to be a worthy son and successor of Victoria, the great and the good. Added years and the burdens and responsibilities of world-wide empire have brought the natural result of sobered judgment and a carefully ordered life. The ship of state that flies the union jack has a true and safe pilot in Edward VII. In that assurance the English people may confidently rest. One believes with all his heart and soul in the divine right of kings; our young President«no less fervently in the divine right of the people. The one stands for as large a degree of absolutism in government as the times and the temper of his people will permit him to exercise; the other represents the spirit of modern democracy of the highest, purest, and noblest type, in a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." William and Edward rule by grace of royal birth and hereditary law; ]\Ir. Roosevelt governs because a free and independent nation has put the reins of authority for a season in his hands. They are kings; he is first and last of all a servant of the people. And, after all, in spite of hereditary privileges, royal titles, and long-established precedent, the power of President Roosevelt is greater in many ways than that of any living constitutional monarch. They stand farther away from the people, the source of constitutional authority, than he; they are more or less limited in their official acts by bureaucrats and departmental chiefs, and have far less power of initiative in mattters of goverment policy. In brief, character and personality are more important factors in the Presidency of the 402 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. United States than they are in the rule of any monarch, and, happily for the American people, our young President, like his beloved pre- decessor, i^ a man in whom both these factors are found of the rarest and most exalted type. But there is a difference between this Emperor, this King and this President. President Roosevelt is essentially American. He is characteristic of America, a product of this country. He has both forced destiny and been forced by it, and he has studied men and events, and doubtless learned much of their and his own limitations. "Now the entrance upon the Presidency is a new phase of life, in some respects to be likened to that of matrimony. The new situation means new responsibilities, new restrictions and new opportunities. The light, off-hand decision, the quickness of movement and the sense of freedom which accompanies the unmarried man must give way to care, prudence and thoughtful planning. It may be irksome, but it is inevitable. There are the people and their industries, their prosperity and their happiness, all to be borne in mind before action is taken. Mr. Roosevelt is audacious, but not reckless. "The truth is, perhaps, best stated by saying that Mr. Roosevelt is not a complete exponent of his party ideas — he stands apart, neither above nor beneath, but aside. In the circles which included Mr. McKinley he was to some extent feared. Mr. Hanna, reputed, perhaps untruly, to have wielded much influence with Mr. McKinley, disliked Roosevelt, and did not hesitate to say that the Senate was averse to being "bossed by a boy." This was when it was first sug- gested that Roosevelt be nominated for the Vice-Presidency. "As a matter of fact, the party managers soon learned that Roose- velt was too strong to be safely antagonized. There was danger that the convention might be "stampeded" to him. "The new President is a marvel of concentrated American strength, unbeholden to his party so much as it is to him." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 405 This was the expression of a wise man when President Roosevelt first came into power. Here was a man in possession of the highest honor the coimtry could bestow upon one of its citizens; he had proved himself of sterling worth in whatsoever office he had held in City government, State government, and in battle. Why should there be a thought that he should prove of less worth as the Presi- dent of the United States? CHAPTER XX. Home Life — "Tranquillity" on Oyster Bay — Rule of Simplicity — Mrs. Roose- velt — A Gracious and Good Woman — Ideal Wife and Mother — "$300 a Year Enough for a Woman to Dress On" — The Roosevelt Children — "Swash- buckler Americanism" — Honors conferred at Yale College — Resume — The Country is Assured — The Good Work will Go On — The President's Atti- tude on A flairs of State — The Country will Continue to Speak with Pride the Name of Theodore Roosevelt. MUCH has been written about Theodore Roosevelt, his life and his family, and the wholesomeness of it all has been repre- sented for years in the way in which hundreds of thousands of American citizens have called its head not only by his first name, but by his nickname of "Teddy." As Mr. F. J. Stimson once wrote in a poem: "He whom men call 'Teddy' And the gods call 'Theodore.' " But it is always pleasant to know something of the family life of such a man, without in any way desiring to drag into public notice that part of his life which essentially belongs to himself, and which neither he nor any one else wishes to vulgarize. Colonel Roosevelt has for years lived on the top of a hill over- looking Long Island Sound, at Oyster Bay, in a large, unassuming house, full of the stuffed heads of animals of one kind or another that have been the results of his many hunting trips. The floors are covered with skins of all kinds, and it has been a pride of his to have only such trophies in the lower part of his house as he himself was re- sponsible for. Here the family are together always in the summer, and often far into the winter. They all, from Mrs. Roosevelt down, gather there whenever they can, stay as long as possible, and .only 407 408 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. leave when duties of one kind or another call them away. The simplicity of the household, the simpHcity of the method of life, is as unusual among such people as it is pleasant, and there is no more probability of any change in the method of life, except such as is necessitated by the President's new duties, than there is that the characters of the people themselves will change. All about the President's house, on the sides of Sagamore Hill, are the country residences of his relatives; and the different families can gather together some eighteen or twenty children. One of the im- portant features of the community are the holiday expeditions which Theodore Roosevelt and this army of young people have undertaken through the woods and along the shore since the oldest of them could toddle along behind their cousin and father. It is a common and interesting sight to see him, dressed in knickerbockers, striding along through the woods and over fences, with a troop of children doing their best to keep up with him, on their way for a bath in the bay, or taking hold of hands and running down the great sand clifT called Coopers Bluff, which drops from the top of the hill into the Sound itself. They all talk at once; they discuss the nature of some new- found nest or insect or flower, and not the least interested of the party is its leader. The reports that have got abroad that Mr. Roosevelt would give up this Oyster Bay house during his term as President of the United States cannot be true, as no one who knows him could conceive of his giving up the opportunity for rest and exercise, for the kind of family life which he most desires, an*d which he could not possibly have anywhere else. When after his return from Montauk Point at the close of the Spanish war he stood in the village under the trees on an old band- stand and told the people of his town what it all meant to him and ought to mean to them, he began by recalling an incident that showed PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 409 much of his own honesty and homehness. He looked up into the trees, where the village boys hung to the limbs like so many turkey buzzards and then down into the faces of the whole town round about the band-stand. He laughed a moment, and then said that he could see before him, as if it were only yesterday, one time wdien he was a boy and had come to that same place to hear the orator of some Fourth of July day, and had climbed that tree — the boys in that tree squirmed wdth delight — and listened to that other orator. It was quite true, and no doubt the things that the boys of Oyster Bay do to-day he did then in all the vigor of his youthful existence. The fine point is that he is just as young in mind and spirit to-day as he was then, and if the enormous number of details and the unappreciated responsibilities of his present ofHce do not weigh him down, Tlieo- dore Roosevelt will be as young twenty years hence as he is now. The fine old manor-house where he lived as a boy resting under the great trees close to the village was humorously named then and is still known as "Tranquillity," because of the lively family of brothers who grew up there, and of which he was one. So he wants his own boys to grow up, and on the place at Sagmore Hill there are dogs and animal pets of every description, generously tolerated by the mother and encouraged by the father. There even was a pet baby bear who came as a gift from some Western friend, and for a time, until his increasing strength began to take him out of the category of pets and put him among the wild beasts, used to drink cider out of a tin pan, and casually lead two or three of the young people about the lawns at the end of his chain when they brought him from his house, under the impression that they were going to lead him. And in the midst of these pets and games and gathering together of all sorts of natural-history collections there is always the serious, vigorous talk of things that are worth talking about, even when you are with children. In the midst of the Fourth of July celebrations, 410 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. when everybody is setting off rockets and Roman candles, every one who is near Theodore Roosevelt realizes that there is something behind the noise and the shining lights. It may not be spoken of except when one or another brii^gs up a specific question for dis- cussion, but it is there, and no one who has taken part in such holi- day celebrating has missed it or failed to realize that partriotism and pride in nationality are still wonderfully fine treasures to possess. That is what one takes away from the Roosevelt household, and it was there long before the President became so prominently before the nation. It was there as soon as the home was made. It was that which sent him to the Spanish war, and which will carry him through the hardest task and in the highest ofifice of any public man of our country. In fact, everything about the Oyster Bay home, about Mrs. Roose- velt and the children, as well as about the President himself, seems to be typical of the best and the most modern American life. In these days we are all thinking more and more of out-door life; the walls and the floors of the Roosevelt house, as well as the bodies and the faces of the Roosevelt children, show how much out-door life has meant to that family. We are all vigorous people, pushing the world along, interested in foreign as well as home affairs, exerting our in- tellects in the advancement of knowledge of all kinds; the Roosevelt library and the healthy and animated conversation that any visitor finds awaiting him in that household speak of the same intellectual vigor. No one comes away from the home at Sagamore Hill without a better feeling of what the family means in this world, without a higher idea of his own duties and responsibilities, without some un- spoken resolution to try to live likewise himself, and these same im- pressions carried into the White House and into the conduct of the government will be as healthy and optimistic an influence over the whole of the United States as could well be imagined. I I PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 411 That is why it all seems proper that Theodore Roosevelt should be President of the United States. Not only he himself but his whole family stand for what is most patriotic, healthy, and dignified in Americanism, and they have stood for this in their own normal way ever since they grew old enough to stand for anything. It is encouraging to Americans all over the country to see such a man at their head, and such a family making the old White House bright and cheerful. And that is why, too, the whole nation has a right to take the family, as well as its head, into its friendship — with- out any cheap desire to hear a lot of personalities that are sacred, but with the wish to make the family what it really is — the first family in the land. And when the time comes for them to leave the White House, whether at the end of three years or of seven, they will return to their own home just the same in every respect, except for the passage of the years — just as simple and dignified, just as typical in all their ways of what is best in the United States. The incoming of the new administration in no way destroys the fine tradition regarding the high character and dignity which has char- acterized each woman who has in turn been called "First Lady in the Land." Thirty women, representing widely varied phases of the social fabric, have owned this distinction. Several of them were gifted to a high degree with beauty and intellect; some were simply wives unacquainted with the conventionalities of the great world, and having little taste for the ceremonial life intO' which their position thrust them, but all were sincere, amiable women, conscientious, and admirable in type. Mrs. Roosevelt, by birth and wide social acquaint- ance, is entitled to admission to the most exclusive circles of this country and Europe. She will be able to converse with ambassadors in their own languages. She knows all the intricate rules of pre- cedence which foreigners consider so essential to order. She knows 412 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. how to be formal as well as gracious, and she has the exquisite tact of the real woman of the world. It is too early to speculate as to the innovations which shewill advocate, but they will not be so sweeping or so radical as to antagonize the rest of Washington society. In any event it seems certain that her reign will be more brilliant than any other has been. That Mrs. Roosevelt has never before appeared prominently in the gay world is a matter of her own choice and inclination. Unswerv- ingly ambitious for her husband, she herself has kept aloof from all publicity. Not until Mr. Roosevelt became Vice-President did she permit her picture to be published by the press, and then only at her husband's earnest request. Never has she allowed herself to be inter- viewed. In fact, outside her circle of friends and those who have been placed in public relation to Mr. Roosevelt people know very little of her personal appearance, her character or her tastes. When she passed through New York on her way to President McKinley's funeral, a dozen persons, perhaps, at the crowded station and in the streets through which she drove knew that the tall, pale, handsome lady in deep mourning was the wife of the new President. Mrs. Roosevelt was Edith Kermit Carow, daughter of Charles Carow, of New York, and granddaughter of Isaac Carow, in his day one of the most prominent shipping merchants in the country. Her mother was Miss Gertrude Tyler, of Norwich, Connecticut. Mrs. Roosevelt was born about thirty-seven years ago in the old-fashioned family home at Fourteenth Street and Union Square, a locality now given up to business. Her family and the Roosevelts were on inti- mate terms, and the little Edith doubtless carried her dolls and their finery a great many times to the near-by mansion where lived her future husband. One of his sisters, now Mrs. Douglas Robinson, was her dearest friend, and it is pleasant to record that the childish affection between them has never wavered. They are now the closest GKOl^M',]'; ]'.. CORTKI.VOU. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 415 of friends and confidants. Theodore Roosevelt was not a robust boy, not even a remarkably bright boy, and there is no evidence that he played any special part in Miss Carow's early life. Certainly he did not regard her sentimentally at that time. After their childhood passed she was sent to a fashionable private school, and he went his somewhat erratic way through Harvard. Miss Carow went to Europe, and IMr. Roosevelt married a beautiful Boston girl, Miss Alice Lee. This was in 1880, and three years later the young wife died, leaving behind her an infant daughter. Miss Carow was still in Eut-ope, and there again she met Theodore Roosevelt. In the spring of 1886 they were married, the ceremony taking place at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, London. Five children have been born to the Roosevelts, and a happier and more affectionate family does not exist. Alice, the daughter of the first Mrs. Roosevelt, has never felt the loss of her mother. She is as genuinely attached to her stepmother as she is to her father and young sister and brothers. The most complete harmony reigns in the household. Mrs. Roosevelt is an ideal wife and mother. She is devoted, but she has not sacrificed her individuality to her devotion. She has not neglected her dress or her appearance. She has read deeply, and keeps herself fully informed in foreign and domestic afifairs. A little volume of verse, published for private circulation, shows decided literary talent. A good horsewoman and an untiring walker she is hardly to be called an athletic woman. She does not favor women's clubs, the only society to which she belongs being the Mothers' Asso- ciation of New York State. It will be remembered that she declined to become president general of the Daughters of the American Revo- lution, although every pressure was brought to bear upon her. While Mrs. Roosevelt cannot be described as a beauty, she has many attractions of face and figure. Hers is the aristocratic type— 416 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. dignified, clear-cut and delicate. She has soft brown eyes, bright with intelligence, and a very fair complexion. Her abundant hair is light brown and is dressed with extreme plainness. Whether for day or evening, shopping or a ball, it is always brushed away from her broad forehead and coiled loosely at the back of her head. With evening dress she sometimes adds an aigrette or a rosette of ribbon, which is becoming and increases her five feet six inches of height. She has a slight, girlish figure, and moves with much grace. Her most conspicuous charm is her smile. It is a spontaneous, sunshiny smile, full of graciousness — the kind of smile that gives timid people confidence. Mrs. Roosevelt's strong individuality shows itself even in her clothes. She wears very handsome gowns, and they all look as if they were built for her and would not look so well on any other woman. Her street-dresses are quite simple, but her evening gowns are often very elaborate. She is generally seen in a small bonnet, seldom, if ever, wearing a large hat. Some of her friends accuse her of an P^nglish taste in dress; but this may be because even when alone she always dresses for dinner as for a function. During the first month of her husband's incumbency she excited considerable comment by saying that a well-dressed woman could clothe herself on three hundred dollars a year, setting an example of economy in dressing in an age when feminine extravagance in the adornment of the person has become proverbial. There was no rea- son why Mrs. Roosevelt should confine herself to that amount of money in furnishing her wardrobe, and there is no reason to suppose that she does so or would think of doing so in her elevated posi- tion; but that she should voice the sentiment and back it by saying that a woman has no right to be extravagant, proves that she is as honestly outspoken as her husband. Of Mrs. Roosevelt's tact many stories could be told. She has very decided opinions as to what she should and should not do, and she PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 417 manages to carry her point without giving offense to any one. Our American habit of indiscriminate hand-shaking is very distasteful to her, and she made up her mind when she went to Albany that she would not have her hand shaken by the hundreds who pass her at the official receptions. Accordingly, at her first reception she charmed the crowd with her sweet smile and pleasant words, but both her hands were observed to be tightly holding a huge bouquet. Nevertheless there is nothing haughty or ungracious about the President's wife. She has an unusual cordiality toward every one whom she meets, no matter who that person is or what his social status may be. Toward her husband her attitude is that of an affectionate comrade. Strong and self-poised they stand up together, an ideal pair. She is the type of woman who binds on her husband's sword and watches him go forth to war with a proud smile. During the terrible and trying days of the Spanish-American War she remained at Sagamore Hill with her children, her entire strength absorbed in keeping them happy and hopeful, and not until her husband returned did she rela^:. The collapse was complete then, and for a time there was much anxiety felt for her. With her children she seems almost like an elder sister. Both of the Roosevclts believe in allowing children great freedom of action. They are all sturdy, strong-willed young things, who have been used to roam the hills around Oyster Bay without let or hindrance clad in no more aristocratic garments than overalls and sweaters. The nine- vear-old Ethel has worn the raiment of masculinity as often as she chose to assume it. The children are devoted to pets, and the gardens at Sagamore Hill are a small menagerie of guinea-pigs, squirrels, turtles, cats, dogs and ponies. The entire collection had to be re- moved to Albany, the children absolutely refusing to part with any of 418 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. it, and it is no doubt already decreed that it shall be transferred to Washington, to the last guinea-pig. Miss Alice Roosevelt, the young lady daughter of the house, is a tall, blonde girl of eighteen, who promises to develop into a beauty. She is a girl who, as her father expresses it, "simply cannot stay in the house and sit in a rocking-chair." She rides, drives, skates, shoots, plays golf, enjoys a winter run on snow-shoes, and is, withal, a most dainty and feminine young woman. "Ted, Junior," as he is universally known, was thirteen years old at the time of his father's elevation to the Presidency, and the fall of 1901 entered school at Groton, Massachusetts, where he will pre- pare for Harvard. He is very like his father in character as well as person. The younger children accompanied their parents to Wash- ington; little Ethel under a governess; Quentin still a baby. The two boys, KeiTnit and Archibald, are school boys. The President's home life was always sincerely homely and domestic, and learning what was good and avoiding what w-as not good has characterized him and Mrs. Roosevelt in their plan of home education for their children. It has always been an American house- hold, love of country being early instilled into the minds of the children; and yet Mr. Roosevelt's Americanism has by some critics been called the "swashbuckleer kind." The fact is, Mr. Roosevelt's patriotism is of the kind that makes for civilization. He is an ardent believer in the Monroe Doctrine and in its rigid enforcement. At the meeting of the Social Reform Club in New York on March 4, 1897, Mr. E. D. Page, in introducing him to speak, referred to him as a "gladiator." Mr. Roosevelt responded: "I keenly realize that to accomplish anything in this world there must be fighting of a certain kind. I believe it should be resorted to r.." a last expedient. My own desire is for more gentle methods." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 4ld Before the Holland Society, on January 15, 1896, Mr. Roosevelt said, "You want to teach some people the elementary virtue of patriotism, and that laws put on the statute books should be en- forced." In his effort to better the police condition of New York, Mr. Roosevelt very frecjuently stated his position, but clamor of those who opposed him seemed for a time to ovenvhelm his views. Listen to some of them. On January 20, 1896, he said to a gathering of Methodist ministers: "We have refused tO' allow the police force to be used in any way to help any politician of any party or any faction of a party, and therefore those politicians, the breath of whose nostrils is cor- ruption, naturally hate us, and wish to see us driven from power. It rests with the decent citizens of the State to say whether their repre- sentatives at Albany shall do the bidding of the liquor-seller and the ward-heeler and turn us out of office because we have honestly enforced the laws, and have declined to relax them in favor of any kind of vice or any kind of lawbreaker." If this is "swashbuckling Americanism" it is a very good sort of the kind, and might be emulated to advantage by many other citizens 01 the country, and many who hold offices of a public nature. On October 23d the President was made a Doctor of Laws during Yale College bi-centennial celebrations. The city of New Haven was Yale-mad. Schools, factories and stores were closed, while the towns- people thronged the streets to do honor to the President of the 1 United States, the guest of the university. President Roosevelt and party arrived .on time at 9.30, after an hour's run from Farmington, where a considerable company of people had gathered to bid him good-by. The stay of President Roosevelt at Farmington w^as marked by an amusing incident, illustrating his democratic spirit. While Mr. 420 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Roosevelt was out driving the party had reached the top of the Tunxis Mountain and the President suggested they take a short walk. While strolling along, the President espied Deacon Barber corraling a herd of cows which were trespassing on a neighbor's field. "What are you doing there?" shouted the President. "Pm trying to get these cattle out of the near field," rephed the deacon. "Pll help you." And he began to chase the cattle into their pasture. Some of the President's party assisted in the work. "I never see sich sport," declared the deacon as he proudly related the incident to his friends later. President Hadley, of Yale, and Mayor John P. Studley were on hand to receive the distinguished guest on arrival, and after an ex- change of greetings, briefly, the ride toward the university campus was begun by way of State and Chapel Streets. The escort included a representation of the naval and military forces of the State. Upon arrival at the campus the President was conducted to Battell Chapel, and after a brief rest there was escorted to his place in the academic procession of learned doctors, masters of art, distinguished guests of the university and graduates. There were thousands in the line, all dressed in academic gowns, many of which were faced with colors indicative of their wearer's degrees. Way for the procession through the crowds which filled the street near the campus was made by the military escort. President Roosevelt and President Hadley entered the theater at 10.30. On the platform were Joseph H. Choate, John Hay, Richard Olney, Chief Justice T\Ielville W. Fuller and Justice Brewer, of the Unitci States Supreme Court; Presidents Eliot, of Harvard; Patton, of Princeton; Faunce, of Brown; Harper, of Chicago; Provost Har- rison, of Pennsylvania, and other college presidents besides literary men and churchmen of distinction. Admiral Sampson, apparently in PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 421 ill-health, did not enter with the procession. He made his way to his place through a side door, and leaning on the arm of Professor W. W. Farnum, was shown his seat. The presentation of candidates for honorary degrees followed the commemorative address and the function occupied about one hour. President Hadley was extraordinarily felicitous in the delicate compli- ments he conveyed to the distinguished candidates. Secretary Joha Hay, Joseph PI. Choate, Chief Justice Fuller, Archbishop Ireland, Mark Twain, Seth Low and Rear Admiral Sampson received tre- mendous ovations. Then followed a list of the degrees in the order in which the candi- dates were presented. When the long list had been finished President Pladley advanced a step or two and with great impressiveness said: "There yet remains one name." In an instant the great audience was standing. The President of the United States also arose and the theater rang with cheers. Tlic air was filled with waving kerchiefs and programmes. Remarking that Yale had chosen for the degree this candidate before he became President, President Pladley announced that all Yale men were now doubly honored by greeting the man and the President as a son of Yale. Specially addressing President Roose- velt, President Hadley spoke as follows: ''Theodore Roosevelt, while you were yet a private citizen wc offered you most worthily the degree of LL. D. Since in His Provi- dence, it has pleased God to give Theodore Roosevelt another title, we give him on that account a double portion of welcome. He is a Harvard man by nurture, but we are proud to think that in his demo- cratic spirit, his broad national sympathies and above all his clcaii- ness and purity and truth, he will be glad to be an adopted son of Yale." 422 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. President Roosevelt advanced, bowed profoundly, and tried tO' speak. Again the audience cheered, and it was fully a minute before he was allowed to proceed. He said: "President Hadley: I have never yet worked at a task worth doing that I did not find myself working shoulder to shoulder witli some son of Yale. I have never yet been in a struggle for righteous- ness and decency that there were not men of Yale to aid me and give' me strength and courage. ''As we walked hither this morning we passed by a gateway which was raised to the memory of a young Yale lad who was hurt to^ death beside me, as he and a great many others like us marched against tlie gunfire from the heights, and with those memories quick in my mind I thank you from my heart for the honor you have done me, and I thank you doubly, for you planned to do me that honor while I v.-as yet a private citizen." The hymn "America" was sung and the audience dispersed. The concert by the Boston Orchestra at the Hyperion Theater took place at 2.30 o'clock this afternoon. The concert included five numbers, all from the old masters, and Wilhelm Gericke conducted. Miss Milka Ternina was the soloist. At 4 P. M. Woodbridge Hall, the new administration building presented to the university by the Misses Stokes, was dedicated. President Pladley presided. The dedicatory address was delivered by Donald Grant Mitchell, LL.D. (Ik Marvel). On account of the advanced age of the speaker tlie address was delivered from h^s chair at the suggestion of Dr. Pladley. President Roosevelt did not attend the early afternoon exercises of the celebration. After the ceremonies of conferring the degrees were completed he was driven to the home of W. W. Farnum, on Prospect Hill. The crowds almost blocked the streets as the party W'ith its escort passed, and many hundreds swarmed along after the carriage and obtained the coveted glimpse of the President. PATRIOT AND STATESAIAN. 425 The Farnam residence is located on a broad rise of ground, and high hedges and fences surround the estate. Policemen a,nd detec- tives stood guard at the gates and about the house and no one was admitted. A farewell reception was given by President and Mrs. Hadley at 5 o'clock this afternoon, but the presence of the President of the United States, who assisted President and Mrs. Hadley in receiving, lent a far greater impressiveness to the occasion. President Roosevelt and Dr. and Mrs. Hadley stood upon a small raised platform midway to one side of the hall. Commander and Mrs. Cowlcs and Private Secretary Cortelyou stood to the rear of the re- ceiving party. Close at hand were secret service officers, ushers and policemen and those in charge of the ceremonies The purpose was to admit only those wearing badges. These numbered several thou- sand, and a great number of the general uninvited public also managed to gain entrance. Particularly noticeable was the extreme caution not only of the officers but of those having the afTair in charge for the adequate pro- tection of the President. Thn most unique and original feature of the reception was the fact that there was no hand shaking. The suggestion to eliminate this old time custom originated with President and Mrs. Hadley, and was readily adopted by the President after consultation with Secretary Cortelyou. It is estimated that 5,000 persons attended the reception. At its conclusion the President returned to the Farnam residence. At 1 1 o'clock the President re-entered his carriage and, again escorted by the mounted police, was driven to the station. The Presi- dent's car was attached to the night Federal express through train for Washington. This was the first social outing of the President, and as such de- serves the space allotted to it, though he was yet to have the seasons 426 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. at the Capital, where all that is magnificent was to be put in operation when the President of the United States was expected. Mr. Roosevelt's bearing during the period of mourning had in- spired both personal esteem and official trust. The country felt assured that the calamity it had sufifered had left its institutions un- shaken, its liberal policies unchanged and that the government vvould go forward as its best wishers would have it, guided by a patriotic spirit, in the way of peace, security and honor. Rarely had a change of Presidents involved so little in the adminis- tration. When Vice-President Tyler succeeded on the death of President Harrison, there was no immediate change in the Cabinet, and Mr. Webster remained at its head for two years, during which time the Ashburton treaty was negotiated. The disintegration of the Cabinet began, however, within a few months and Tyler's ad- ministration departed w-idely from the lines that Harrison was ex- pected to pursue. Mr. Fillmore formed his own Cabinet promptly, recalling Mr. Webster in Mr. Clayton's place. On Andrew Johnson's accession, on the other hand, the whole Cabinet remained, and the breach with Congress that followed was attributable as much to the President's personality as to his policy. It is not to be forgotten that in Johnson's administration the first acquisition of detached territory was made by the United States, by the Secretary who had served with Lincoln. The change from Garfield to Arthur disturbed party leadership more than public policy. Some changes in personal influence were likely to result from Roosevelt's succession, but the factional divisions as they were then and had been to a large degree obliterated at the time, while the clearly expressed purpose of the new President to continue the administration of his predecessor without change shuts the door upon the self-seeking intrigue that usually accompanies a change in the Presidential office. There was no uncertainty about PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 427 Mr. Roosevelt's resolute hostility to the doctrine of spoils. Only the incapable and unfit need be afraid of him and it was only for the improvement of the service that he might be expected to make new appointments. The country was absolutely assured against the de- moralizing abuse of public patronage and the mere spoilsmen would have little opportunity to disturb the new President in his public duties. The members of the Cabinet had all been closely associated witli the deserved success of the AIcKinley administration and their re- tention of ofiice contributed greatly to the confidence with which the country greeted its new Chief Executive. It was to Mr. Hay that we very largely owed that judicious diplomatic policy that had gained for this nation the respect of all the world, and in harmony with Mr. Roosevelt's own stalwart Americanism we might expect this broad policy to extend more and more the influence of the United States, gaining new conquests of peace in security and honor. Mr. Root's wise and skillful guidance of the War Departme^it, which never before, even in time of actual hostilities, held so influ- ential a place in the work of the administration, had proved of the utmost value and importance, while the most essential domestic in- terests were reassured against any disturbance of policy by Mr. Gage's continued direction of the Treasury. At this juncture of affairs, these three were the dominant figures of the administration, under the President himself, and their presence in the Cabinet gave a convic- tion of strength and security that was of incalculable benefit to the nation, at home and abroad. Thus the country, as the cloud of public and personal bereavement lifted, started on its way again with buoyant confidence. "The good work will go on," said McKinley, and when Theodore Roosevelt assumed the office of Chief Executive there was little fear that through any action of his there would be any retarding of that 428 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. efficiency which had brought the country to a lofty plain of prosperity, and the admiration and respect of other powers. President Roosevelt is an old-fashioned American. Though in so many ways a typical modern man, he is at heart and in essentials far nearer the old type of American statesman than the majority of the men who have presided over America during the last sixty years. Mr. Lincoln was a man of genius, and so an exception to every rule, but, save for Mr. Lincoln and General Grant, the modern Presidents have not been men of mark. They have be^^n sound and excellent constitu- tional Monarchs, but not leaders and rulers of men. Mr. Roosevelt is far more like the men of the first three decades of the Republic than the Convention-made Presidents of modern times. When it is said he is an old-fashioned American we mean that he belongs to that strong, vigorous, authoritative type which has always existed in America, and always been apparent enough in business and in private life, though of late it has been somewhat submerged in politics. He is essentially one of those men who know exactly what they want, and mean to get it. But together with this intensity and keenness the new President is a man of moderation. Those who can recall the last Message sent by him to the Legislature of the State of New York wdiile Governor may remember how essentially moderate was its general tone. Especially is this moderation of tone to be seen in all his expressions of opinion on such home questions as those of the Trusts, temperance legislation, and the Tariff. He has always held in regard to the Trusts that the capitalists have done a great deal of good in organizing industry, and that they must not be treated as enemies of the nation. At the same time, however, they are to be carefully watched and kept within reasonable bounds. In regard to temperance and philanthropic legislation generally, Mr. Roosevelt has again, always maintained the position of the via media. Ap- parently it is the same with the question of Protection. Mr. Roose- velt, though he has never put forward Free-trade as an ideal and has PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 429 always upheld the existing fiscal system, has never been a Protection- at-any-price man. Even in the case of Imperialism and a vigorous foreign policy, Mr. Roosevelt has never gone to extremes, and he has frequently denounced the recklessness of the more violent men. In truth, there is a great deal of the old Whig moderation — we use llie term rather in the English than the American sense^ — about Mr. Roosevelt. That is the spirit which dislikes extremes in all cases, which is against pushing even a good pmiciple or a good policy too far, and is in favor of keeping all things within the bounds of common sense. But this spirit is a very different one from that of the op- portunist or the man of perennial compromise. The true Whig when he has discovered what he believes to be the path of moderation in ?iny question will stick to it through thick and thin. His views may be "central," but they are none the less tenaciously held, and history has shown again and again that the Whig temperament may be both authoritative and uncompromising in action. Lord Palmerston was a good example of the authoritative Whig, and, unless we are mistaken, Mr. Roosevelt will show in a good many ways a striking resemblance to Lord Palmerston. Of course, no two men are ever quite alike, but impulsiveness combined with an abstract moderation of view, and authoritativeness coupled with a strict recognition of law and con- stitutional right, undoubtedly belong to both characters. The essential thing to remember in regard to Mr. Roosevelt's posi- tion as to foreign afTairs is that he is an upholder of the Monroe Doc- trine in its fullest and most complete fonn. All his writings and speeches show that he considers that America must prevent the European Powers obtaining any new foothold in North or South America, or extending the settlements they now possess in any form, direct or indirect. His view, that is, is to enforce the full Monroe Doctrine at all costs. 430 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. And now the country was in charge of a man young in years, but not young in all those essentials that go to form a wise statesman and a just ruler. The graduate of Harvard, saying that every man should assist in governing his country by governing himself; the Assemblyman caring for the honest interests of his State; the- Police Commissioner, suppressing corruption and blackmail; the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, urging the Cabinet and the two Houses to adopt the Washingtonian maxim as to preparing for war in time of peace; the Rough Rider, going to war to fight the foe of his country; the governor of a great State, insisting upon the passing of bills that should benefit the people — this man was now President, and there was every asurance that under him the administration of the affairs of the country would redound for the betterment of the land, and that the millions of citizens in the North, the South, the East and the West, would continue to speak with pride the name of Theodore Roosevelt. CHAPTER XXI. The Negro Problem in America — Booker T. Washington, the Ablest Mar of His Race — The Colored People to Develop On Their Own Lines — President Roosevelt's First Message to Congress — An Era of Peace and Good Feeling — Anarchy — Business Interests — Trusts — Exclusion of Cheap Labor — The Tariff — Reciprocity — Gold Standard' — Hawaii, Porto Rico, Cuba — The Philippines — Alonroe Doctrine — Army and Navy — Merit System — Indian Tribes — Postal Service — "Open Door" — Our Policy to Continue Unbroken. HEN the politicians and the newspapers were, in the first month of j\ir. Rooseveh's incumbency, speaking of his forthcoming Message and beheving that it would follow on the lines of the Presidential messages of his predeces- sors in office, an incident occurred which called forth some criticism, especially in the South. Booker T. ^^"ashington, the negro philanthropist, was invited to dinner at the White House. The invitation came from the President, who was entirely within his right, whatever his motive; and if his motive was to weaken a prejudice by defying it, and he expected the consequent outburst of irritation, and was unmoved by the expecta- tion, he did a very noble act. The President by his act had no desire to set the black man as the equal of the white man. He wished to further the good condition of the colored race, as Booker T. Wash- mgton so long preached and wrote. But there could be no question of equality on social lines. Booker T. Washington, of whom we wish to speak with all respect as perhaps the ablest man of his race, himself recently acknowledged tliis in a public speech which made a deep impression, not only on his hearers, but all through the Union. At any rate, this solution is 431 432 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. strongly urged by a negro writer in a very able paper in Leslie s JVeeJdy. He desires to keep the races entirely apart, and to let each develop on its own lines, while keeping a respectful distance from the other. It is through strict but kindly segregation that, in the present exceptional circumstances, the road to peace between the races lies, a segregation which each should accept as made by laws over which neither of them has any power. Reform, which had been the motive in every political position he had held, actuated President Roosevelt in inviting to his private table a man who, no matter what his race or color, worked hard and tirelessly for that race, and was an intelligent and good citizen with the welfare of several million dusky-skinned brothers at heart. The negro problem was one that must be recognized in the United States, and what was more fitting than that the supreme executive should recog- nize in the most complimentary and respectful manner a man who believed that he stood nearer to the solving of that problem than any one else? Years had gone by since the Civil War, and failure had attended every large effort to deal successfully with the race emanci- pated by that war; and in his speeches and writings Mr. Roosevelt had endeavored to urge the amelioration of conditions concerning the negro and a means of placing the race on a footing of self-respect and substantial success, while putting down their wrongdoing, which was the outcome of the license engendered by idleness and hopeless- ness of the encouragement of the world at large. The first message of President Roosevelt was bound to receive more than the ordinai-y degree of attention which the country bestows upon such documents. Sent to Congress December 3d, it gave his countrymen an opportunity such as they had not hitherto had to measure his capacities for the vast responsibilities suddenly and un- expectedly thrust upon him. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. i^b Such a state paper on such an occasion was vahiable not simply as an expression of the pohcy and purpose of an administration, but as an index in part to the character and methods of a President who was still regarded as a new figure in the large affairs of national politics. It was only a little more than eleven weeks since Theodore Roose- velt entered the White House under the shadow of a national calamity and with all the respect everywhere conceded to his integrity, there v.-as much uncertainity as to the manner of man he might prove him- self to ])e in the Presidential office. His immediate utterance that he v/ould follovv' promptly and unquestionably the principles and policies which guided the administration of his predecessor was the one and only line of conduct which he fomially and publicly proclaimed. Since that time his personal acts had as a rule been uniformly in keep- ing with that promise and had tended to inspire confidence in the sobriety as well as the sincerity and honesty of his judgment. The pith of the message may be summed up thus: "Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race; and all man- kind should band against the Anarchist." 'Tn dealing with business interests, for the Government to under- take by crude and ill-considered legislation to do what may turn out to be bad, would be to incur the risk of such far-reaching national disasters that it would be preferable to undertake nothing at all." "The first essential in determining how to deal with the great in- dustrial combinations is knowledge of the facts — publicity." "Corporations and joint stock or other corporations, depending upon any statutory law for their existence or privileges, should be subject to proper Govermental supervision." "There should be created a Cabinet offfccr to be known as Secre- tary of Commerce and Industries." m THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "I regard it as necessary to re-enact immediately the law excluding Chinese laborers." "The most vital problem the world has to deal with is Labor." •'Educational and economic tests in a wise immigration law should be designed to protect and elevate the general body poHtic." "Reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection. Our hrst duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so far as it can safely be done without injury to our home industries." "The American merchant marine should be restored to the ocean." "The utmost care should be taken not to reduce the revenues so that there will be any possibility of a deficit." "The Interstate law should be amended." "The forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal questions." "There is vital need of providing for a substantial reduction in the tariff duties on Cuban imports into the United States," "While we will do everything in our power for the Filipino who is peaceful, we will take the sternest measures with the Filipino insur- recto and ladrone." "No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is of such consequence to the American people as the building of a canal across the Isthmus." "There must be no territorial aggrandizement by any non-Ameri- can Power at the expense of any American Power on American soil." "The work of upbuilding the navy must be steadily continued. No one point of our policy, foreign or domestic, is more important than this to the honor and material welfare, and, above all, to the peace of our nation in the future." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 437 "It is not necessary to increase our army beyond its present size, but it is necessary to keep it at the highest point of efficiency." "Every promotion and every detail under the War Department must be made solely with regard to the good of the service and the merit of the man himself." "The merit system of appointments should be extended wherever possible." After a fine tribute to Mr. McKinley and abhorrence of the manner of his death at the hands of an anarchist, the Message says: "I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the exercise of its wise discretion it should take into consideration the coming to this country of Anarchists or persons professing principles hostile to all government and justifying the murder of those placed in authority. Such individuals as those who not long ago gathered in open meeting to glorify the murder of King Humbert of Italy perpetrate a crime, and the laAV should insure their rigorous punishment. They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provision should be made for the punishment of those w ho stay. No matter calls more urgently for the wisest thought of the Congress. "The Federal Courts should be given jurisdiction over any man who kills or attempts to kill the President or any man who by the Constitution or by law is in line of succession for the Presidency, while the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt should be pro- portioned to the enormity of the offense against our institutions. "Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race; and all mankmd should band against the Anarchist. His crime should be made an offense against the law of nations, like piracy and that form of man- stealing known as the slave trade, for it is of far blacker infamy than either. It should be so declared by treaties among all civilized 438 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Powers. Such treaties would give to the Federal Government the power of dealing with the crime. "A grim commentary upon the folly of the Anarchist position was afforded by the attitude of the law towards this very criminal who had just taken the life of the President. The people would have torn him limb from limb if it had not been that the law he defied was at once invoked in his behalf. So far from his deed being committed on behalf of the people against the Government, the Government was obliged at once to exert its full police power to save him from instant death at the hands of the people. Moreover, his deed worked not the slightest dislocation in our governmental system, and the danger of a recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great it might grow, would work only in the direction of strengthening and giving harshness to the forces of order. No man will ever be restrained from becoming President by any fear as to his personal safety. If the risk to the President's life became great, it would mean that the office would more and more come to be filled by men of a spirit which would make them resolute and merciless in dealing with every friend of disorder. This great country will not fall into anarchy, and if Anarchists should ever become a serious menace to its institutions, they would not merely be stamped out, Imt would involve in their own ruin every active or passive sympathizer with their doctrines. The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame." In dealing vvith business interests: "The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which went on with ever accelerated rapidity during the latter half of the nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of the twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the old customs which had almost the binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution of PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 439 wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so enormously in- creased the productive power of mankind, they are no longer sufficient. "The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison faster than the growth of the country, and the upbuilding of the great industrial centers has meant a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate of wealth, but in the number of very large individual, and especially of very large corporate, fortunes. The creation of these great corporate fortunes has not been due to the tariff nor to any other governmental action, but to natural causes in tlie business world, operating in other countries as they operate in our own. "The process has aroused much antag'onism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, Jieen so well off as in this country and at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon others. Successful enterprise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if the conditions are such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of success. "The captains of industry, who^ have driven the railway^ systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people. Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud could never have taken place. ]\Ioreover, we should recognize the immense importance to this material development of leaving as unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong and forceful men upon whom the success of business opera- tions inevitably rests. The slightest study of business conditions will 440 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. satisfy any one capable of forming a judgment that the personal equa- tion is the most important factor in a business operation, that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure. "An additional reason for caution in dealing with corporations is to be found in the international commercial conditions of to-day. The same business conditions which have produced the aggregations of corporate and individual wealth have made them very potent factors in international commercial competition. Business concerns which have the largest means at their disposal and are managed by the ablest men are naturally those which take the lead in the strife for commercial supremacy among the nations of the world. America has only just begun to assume that commanding positioai in the inter- national business world which we believe will more and more be hers. It is of the utmost importance that this position be not jeoparded, especially at a time when the overflowing abundance of our own natural resources and the skill, business energy, and mechanical apti- tude of our people make foreign markets essential. Under such con- ditions it would be most unwise to cramp or to fetter the youthful strength of our nation. * * * "The mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or :gnorance. Many of those who have made it their vocation to de- nounce the great industrial combinations which are popularly, although with technical inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especi- ally to hatred and fear. These are precisely the two emotions, par- ticularly when combined with ignorance, which unfit men for the exercise of cool and steady judgment. In facing new industrial con- ditions, the whole history of the world shows that legislation wnll generally be both unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 441 inquiry and with sober self-restraint. ]\Iuch of the legislation directed at the trusts would have been exceedingly mischievous had it not also been entirely ineffective. In accordance with the well-known socio- logical law, the ignorant or reckless agitator has been the really eiTective friend of the evils which he has been nominally opposing. In dealing with business interests, for the Government to undertake by crude and ill-considered legislation to do what may turn out to be bad, would be to incur the risk of such far-reaching national disaster that it would be preferable to undertake nothing at all. The men who demand the impossible or the undesirable seiwe as the allies of the forces with which they are nominally at war, for they hamper those who would endeavor to find out in rational fashion what the wrongs really are and to what extent and in what manner it is practi- cable to apply remedies. "All this is true; and yet it is also true that there are real and grave evils, one of the chief being over-capitalization because of its many baleful consequences; and a resolute and practical effort must be made to correct these evils. "There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations known as trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. This springs from no spirit of envy or uncharitableness, nor lack of pride in the great industrial achievements that have placed this country at the head of the nations struggling for commercial supremacy. It does not rest upon a lack of intelligent appreciation of the necessity of meeting changing and changed conditions of trade with new methods, nor upon ignorance of the fact that combination of capital in the effort to accomplish great things i& necessary when the world's progress demands that great things be done. It is based upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be, not pro- hibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right. 442 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. '"It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from Government the privilege of doing business under corporate form, which frees them from indi- vidual responsibility, and enabks them to call into their enterprises the capital of the public, they shall do so upon absolutely truthful representations as to the value of the property in which the capital is to be invested. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great cor- porations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; -and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions. "The first essential in detemiining how to deal with the great in- dustrial combinations is knowledge of the facts — publicity. In the interest of the public, the Government should have the right to in- spect and examine the workings of the great corporations engaged in interstate business. Publicity is the only sure remedy which we can now invoke. What further remedies are needed in the way of governmental regulation, or taxation, can only be determined after publicity has been obtained, by process of law, and in the course of administration. The first requisite is knowledge, full and complete — knowledge which may 1)e made public to the world. * * * "There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be known as Secre- tary of Commerce and Industries, as provided in the bill introduced at the last session of the Congress. It should be his province to deal with commerce in its broadest sense, including among other things whatever concerns labor and all matters affecting the great business corporations and our merchant marine." Copyright 19U0, By G. G. Kockwoou GOVERNOR ROOSEVELT AT HOME, OYSTER BAY, LONG ISLAND PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 445 The Chinese exclusion law should be re-enacted, for the American wage- earner must be protected against cheap labor. The Chinese and illiterate foreigners should be debarred. "Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a stout heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding and God-fearing members of the community. But there should be a com- prehensive law enacted with the object of working a threefold im- provement over our present system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely not only all persons who are known to be believers in anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic societies, but also all persons who are of a low moral tendency or of unsavory reputation. This means that we must recjuire a more thorough system of inspec- tion abroad and a more rigid system of examination at our immigra- tion ports, the former being especially necessary. "The second object of a proper immigration law ought to be to secure by a careful and not merely perfunctory educational test some intelligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act sanely as American citizens. This would not keep out all Anarachists, for many of them belong to the intelligent criminal class. But it would do what is also in point, that is, tend to decrease the sum of ignorance, so potent in producing the envy, suspicion, malignant passion, and hatred of order, out of which anarchistic sentiment inevitably springs. Finally, all persons should be excluded who are below a certain standard of economic fitness to enter our industrial field as com- l;ctitors with American labor. There should be proper proof of per- sonal capacity to earn an American living and enough money to insure a decent start under American conditions. This would stop the influx of cheap labor, and the resulting competition which gives 446 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. rise to so much of bitterness in American industrial life; and it would dry up the springs of the pestilential social conditions in our great cities, where anarchistic organizations have their greatest possibility of growth. "Both the educational and economic tests in a wise immigration law should be designed to protect and elevate the general body pohtic and social. A very close supervision should be exercised over the steamship companies which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they should be held to a strict accountability for any infraction of the law." The Message is against tariff changes — Reciprocity should go as the handmaiden of Protection. "Our first duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so far as it can safely be done withO'Ut injury to our home industries. Just how far this is must be determined according to the individual case, remembering always that every application of our tariff policy to meet our shifting national needs must be conditioned upon the cardinal fact that the duties must never be reduced below the point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad. The well-being of the wage-worker is a prime considera- tion of our entire policy of economic legislation. "Subject to this proviso of the proper protection necessary to our industrial well-being at home, the principle of reciprocity must com- mand our hearty support. The phenomenal growth of our export trade emphasizes the urgency of the need for wider markets and for a liberal policy in dealing with foreign nations. Whatever is merely petty and vexatious in the way of trade restrictions should be avoided. The customers to whom we dispose of our surplus products in the long run, directly or indirectly, purchase those surplus products by giving us something in return. Their ability to purchase our products should as far as possible be secured by so arranging our tariff as to PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 447 enable us to take from them those products which we can use without harm to our own industries and labor, or the use of which will be of marked benefit to us. "It is most important that we should maintain the high level of our present prosperity. We have now reached the point in the develop- ment of our interests where we are not only able to supply our own markets, but to produce a constantly growing surplus, for which we must find markets abroad. To secure these markets we can utilize existing duties in any case where they are no longer needed for the purpose of protection, or in any case where the article is not produced here and the duty is no longer necessary for revenue, as giving us something to ofTer in exchange for what we ask. The cordial rela- tions with other nations which are so desirable will naturally be pro- moted by the course thus required by our own interests. "The natural line of development for a policy of reciprocity will be in connection with those of our productions which no longer require all of the support once needed to establish them upon a sound basis, and with those others where either because of natural or of economic causes we are beyond the reach of successful competition." Our merchant marine should be built up. At the present time it is discreditable to us as a nation. As to currency and revenue, the gold standard should be maintained and kept within the country's income. The Interstate law should be amended, our forests pro- tected and arid lands reclaimed. As to Haw^aii, Porto Rico, and Cuba: "In Hawaii our aim must be to develop the Territory on the tra- ditional American lines. We do not wish a region of large estates tilled by cheap labor; we wish a healthy American community of men who themselves till the farms they owai. All our legislation for the islands should be shaped with this end in view; the well-being of the average home-maker must afford the true test of the healthy develop- 348 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. ment of the islands. The land policy should as nearly as possible be modeled on our homestead system. "It is a pleasure to say that it is hardly more necessary to report as to Porto Rico than as to any State or Territory within our continental limits. The island is thriving as never before, and it is being ad- ministered efficiently and honestly. Its people are now enjoying liberty and order under the protection of the United States, and upon this fact we congratulate them and ourselves. Their material welfare must be as carefully and zealously considered as the welfare of any other portion of our country. We have given them the great gift of free access for their products to the markets of the United States. I ask the attention of the Congress to the need of legislation concerning the public lands of Porto Rico. "In Cuba such progress has been made towards putting the inde- pendent government of the island upon a firm footing that before the present session of the Congress closes this will be an accomplished fact. Cuba will then start as her own mistress; and to the beautiful Queen of the Antilles, as she unfolds this new page of her destiny, we extend our heartiest greetings and good wishes. Elsewhere I have discussed the question of reciprocity. In the case of Cuba, however, there are weighty reasons of morality and of national interest why the policy should be held to have a peculiar application, and I most earnestly ask your attention to the wisdom, indeed to the vital need, of providing for a substantial reduction in the tariff duties on Cuban imports into the United States. Cuba has in her Constitution affirmed what we desired, that she should stand, in international matters, in closer and more friendly relations with us than with any other Power; and we are bound by every consideration of honor and expediency to pass commercial measures in the interest of her material well-being." As to the future of the Philippines: PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 449 "They are very rich tropical islands, inhabited by many varying- tribes, representing vadely different stages of progress towards civili- zation. Our earnes-t effort is to help these people upward along the stony and difficult path that leads to self-government. We hope to make our administration of the islands honorable to our nation by making it of the highest benefit to the Filipinos themselves; and as an earnest of what we intend to do, we point to what w^e have done. Already a greater measure of material prosperity and governmental honesty and efficiency has been attained in the Philippines than ever before in their history. "It is no light task for a nation to achieve the temperamental cj[ualities without which the institutions of free government are but an empty mockery. Our people are now successfully governing them- selves, because for more than a thousand years they have been slowly litting themselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, towards this end. What has taken us thirty generations to achieve, we cannot expect to see another race accomplish out of hand, espe- cially when large portions of that race start very far behind the point which our ancestors had reached even thirty generations ago. In dealing with the Philippine people we must show both patience and strength, forbearance and steadfast resolution. Our aim is high. We do not desire to do for the islanders merely what has elsewhere been done for tropic peoples by even the best foreign Governments. We hope to do for them what has never before been done for an}- people of the tropics — to make them fit for self-government after the fashion of the really free nations. "History may safely be challenged to show a single instance in w hich a masterful race such as ours, having been forced by the exigen- cies of war to take possession of an alien land, has behaved to its inhabitants with the disinterested zeal for their progress that our people have shown in the Philippines. To leave the islands at this 450 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. time would mean that they would fall into a welter of murderous anarchy. Such desertion of duty on our part would be a crime ao-ainst humanity. The character of Governor Taft and of his asso- ciates and subordinates is a proof, if such be needed, of the sincerity of our effort to give the islanders a constantly increasing measure of self-government, exactly as fast as they show themselves fit to exer- cise it. Since the civil government was established not an appoint- ment has been made in the islands with any reference to considera- tions of political influence, or to aught else save the fitness of the man and the needs of the service. "In our anxiety for the welfare and progress of the Philippines, it may be that here and there we have gone too rapidly in giving them local self-government. It is on this side that our error, if any, has been committed. No competent observer, sincerely desirous of find- ing out the facts and influenced only by a desire for the Vv-elfare of the natives, can assert that we have not gone far enough. We have gone to the very verge of safety in hastening the process. To have taken a single step farther or faster in advance would have been folly and weakness, and might well have been crime. We are extremely anxious that the natives shall show the powerofgoverningthemselves. We are anxious, first for their sakes, and next, because it relieves us of a great burden. There need not be the slightest fear of our not continuing to give them all the liberty for which they are fit. "The only fear is lest in our over-anxiety we give them a degree of independence for which they are unfit, thereby inviting reaction and disaster. As fast as there is any reasonable hope that in a given dis- trict the people can govern themselves, self-government has been given in that district. There is not a locality fitted for self-govern- ment which has not received it. But it may well be that in certain cases it will have to be withdrawn, because the inhabitants show themselves unfit to exercise it; such instances have already occurred. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 451 In other words,, there is not the slightest chance of our failing to show a sufficiently humanitarian spirit. The danger comes in the opposite direction. "There are still troubles ahead in the islands. The insurrection has become an affair of local banditti and marauders, who deser\-e no higher regard than the brigands of portions of the Old World. En- couragement, direct or indirect, to these insurrectos stands on the same footing as encouragement to hostile Indians in the days when we still had Indian wars. Exactly as our aim is to give to the Indian who remains peaceful the fullest and amplest consideration, but to have it understood that we ^^^ll show no ^^'eakness if he goes on the warpath, so we must make it evident, unless we are false to our own traditions and to the demands of civilization and humanitv. that while we will do everything in our power for the Filipino who is peaceful, we will take the sternest measures with the Filipino who follows the path of the insurrecto and the ladrone. "The heartiest praise is due to large numbers of the natives of the islands for their steadfast loyalty. The ^lacabebes have been con- spicuous for their courage and devotion to the flag. I recommend that the Secretary of \\'ar be empowered to take some systematic action in the way of aiding those of these men who are crippled in the service, and the families of those who were killed." The resources of the islands should be developed, the franchise granted, and Pacific cables laid. There had been much guesswork both here and abroad as to how the ■Message would deal with the Canal question: "No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is of such consequence to the American people as the building of a canal across the isthmus connecting North and South America. Its importance to the nation is by no means limited merely to its material effects upon our business prosperity: and yet with view to these effects alone it would be to the last degree important for us 452 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. immediately to begin it. \\' hile its beneficial effects would perhaps be most marked upon the Pacific Coast and the Gulf and South Atlantic States, it would also greatly benefit other sections. It is emphatically a work which it is for the interest of the entire country to begin and complete as soon as possible; it is one of those great works which only a great nation can undertake with prospects of success, and which when done are not only permanent assets in the nation's material interests, but standing. monuments to its construc- tive ability. "I am glad to be able to announce to you that our negotiations on this subject with Great Britain, conducted on both sides in a spirit of friendliness and mutual gopd will and respect, have resulted in my being able to lay before the Senate a treaty which if ratified will enable us to begin preparations for an isthmian canal at any time, and which guarantees to this nati-on every right that it has ever asked in con- nection with the canal. In this treaty the old Clayton-Bulwer treaty, so long recognized as inadecjuate to supply the base for the construc- tion and maintenance of a necessarily American ship canal, is abro- gated. It specifically provides that the United States alone shall do the work of building and assume the responsibility of safeguarding the canal and shall regulate its neutral use by all nations on terms of equality without the guaranty or interference of any outside nation from any quarter. The signed treaty will at once be laid before the Senate, and if approved the Congress can then proceed to give effect to the advantages it secures us by providing for the building of the canal." The Monroe Doctrine means peace, unless an aggressor makes it hostile: "The true end of every great and free people should be self-respect- ing peace; and this nation most earnestly desires sincere and cordial friendship with all others. Over the entire world, of recent years. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 455 wars between the great civilized Powers have become less and less frequent. Wars with barbarous or semi-barbarous peoples come in an entirely different category, being merely a most regrettable but necessary international police duty which must be performed for the sake of the welfare of mankind. Peace can only be kept with cer- tainty where both sides wish to keep it; but more and more the civil- ized peoples are realizing the wicked folly of war and are attaining that condition of just and intelligent regard for the rights of others which will in the end, as we hope and believe, make world-wide peace possible. The peace conference at The Hague gave definite expres- sion to this hope and belief and marked a stride toward their attain- ment. "This same peace conference acquiesced in our statement of the Monroe Doctrine as compatible with the purposes and aims of the conference. The Monroe Doctrine should be the cardinal feature of the foreign policy of all the nations of the two Americas, as it is of the United States. Just seventy-eight years have passed since Presi- dent Monroe in his annual message announced that "The American Continents are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Power." In other words, the Monroe Doctrine is a declaration that there must be no territorial aggrandize- ment by any non-American Power at the expense of any American Power on American soil. It is in no wise intended as hostile to any nation in the Old World. Still less is it intended to give cover to any as-o-ression bv one New \A'orld Power at the expense of any other. It is simply a step, and a long step, toward assuring the universal peace of the world by securing the possibility of permanent peace on this hemisphere. "During the past century other influences have established the per- manence and independence of the smaller States of Europe. Tlirough 456 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the Monroe Doctrine we hope to be able to safeguard like Independ- ence and secure like permanence for the lesser among the New- World nations. "This doctrine has nothing to do with the commercial relations of any American gower, save that it in truth allows each of them to form such as it desires. In other words, it is really a guaranty of the commercial independence of the Americas. We do not ask under this doctrine for any exclusive commercial dealings with any other Ameri- can State. We do not guarantee any State against punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any non- American power. "Our attitude in Cuba is a sufficient guaranty of our own good faith. We have not the slightest desire to secure any territory at the expense of any of our neighbors. We wish to work with them hand in hand, so that all of us may be uplifted together, and we rejoice over the good fortune of any of them, we gladly hail their material pros- perity and political stability, and are concerned and alarmed if any of them fall into industrial or political chaos. We do not wish to see any Old World military power grow up on this continent, or to be com- pelled to become a military power ourselves. The peoples of the Americas can prosper best if left to work out their own salvatio'U in their own way." The country needs a strong Navy to keep pace with the nation's growing interests. We must prepare for war in times of peace; thus more ships and more men are needed. Constant gun-practice is recommended, and we should have a strong National Naval Reserve. As to the Army, that should be of the best, though "it is not neces- sary to increase our Army beyond its present size; but it is necessary to keep it at the highest point of efficiency. The individual units who as officers and enlisted men compose the army, are, we have good reason to believe, at least as efficient as those of any other army in the entire world. It is our duty to see that their training is of a kind to PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 457 insure the highest possible expression of power to these units when acting in combination. "The conditions of modern war are such as to make an infinitely heavier demand than ever before upon the individual character and capacity of the of^cer and the enlisted man, and to make it far more difScult for men to act together with efTect. At present the fighting must be done in extended order, which means that each man must act for himself and at the same time act in combination with others with whom he is no longer in the old-fashioned elbow-to-elbow touch. Under such conditions a few men of the highest excellence are worth more than many men without the special skill which is only found as the result of special training applied to men of exceptional physique and morale. But nowadays the most valuable fighting man and the most difBcult to perfect is the rifleman who is also a skillful and daring rider. * * * "Every promotion and every detail under the War Department must be made solely with regard to the good of the service and to the capacity and merit of the man himself. No pressure, political, social, or personal, of any kind, will be permitted to exercise the least effect in any question of promotion or detail; and if there is reason to believe that such pressure is exercised at the instigation of the officer con- cerned, it will be held to militate against him. In our army we can- not afford to have rewards or duties distributed save on the simple ground that those who by their own merits are entitled to the rewards ^get them, and that those who are peculiarly fit to do the duties are chosen to perform them. "Every effort should be made to bring the army to a constantly in- creasing state of efificiency. When on actual service no. work save that directly in the line of such service should be required. The paper work in the army, as in the navy, should be greatly reduced. What is needed is proved power of command and capacity to work 458 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. well in the field. Constant care is necessary to prevent dry rot in the transportation and commissary departments. "Our army is so small and so much scattered that is it very diffcult to give the higher officers (as well as the lower officers and the en- listed men) a chance to practise manoeuvres in mass and on a com- paratively large scale. In time of need no amount of individual ex- cellence would avail against the paralysis which would follow inability to work as a coherent while under skillful and daring leadership. The Congress should provide means whereby it will be possil^le to. have field exercises by at least a division of regulars, and if possible also a division of National Guardsmen, once a year. These exercises mieht take the form of field manoenvres; or, if on the Gulf Coast or the Pacific or Atlantic Seaboard, or in the region of the Great Lakes, the army corps when assembled could be miarched from some inland point to some point on the water, there embarked, disembarked after a couple of days'journey at some other point, and again marched in- land. Only by actual handling and providing for men in masses while they are marching, camping, embarking, and disembarking, will it be possible to train the higher officers to perform their duties well and smoothly. "A great debt is owing from the public to the men of the army and navy. They should be so treated as to enable them to reach the highest point of efficiency, so that they may be able to respond in- stantly to any demand made upon them to sustain the interests of the nation and the honor of the flag. The individual American enlisted man is probably on the whole a more formidable fighting man than the regular of any other army. Eveiy consideration should be shown him, and in return the highest standard of usefulness should be exacted from him. It is well worth while for the Congress to con- sider whether the pay of enlisted men upon second and subsequent enlistments sh.ould not be increased to correspond with the increased value of the veteran soldier. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 459 "Much good has already come from the Act reorganizing the army, passed early in the present year. The three prime reforms, all of them of literally inestimable value, are, first, the substitution of four-year details from the line for permanent appointments in the so- called staff divisions; second, the establishment of a corps of artillery with a chief at the head; third, the establishment of a maximum and minimum limit for the army. It would be dif^cult to overestimate the improvement in the efficiency of our army which these three reforms are making, and have in part already effected." The merit system is one of reform: "The merit system of making appointments is in its essence as democratic and American as the common school system itself. It simply means that in clerical and other positions where the duties are entirely non-political all applicants should have a fair field and no favor, each standing on his merits as he is able to show them by prac- tical test. Written competitive examinations offer the only available means in many cases for applying this system. In other cases, as where laborers are employed, a system of registration undaubtedly can be widely extended. There are, of course, places where the written competitive examination cannot be applied, and others where it offers by no means an ideal solution, but where under existing political conditions it is, though an imperfect means, yet the best present means of getting satisfactory results. * * * "It is important to have this system obtain at home, but it is even more important to have it applied rigidly in our insular possessions. Not an office should be filled in the Philippines or Porto Rico with any regard to the man's partisan affiliations or services, with any regard to the political, social, or personal influence which he may have at his command; in short, heed should be paid to absolutely nothing save the man's own character and capacity and the needs of the service. 460 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "The administration of these islands should be as wholly free from the suspicion of partisan politics as the administration of the Army and Navy. All that we ask from the public servant in the Philippines or Porto Rico is that he reflect honor on his country by the way in which he makes that country's rule a benefit to the peoples who have come under it. This is ah that we should ask, and we cannot afford to be content with less. 'The merit system is simply one method of securing honest and efficient administration of the Government; aiid in the long run the sole justification of any type of government lies in its proving itself both honest and efficient." In the Consular Service laws are needed to maintain a standard of excellence. • Referring to the Indian tribes, the Message declares they must go, but "the Indian should be treated as an individual, like the white man. During the change of treatment inevitable hardships will occur; every effort should be made to minimize these hardships, but we should not because of them hesitate to make the change. There should be a continuous reduction in the number of agencies. "In dealing with the aboriginal races few things are more im- portant than to preserve them from the terrible physical and moral degradation resulting from the liquor traffic. We are doing all we can to save our own Indian tribes from this evil. Wherever by in- ternational agreement this same end can be attained as regards races where we do not possess exclusive control, every effort should be made to bring it about." The people are urged to aid the various Expositions in the different cities and states. The Postal Service should be extended in rural deliveries, and second-class mail abuses abolished. "Owing to the rapid growth of our pOAver and our interests on the Pacific, whatever happens in China must be of the keenest national concern to us. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 461 "The general terms of the settlement of the questions growing out of the anti-foreign uprisings in China of 1900, having been formulated in a joint note addressed to China by the representatives of the in- jured Powers in December last, were promptly accepted by the Chinese Government. After protracted conferences the Plenipotenti- aries of the several Powers were able to sign a final protocol with the Chinese Plenipotentiaries on the 7th of last September, setting forth the measures taken by China in compliance with the demands of the joint note, and expressing their satisfaction therewith. It will be laid before the Congress, with a report of the Plenipotentiary on behalf of the United States, Mr. WilHam Woodville Rockhill, to whom high praise is due for the tact, good judgment, and energy he has displayed in performing an exceptionally difficult and delicate task. "The agreement reached disposes in a manner satisfactory to the Powers of the various grounds of complaint, and will contribute materially to better future relations between China and the Powers. Reparation has been made by China for the murder of foreigners during the uprising, and punishment has been inflicted on the officials, how^ever high in rank, recognized as responsible for or having partici- pated in the outbreak. Official examinations have been forbidden for a period of five years in all cities in which foreigners have been mur- dered or cruelly treated, and edicts have been issued making all officials directly responsible for the future safety of foreigners and for the suppression of violence against them. "Provisions have been made for insuring the future safety of the foreign representatives in Pekin by setting aside for their exclusive use a quarter of the city which the Powers can make defensible and in which they can if necessary maintain permanent military guards; by dismantling the military works between the capital and the sea; and by allowing the temporary maintenance of foreign military posts along this line. An edict has been issued by the Emperor of China 462 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. prohibiting- for two years the importation of arms and ammunition into China. China has agreed to pay adequate indemnities to the States, societies, and individuals for the losses sustained by them and for the expenses of the military expeditions sent by the various Powers to protect life and restore order. "Under the provisions of the joint note of December, 1900, China has agreed to revise the treaties of commerce and navigation and to take such other steps for the purpose of facilitating trade as the foreign powers may decide to be needed. "The Chinese Government has agreed to participate financially in the work of bettering the water approaches to Shanghai and to Tienstin, the centers of foreign trade in Central and Northern China, and an International Consiervancy Board, in which the Chinese Government is largely represented, has been provided for the im- provement of the Shanghai River and the control of its navigation. In the same line of commercial advantages a revision of the present tariff on imports has been assented to for the purpose of substituting specific for ad valorem duties, and an expert has been sent abroad on the part of the United States to assist in this work. A list of articles to remain free of duty, including flour, cereals, and rice, gold and silver coin and bullion, has also been agreed upon in the settle- ment. "During these troubles our Government has unswervingly advo- cated moderation, and has materially aided in bringing about an ad- justment which tends to enhance the welfare of China and to lead to a more beneficial intercourse between the Empire and the modern world; while in the critical period of revolt and massacre we did our full share in safeguarding life and property, restoring order, and vindicating the national interest and honor. It behooves us to con- tinue in these paths, doing what lies in our power to foster feelings of good will, and leaving no effort untried to work out the great policy PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 463 of full and fair intercourse between China and the nations, on a foot- ing of equal rights and advantage to all. We advocate the "open door" with all that it implies; not merely the procurement of enlarged commercial opportunities on the coasts, but access to the interior by the waterways with which China has been so extraordinarily favored. Only by bringing the people of China into peaceful and friendly com- munity of trade with aJl the peoples of the earth can the work now auspiciously begun be carried to fruition. In the attainment of this purpose we necessarily claim parity of treatment, under the con- ventions, throughout the Empire for our trade and our citizens with those of all other Powers." The Message, which was of extraordinary length, was a fine effort, such as a cultivated scholar and statesman might put forth. The temptation is great to quote it fully, for every line of it is well thought out and felicitously expressed. Let the closing paragraph of a writing which is academic and with little in it to cause the accusation of "impetuous" so often applied to the writer of it in former times, serve as an illustration: "The death of Queen Victoria caused the people of the United States deep and heartfelt sorrow, to which the Government gave full expression. When President McKinley died, our nation in turn, received from every quarter of the British Empire expressions of grief and sympathy no less sincere. The death of the Empress Dowager Frederick of Germany also aroused the genuine sympathy of the American people; and this sympathy was cordially reciprocated b}^ Germany when the President was assassinated. Indeed, from every quarter of the civilized world we received, at the time of the Presi- dent's death, assurances of such grief and regard as to touch the hearts of our people. In the midst of our affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend that our policy shall be such as to continue un- broken these international relations of mutual respect and good will. 'THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "White House, December 3, 1901." 464 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, The message was different from what had been expected. It was conservative, non-assertive, indeed it rather recommended measures than dictated them. Those citizens who had supposed that the man- ner of Mr. Roos'evelt pre-supposed that his first message from the Presidential chair would assert his well-known position as an un- compromising reformer were doomed to disappointment. While the voluminous writing spelled reform in every line of it, yet it equally demonstrated the fact that the President recommended the reform measure where he deemed it necessary, and that the fact must come from those to whom was allotted the power to treat with the measure and to take part in the responsibility. The message is a formidable state document, but it is readable throughout. President j^oosevelt has a very good style of writing, forceful and trenchant, and his message is made long, not because of garrulousness but because he has so mainy subjects of importance to discuss. The message is thoroughly American. It departs alto- gether from the stereotyped form, and one looks in vain for the ordinary arrangement of topics. For years the Presidents of the United States have followed a general introduction with comments upon the reports of their Secre- taries. They usually began with the report of the Secretary of State, and a considerable portion of each message was taken up with for- eign relations, some of them unimportant. President Roosevelt, on the other hand, gives first and almost undivided attention to home affairs. Foreign relations occupy only about three pages of the message, and two-thirds of this space is devoted to affairs in China. This is as it should be. The message of the President is a report on the state of the Union. There is no need to inject into such a report trivial details respecting the operation of Departments whose reports arc also submitted to Congress. President Roosevelt has adopted the more sensible course of writing a series of essays giving his views i PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 465 on important topics. As this is his first message he has been im- pelled to begin at the beginning of each topic, and his message is, therefore, long, but the style is really condensed, and we may expect that hereafter his messages to Congress will be shorter. In reviewing the message, which will furnish material for comment for the next twelvemonth, one cannot do better than to describe it, leaving the reader to study it in detail, or such parts of it as may in- terest him. Every American, however, ought to read it from begin- ning to end. If it cannot be mastered in one sitting, then it should be read like a continued story. It is as easy to read as a magazine article on any particular topic, and it contains many passages that ought to be preserved in the minds of men. The message opens with an admirable article on the assassination of President McKinley, ending with suggestions relating to the sup- pression of Anarchists. Mention of the prosperity of the country is followed by a philosophical discussion of the problem of trusts and labor organizations. The remedy for the abuses of trusts, in the opinion of the President, is publicity. He points out that we ac- cept as a matter of course inspection of national banks and the publi- cation of exact information regarding their standing, and he urges that great corporations engaged in interstate business should also be put under inspection and their doings reported. The first requisite to regulation is knowledge, full and complete — knowledge which may be made public to the world. The President is so strenu- ous on this point that he suggests a constitutional amendment, in case Congress should find itself unauthorized to deal with the matter. He forcefully recommends the creation of a Cabinet officer, to be known as Secretary of Commerce and Industries, and in this con- nection discusses labor problems. He wants the National Govern- ment to maintain a high standard of wages, promote the enforce- ment of the Eight Hour law, forbid night work for womei^ and chil- 166 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. dren, and provide in its contracts that all work should be done under ''fair" conditions. He proposes also that a factory law shall be passed for the District of Columbia, and that the inhabitated alleys of Washing-ton shall be turned into minor streets, where people can live under conditions favorable to health and morals. He en- dorses trades unions when manag-ed with forethought, and when they combine insistence upon their own rights with- law-abiding respect for the rights of others. He urges amendment to the im- migration laws, so as to exclude Anarchists and those of Anarchistic proclivities, and the application of an educational test, with a view to admitting those only who have some intelligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act sanely as American citizens. "There should be proper proof of personal capacity to earn an Ameri- can living, and enough money to insure a decent start under Ameri- can conditions." He recommends the immediate reenactment of the lav/ excluding Chinese laborers, and that it be strengthened wher- ever necessary in order tO' make its enforcement entirely effective. The President endorses our present tariff system, deprecates gen- eral tariff' changes, but declares that "reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection." He adds: "The natural line of development for a policy of reciprocity will be in connection with those of our productions which no longer re- quire all of the support once needed to establish them upon a sound basis, and with those others where, either because of natural or of economic causes, we are beyond the reach of successful competition." The only indefinite paragraph of the message relates to an im- provement of the American merchant marine. The President clearly points out the need for an increase of American shipping, but avoids endorsement of the subsidy scheme, saying simply: "Our Government should take such action as will remedy these inequalities. The American merchant marine should be restored to the ocean." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 4G7 It is to be inferred from the tenor of the message that if a subsidy bill should be passed it would be approved, but that the President will not go out of his way to promote its passage. A brief paragraph referring Congress to the report of the Secre- tary of the Treasury disposes of the financial question, the only recommendation being that Congress shall exercise strict economy in expenditures. He recommends amendment of the Interstate Com- merce act, to the end that its general purpose may be attained, but offers no specific suggestion. In connection with the report of the Department of Agriculture, the President presents a strong argument in favor of forest reserves and the construction by the National Government of reservoirs for the irrigation of arid lands. Of our island possessions the President recommends the applica- tion of our homestead laws to Hawaii and Porto Rico, and extends heartiest greetings and good wishes to Cuba, about to become her own mistress. For the Philippines he recommends legislation by which the resources of the islands may be developed. Franchises must be granted and. business permitted only under regulations which will guarantee the islands against any kind of improper exploitation. He recommends the immediate construction of a cable to Hawaii and the I'hilijDpines, and eventually to Asia, either by the Govern- ment or a private cable company, under contract with the Gov- ernment. He also strongly recommends the construction of an isthmian canal, and announces that under the new treaty with Great Britain to be submitted to the Senate the United States alone is to do the work of building, assume the responsibility of safeguarding the canal, and regulate its neutral use by all nations on tenns of equality, without the guarantee or interference of any outside nation from any quarter. He recommends a great strengthening of our naval force. 468 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "The American people must either build and maintain an adequate navy, or else make up their minds definitely to accept a secondary position in international affairs, not merely in political, but in com- mercial matters. It has been well said that there is no surer way of courting national disaster than to be 'opulent, aggressive and un- armed.' " The army is discussed at great length. The President says it is unnecessary to increase its present size at this time, but he presents many reconmiendations for an increase of its efficiency, and closes this section of his message by a fine tribute to the volunteer soldiers who fought in the War of the Rebellion and in the war with Spain. Civil Service reform has never received more emphatic endorse- ment than from President Roosevelt. He begins by declaring that "the merit system of making appointments is, in its essence, as demo- cratic and American as the common school system itself." He recommends an extension of the law, and especially a strict appli- cation of it in our insular possessions. He also endorses projects for the improvement of our Consular Service by the application of civil service reform principles. He says the time has arrived to treat the Indians as individuals, breaking up their tribal relations. Cordial support is asked for the St. Louis and Charleston Expo- sitions; there is a kindly word for the Pan-American Exposition, for the Smithsonian Institution and the Congressional Library. The President recommends that the Census Office be made a permanent Government Bureau, and that the Postoffice Department be sus- tained in its effort to correct the abuses connected with the trans- mission of second class mail matter, which comprises three-fifths of the weight of all mail matter, and produces only $4,294,445 out of the aggregate postal receipts of $111,631,193. The concluding passages of the message relate to the Chinese imbroglio and the Pan-American Congress, then in session in the City of Mexico. As already stated, the deaths of Queen Victoria, and th.c PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. . 469 Empress Dowager of Germany are touched upon in the ending sen- tence of the message. England and Germany had been most kind in their expressions of sympathy at the time of the death of President McKinley, and the American people appreciated such sympathy and the new President of the United States voiced their sentiments in his words that brought his message to a close. The cordial relations existing between America, England and Gdv- many were certainly taken into account, and President Roosevelt had shown his tact in a way for which his political opponents were scarcely prepared w hen they had called him impetuous, impulsive and thinking less of the country than himself as the head of it. The news- papers in opposition to the Republican Party, many of them, had waited for the message. They were sure it would be not conservative, that it would have in it all the elements of extravagance which they had more than once proclaimed was the temperament failure of Roosevelt. Altogether, the message is the most readable and interesting state paper of recent years, and it deals wath questions of the first im- portance in a perfectly frank and generally decided manner. This is the review of the message given in one of the most con- servative journals of the country, and the reviews of other journals are largely in accord with it. In Washington the message was regarded by diplomats as making an important change in the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine'. President Roosevelt's remarks on the Monroe Doctrine in his message to Congress are regarded here as an announcement that the Monroe Doctrine will hereafter be interpreted as discouraging and disfavoring territorial aggrandizement by one Republic at the expense of another. This interpretation has aroused much interest among public men and diplomats, and efiforts have been made to ascertain just what the President did mean by hi§. declaration. The language of the message on this point is: 470 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "In other words the Monroe Doctrine is a declaration that there must be no territorial aggrandizement by any non-American Power at the expense of any American Power on American soil. It is in no wise intended as hostile to any nation in the Old World. Still less is it intended to give cover to any aggression by one New World Power at the expense of any other. It is simply a step, and a long step, toward assuring the universal peace of the world by securing the possibility of permanent peace on this hemisphere. During the last century other influences have established the permanency and in- dependence of the smaller states of Europe. Through the Monroe Doctrine we hope to be able to safeguard like independence and se- cure like permanence for the le&ser among the New World nations." A member of the Cabinet said this afternoon that the President's declaration was simply a reiteration of views hitherto held by him and many other public men. "It is not," said the Cabinet officer, "a declaration on the part of the President that the United States will not permit any aggression by any one American Power upon the territory of another. It is a declaration that this Government would regard with great concern and great disfavor any conquest of an American Power by another American Power. It does not mean that the United States will form an alliance with a weaker Power to prevent its concjuest by a stronger one." Senator Lodge, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Com- mittee, who listened to this statement, approved the interpretation given, adding: "The declaration simply repeats the traditional and uniform policy of this country. It is not a new departure." Nevertheless, an examination of the former President's messages shows no such interpretation as given by President Roosevelt. These positions have hitherto been taken with respect to the Monroe Doc- trine. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 471 The declarations upon which Mr. Monroe consulted Mr. Jefferson and his Cabinet related to the interposition of European Powers in the affairs of American States. The kind of interposition declared against was that which may be made for the purpose of controlling their political affairs or of extending to this hemisphere the system in operation upon the Con- tinent of Europe by which the great Powers exercise a control over the affairs of other European States. The declarations do not intimate any course of conduct to be pur- sued in case of such interpositions, but merely say they would be considered as dangerou.s to our peace and safety, and as the "mani- festation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States," wliich it would be impossible for us to '"behold with indifference,"' thus leaving the nation to act at all times as its opinion of its policy or duty might require. The United States has never made any alliance with or pledge to any other American State on the subject covered by the declarations. The declaration respecting non-colonization was on a subject dis- tinct from European intervention with American States, and related to the acquisition of sovereign title by any European Power by new and original occupation or colonization thereafter. Whatever were the political motives for resisting such colonization, the principle of public law upon which it was placed was that the continent must be considered as already within the occupation and jurisdiction of independent civilized nations. There is nothing in the message of President Monroe which refers in any way to the relations of the Spanish American States or to the imposition of any prohibition upon them to extend their respective territories. President IMonroe asserted that "it is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties (Spam and the South Ameri- can States) to themselves, in the hope that the other Powers will pursue the same course." 172 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. President Grant, in his second annual message, paved the way for President Roosevelt's utterance by declaring that "the allied and other republics of Spanish origin on this continent may see in this fact a nevv proof of our sincere interest in their welfare, of our desire to see them blessed with good governments, capable of maintaining order and of preserving their respective territorial integrity." In a report to President Grant, Secretary Fish called attention to treaties negotiated with New Granada (Colombia) by which the United States guaranteed her sovereignty over the Isthmus of Panama, and with Nicaragua and Honduras the United States guaranteed the neutrality of the route of communication across their territory. These treaties were made for a specific purpose and con- stituted a true protective alliance between the United States and each of these Republics. Nevertheless they are believed to form, with President Grant's declaration, the base upon which Mr. Roose- velt built his new doctrine. In Pan-American diplomatic circles great importance is attached to Mr. Roosevelt's declaration. One diplomat stated that it meant nothing less than an announcement of the purpose of the Washing- ton government to direct the foreign policies of American Republics. "The Monroe Doctrine," he said, defined the foreign policies of American Republics with respect to Europe. The new doctrine promulgated by Mr. Roosevelt tells us that we will not be allowed to take the fruits of war provided they be in the shape of territory. If Brazil and Argentina were to become involved in war under Mr. Roosevelt's policy the conqueror would not be allowed to perma- nently occupy the territory of the conquered. "In the case of Chili this is particularly unjust. She is progressive tmd industrious. Pier country is now too small for her population, and expansion is necessary if she is to become a great power. Presi- dent Roosevelt, however, steps in and says she cannot acquire addi- tional territory. Does his doctrine apply to the Tacna-Arica dispute? PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 473 Is Chili to be compelled to surrender the provinces which she has held as compensation for her expenses during the war with Peru? "Carrying out the policy of Mr. Roosevelt, in case Costa Rica and Colombia become involved in war, an appeal from Costa Rica will result in the interference of the United States, because of Mr. Roose- velt's purpose to secure permanence for the lesser among the New World nations." Serior Silva, Colombian Minister, said Mr. Roosevelt's declaration was certainly a new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine. "The idea Mr. Roosevelt pro1)ably had in mind," he continued, was to disarm the suspicion unhappily harbored by some South Americans that the United States still contemplates expansion at the expense of the South American Republics. He undoubtedly de- signed to tighten the bonds existing between Pan-American na- tions, and to this end he gave utterances to statements certain to inspire confidence and trust in the country which has always been our best friend, "Mr. Roosevelt's declaration is new and it is important, but I am unable to state what its effect will be." We give here the original Monroe Doctrine and President Roose- velt's interpretation of it: "The American continents * * * are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Powers. ■''- * * It is impossible that the allied Powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent with- out endangering our peace and happiness, nor can any one believe that our Southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such mterposition in any form without interference." — Presi- dent Monroe's Original Message, December 2, 1823, "The Monroe Doctrine is a declaration that there must be no ter- ritorial aggrandizement by any non-American Power at the expense 474 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of any American Power on American soil. It is in no wise intended as hostile to any nation in the Old World. Still less is it intended to o-ive cover to any aggression by one New World Power at the ex- pense of any other. It is simply a step, and a long step, toward as- suring the universal peace of the world by securing the possibility of permanent peace on this hemisphere. During the last century other influences have established the permanence and independence of the smaller States of Europe. Through the Monroe Doctrine we hope to be able to sateguard like independence and secure like per- manence for the lesser among the New World nations." — President Roosevelt's interpretation of Doctrine, December 3, 1901. Anarchy was the first subject taken up by the Senators Decem- ber 5th. Senator McComas, of Maryland, made an extended and carefully prepared speech in the Senate to-day with anarchy for his theme, and was followed by some brief remarks by Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, on the difficulties in the way of dealing with Anarchist assassins. Mr. Mc- Comas' remarks show'ed careful examination of the legal authorities. Pfe maintained that Congress had full power under the constitution to enact a law punishable with death any person killing a President, or assaulting the President with intent to kill, or aiding or inciting or procuring such an act. He favored rigid provisions in the immi- gration laws for the deportation of alien Anarchists. Much of the speech was devoted to an explanation of the dangerous doctrines of anarchy and the extent to which these doctrines had been propagated vvithin recent years. Senator Hoar's remarks were interesting as coming from the ven- erable chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which will have much to do wdth the framing of any legislation on this subject. Mr. Penrose favorably reported from the Committee on Education and Labor the bill continuing the industrial commission until Feb- Patriot and statesman. 476 ruary 1 5 in order that it may close up now work in hand, and secured immediate consideration for the measure. The bill was passed. Mr. McComas, of Maryland, was recognized for an extended and carefully prepared si)ecch on anarchy and the methods of dealing with it. He said in part: "Within seven years President Carnot, Prime Minister Canovas del Castillo, the Empress of Austria, King Humbert and President McKinley have been foully assassinated by Anarchists. Our homes are still under the shadow of national grief for our best beloved Presi- dent, and the heart of the world is with us in our sorrow. It is hu- miliating to consider hovv^ impotent are our Federal laws to punish this fearful crime. These tragic assassinations in five countries widely separate in so short a time show that this hideous crime of anarchy is increasing. To abnormal minds possessed with this impulse to homicide, envy and vanity give a peculiar fascination to the idea of assassinating a King or President. "Congress must legislate against this new peril with courage, with firmness, but also with conservatism and prudence. The Constitu- tion permits Congress to enact a law to punish such crimes against the very existence of the government the Constitution ordained." After defining the terms of a prepared statute fixing the death penalty for killing a President, or assaulting him with intent to kill, or advising, inciting or procuring such acts, the Senator proceeded as follows: "This sovereign nation is not so weak that it must depend upon the varying laws of its difterent States to punish a criminal who as- sassinates or attempts to assassinate the President whom the Con-' stitution declares 'shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' "The President is within this peace of the United States. A per- son assailing the President while in the discharge of his duties vio- lates this peace. If the President is receiving the people of our coun- try or representatives ot foreign countries in any city of any of our 4V6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. States he is at the time within the peace of the United States. If after he performs such function he journeys to the White House and at ni^ht when asleep the car wherein he sleeps be assailed with dynamite, such crime is still a crime against the peace of the United States in whatever State the President's train may be. Can this be doubted? The President s duty is co^ntinuous, not pretermittent. He is always on duty; he cannot delegate his highest functions. Until he dies or resigns or ends his term he is ever taking care that the law be faithfully executed. That the government may not be pretennit, from necessity the President is on duty always and every- where. The President is in the peace of the United States at all times and in all places in the Union. Congress may go further — it may enact laws to protect the high executive officers; it may even pro- tect Senators and members of Congress. I am convinced it is wise to legislate now to protect the head of the State — the President and the Vice President and the officers on whom the of^ce of President shall devolve' — and now go no further. It may be prudent to declare that this statute is not to be construed to impair the protection already afforded by the law to other officials of the United States. "Congress should enact a law to give Federal courts jurisdiction to try and punish by imprisonment for a term of years two or more who confederate and conspire to murder the President or Vice President, or both, or any of the officers in line of succession to the President, or who advise or incite any person to overthrow the Fed- eral Government or destroy it by force and violence by wilfully killing or assaulting with intent to kill the President or Vice Presi- dent, or both, or any of the officers in line of succession to the Presi- dent. 'This statute should make it a crime with penalty of imprison- ment for a term of years for any person to knowingly become or continue to be a member of any association, club or assembly where PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 477 any person or persons advise or incite any of the offenses before mentioned. "Such statute should make it a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term of years for any person or persons to threaten or to speak, write, print or publish any works or declarations counseling, advising or inciting other persons to wilfully kill or to assault with intent to kill the President. The prohibitions, crimes and penalties of the postal laws to suppress fraudulent and lottery schemes should be ex- tended to include the sending through the mails written or printed Anarchist documents or newspaper counseling or advising the crimes in this statute mentioned, or counseling or advising the subversion or destruction by force and violence of the Government of the United States, "But this statute would be incomplete unless it included one other feature. It should make it a crime punishable with a term of impris- onment for two or more while in the United States to conspire and confederate to commit any one of the crimes mentioned upon any President, King or other head of a State, of any republic, kingdom or empire, or other sovereign state, or for any person to solicit, per- suade, or propose to any other person to murder the head of a state of any republic, kingdom, empire, or other sovereign state. Inter- national comity requires this. No o,ne doubts that a conspiracy in one nation to kill the head of another state is an offense against the law of nations. "We should enact laws to expel and to exclude alien Anarchists. We shall at this session with unanimity re-enact the Chinese exclu- sion acts. I will cheerfully vote to exclude the hordes of China and prevent the competitiom of Chinese cheap labor. Far more readily will I vote to exclude alien Anarchists here now. We have natural- ized and even native Anarchists in our midst. With these we must contend in other fashion. Why should we not, as we may, expel alien Anarchists for cause?" 478 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The Senator also urged numerous amendments of the immigra- tion laws with a view to excluding Anarchists. In conclusion he said: "At all times the body of the plain people whom Lincoln loved and upon whom McKiuley leaned, are its unfailing defenders. This o-reat people, facing the hideous peril of anarchism, taught by their sorrow to think straight and .see clear, now rate more highly than ever the value of their Government, prize more than ever its bene- fits which are theirs to enjoy and theirs to transmit. More than ever before are now revealed to them its blessings, its glory and its power." At the conclusion of ^Ir. AlcComas' remarks, Mr. Hoar, of Mas- sachusetts, spoke briefly along the same lines. He said that while he heartily agreed with much that had been said, yet the great difficulty in all these cases of assassination was that the assassin was willing and anxious to give up hi's life. Fear of consequences did not in any way deter such an assassin. Such was the case with the assassin of William of Oiange, who welcomed the torture inflicted upon him. Every assassin of a foreign ruler had expected early and certain death. The multiplication of punishments for the act itself, therefore, would accomplish little. IMuch good might be accom- plished in limiting the circulation of fanatical doctrines. But the Senator believed that a much more effective remedy could be secured if by conmion consent of all civilized nations some tract of land somewhere on the earth's surface, hemmed in from the outer world, could be set aside for the confinement of those who counseled the killing of rulers or the overthrow of governments. "Let the Anarchists have an object lesson," the Senator said, "and let the world have an object lesson. Let there be a little inocula- tion of anarchy intc the Anarchist himself, and let him have an an- archistic government among his fellows." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 479 Mr. Hoar said banishment would be a proper punishment under the Constitution, and if all nations would agree that every such per- son be sent to a spot where there was no government, it would be an effective remedy. CerLainly the Anarchist could not complain, for in being transported to a place of no government he would have- reached his Utopia Perhaps outside of "Anarchy" the subject most engaging the pub- lic attention was the Panama Canal, says a great journal. "Any one who suggests a doubt of the superiority of the compli- cated Nicaragua route for a ship canal over the shorter and simpler route by the Isthmus of Panama, makes himself liable to denuncia- tion as an obstructionist, and probably an emissary of the Panama lobby or the Pacific Kail way lobby or some other power of dark- ness. Nevertheless, to the superficially informed — and this includes almost everybody — the presumption in favor of the shorter course, upon which a great amount of work has already been done, remains so strong that the halting and half-hearted preference of the Panama Commission for the Nicaragua route has failed to carry conviction. "The determining consideration with the Commission appears to be "the terms offered" by the Panama Company for the purchase of its uncompleted works. The Panama canal was undertaken as a commercial enterprise and proved disastrous. There is some doubt whether any ship canal will pay as an investment, but it is quite cer- tain that there will never be business enough for two. A canal built and operated by the Government of the United States would not be expected to make dividends, and any competition must be hopeless. It is natural that the Panama people should wish to save what they can out of the wreck. But if they are in possession of the better route, it is questionable policy for this Government to put up with the second choice because of a difference of a few millions in some verv large and very uncertain estimates. The canal is not for the 180 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. present but for the fiitiire. and the cost of maintenance and opera- tion, and the tax ihat vnl\ be le\-ied upon commerce, are much more important than the immediate cost. It has been observed that the members of the Canal Commission are not unanimous in their recommendation of the Nicaragua route, and the chief hydrographer of the Commission, Mr. Da\-is, who fur- nishes the most detailed scientific calculation accompanpng the re- port, shows by figures which appear conclusive that the delay and cost of locking vessels through the Nicaragua canal would be almost prohibitorv- as ccr :: ' with the Panama route. Against such ar- guments as these :; ... ^- seem that the coimter-arguments ought to be -^reser.ted much more clearly than has been done in order to justif}' t" . ence with v.hich the Nicaragua route is so generally taken for granted." When it came to the ratification of the new canal treaty the most gTatif\ing feature was the \irtual unanamity of the Senate. There were but six adverse votes — or eight, including pairs — and the oppo- sition to the treaty was in no respect important. There was no good reason why there should be any opposition whatever, since the treaty conceded everything for which the most ardent A: had contended. It abrogated the Qa}'ton-Bulwer TT - - - ■"' -' '-:'- •■ : United States unhampered in the :..;..--:--:: ... .'ense of a ship canal few the use of the cornmerce of the ^^or^d. Some of the English papers persisted :: . as a pusillanimous surrender to the United States, i: : iew was quite as irrational as that of tht Senators ^ e smrender not sufficiently abject. Ni " ' er professed any other purpose with regard to tl.: -r its cc-nstruction and secure its neutral- 'itvr: 7 -e sole object of the joint agreement em- ': the treaty of 1S50, at a time when the United States could PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 481 not have undei taken the work, but it was thought that British capi- tal might be enlisted in it. The agreement bound Great Britain as well as the United States to claim no preferential rights in any canal that should be constructed. This agreement failed of its purpose and grew obsolete by the lapse cf time. It gradually became evident that there was no probability of a canal being constructed by the Nicaragua route unless under American control alone, and it thus becam.e the interest of Great Britain to give the United States a free hand. Any diplomatic reser\-ations that v.-ere waived in this new treat)'- were absolutely without value, since Great Britain no longer enter- tained the thought of engaging in the canal enterprise. But ha.ring larger maritime interests than any other nation, she would be more benefited than any other by the opening of the new waterway, and if the United States would undertake the costly work, it was the most obvious policy to sweep away all possible objections. British interest thus concurred with international courtesy in this new substitute for the old agreem.ent, and both sides should be en- tirely satisfied. The tradition in favor of the Nicaragua route had come down in Congress from the days of sailing vessels and small steamers. The development of modern ships had required the re- peated enlargement of the plans, and he would be a bold prophet who should' attempt to fix a date for the probable completion of a practicable waterway. But the removal of even one long-standing subject of dispute v.as something gained, and this new treat)* was in itself a step in ci\'ilization. The English papers commenting on the message said that it was a remarkably good state paper, but thai the President, like the people, in regard to the canal, had it all his own way — the canal was to be as the Americans wanted it, "America was for .Ajnericans," and the canal was to be as the States would have it Next came the Phil- ippine economics: 482 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "The Republican colonial policy, which was inaugurated with the passage of the Foraker act in regard -to Porto Rico, is finding further development in the Philippines. McKinley and ''plain duty" said free trade for Porto Rico, but Foraker snd expediency said high tariff. Roosevelt and "every consideration of honor" say reciprocity (With Cuba, but Payne, Grosvenor, Oxnard and the shades of Dingley say high tariff. Something says that we should treat the dependent peoples in the Philippines with kindness and mercy, but the Re- publican members of ihe V»'cys and Means Committee respond with a bill which grants no favors or concessions to the poor islanders whose destiny is now bound up with that of the American nation. From the beginning it was plain that the Porto Rican act was intended only as a precedent. It was not so much what might be imported to the United vStates from that small island. Other spectres loomed large on the horizon — (jiba and the Philippines. The Porto Rican act was framed, passed and upheld by the Supreme Court. It is established that the United Stales may pass exceptional laws for colonies and protectorates, converting them into separate customs domains, and statesmanship and the Constitution have come to the support of the protected beet growers and tobacco farmers. This is one of the greatest feats in the history of constructive poli- tics and constituiional interpretation in the history of the American Republic. The protectionists did it, and they are entitled to the glory of it. We have now advanced another stage. From Porto Rico we have come to the Philippines, and the text of the tariff bill which is to apply to that distant appanage of American sovereignty has just come out. The Porto Rican law provided that Dingley rates should be imposed upon all articles imported into the island from outside places except from the United States, in which case goods would enter there free of duty; that imports from Porto Rico to the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 483 American mainland should pay 15 per cent, of the Dingley rates; that both sets of taxes when they were paid should be covered into a general fund for the sole benefit of the island; that the law should remain in force only until March, 1902, or until other sources of revenue were provided for Porto Kico. The Philippine bill, framed on similar lines, enacts special duties in a schedule prepared by <^^he Insular Commission on articles im- ported to the islands, whether from the United States or foreign countries. This tariff is lower than the Dingley law, by reason of the obligations under which this Government stands to maintain an ''open door" in China and the East. Philippine products coming to the United States are to pay not 15 per cent, or any reduced rates, but the fidl Dingley charges. Only one set of these taxes, thos6 collected in the islands, are to go into a fund for the benefit of the colony. The law is to be in force not until 1902 or 1904, but in- definitely. This measure is the work of protectionist Bourbons. All prefer- ential features have been rejected against the advice of wiser heads in the party. But one weird and characteristic protectionist "coai- cession" enters in, namely, that the Philippines shall be excepted from the provisions of the general law regarding the coasting trade, and that until January, 1905, foreign vessels may carry cargoes be- tween the United States and the archipelago. No preferences of worth were allowed, we are told on high au- thority, lest they come into conflict with our open-door policy in the East, and our course should give affront to the nations. But after all is it the open door that concerns the American statesmen of the day? Since we must keep the tariff low in the Philippiines, it is argued that all Europe would rush goods there as a half-way station, and rcship them to the United States if we permitted this barbarity. Here is protectionist logic at the beginning of the twen- 484 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. tieth century. It would be a sight \vc)rtli witnessing if the per- fidious Englishman or German, whom \\c are beating on his own ground, would pay the freight on his goods all the way around the world and sell us a few cents' worth of something via the Philippines. What these protectionists of the Ways and Means Committee are looking after is not the "open door'' in China, but the closed door at home," But the President had expressed his views and there was little doubt that every measure recommended in his message would have the careful consideration of the Cabinet. From what was known of Theodore Roosevelt in December, 1901, it was safe to predict that while he might bring no innova- tions to the exalted office he now held, as was said, he might do by those who little understood the man and his understanding of his duties; yet, he would be no figure-head of his party, nor would he stultify his own earnest and honest character at the behests of Sena- tors whose names were the synonyms of power in political leader- ship. Theodore Roosevelt would be himself — ^no matter in wdiat position fate placed him — and while there might be prognostications of his physical inability to withstand the strain of so much as he would put upon himself to do, there need be no fear of his wavering or supinely accepting as his own the opinion of those round him. There had always been a reason for every one of his acts in what- soever office he held, and this reason had been the good of those who had placed him in power and who relied upon him to do what he engaged when he went into powder. As President of the United States tnere was every reason to believe that Mr. Roosevelt would bring into play all the high resolves of his nature, and that "New America" would have in its foremost executive an able President, a brilliant statesman, a tactful diplomat, a determined reformer be- \ond the cavil of critics and the censure of impure political leaders. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 485 It was early to predicate of his success in an office which his h-iends had prophesied he would enter in 1904, but there could be no doubt that he took the reins of government as the representative of a vast people with the firm determination to do for the people and the country the best that in him lay. CHAPTER XXII. Schley Court tit Inquiry — The Miles Incident — President Roosevelt's First New Year's Reception— German Emperor Wishes Miss Roosevelt to Christen Yacht— Prince Henry of Prussia to Come — Changes in the Cab- inet — Admiral Schley's Appeal — Illness of President's Son at Groton Admiral Sampson Retired from Active Service — President's Decision in the Appeal — Moody Succeeds Long— Opening of the Charleston Exposition— Unveiling of Monument in Arlington Cemetery— The Address There — New England Tour — Accident to the President — Southern Trip The President Tries to Adjust the Strike of the Miners— Completion of First Year of the Presidency. IN December the court appointed to investigate the matter of the stipremacy of Admirals Sampson or Schley at the taking of Santiago brought in a verdict by which two of the three officers composing the court were in favor of Sampson. The hero of Manila, Admiral Dewey, of the court, upheld Schley, and popular opinion was in favor of Schley — he had directed the United States' naval move- ments which resulted in the destruction of Cervera's fleet, as Samp- son, in command had received certain orders which took him away from the field of action at the supreme moment, though he was virtually in command. Dewey, the minority, was a popular idol. Mr. Roosevelt had written a fine magazine article shortly after the war in which he praised Dewey and evinced his great appreciation of his magnificent prowess. After the finding of the court of inquiry there was much dissatisfaction on the part of the public, and Schley was acclaimed as a badly treated man. General Nelson A. Miles gave his opinion of the action of the court of inquiry in a public manner, and Secretary Root, acting for the President, reprimanded him for ex- pressing any opinion at all as being against the code of ethics. The newspapers and the people at large were disappointed that the Presi- dent should have so treated a brave veteran such as Miles. But Presi- 487 488 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. dent Roosevelt was impugning no man's bravery or opinion in the matter, he recognized the sterling qualities of all concerned, though he wished the outcry over the court of inquiry stopped, and he was always sufficient of a martinet in office to resent an infringement of privilege such as, in stern fact, General Miles had drawn upon in giving publicity to his opinion concerning the verdict of the court of inquiry. The officers of the army and navy of the United States had never been other than able and brave men, and so the President had always expressed himself; nor was he depreciating Admiral Schley in the matter. The unfortunate part of the affair was that the public chose to see in Secretary Root's words to General Miles unfair treatment both to the General and to the Admiral on the part of the President. On January ist President Roosevelt held his first New Year's re- ception at the White House. Surrounded by the Presidential and Cabinet circle he greeted officials in every branch of public life as well as a great concourse of people from private life. The scene within the historic mansion was one of extraordinary beauty and brilliancy. Shortly before 1 1 o'clock the throngs of distinguished callers began to assemble in the main corridor. First came the members of the diplomatic corps in their rich court uniforms, resplendent in medals and decorations. It was a most cosmopolitan throng, with the Oriental silks of the Chinese Minister and his suite, the red fez of the Turkish Minister and the more modern but equally gorgeous attire of the Japanese and Coreans conspicuous amid the groups of diplo- matists. The members of the corps gathered in the Red Parlor preparatory to being presented to the President and those about him. Exactly at 1 1 o'clock a fanfare from three trumpeters stationed at the further end of the main corridor announced the approach of the President and the receiving party. At the same moment President PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 489 and Mrs. Roosevelt appeared at the upper landing of the corridor, and, arm in arm, descended the stairway, while the Marine Band broke into "Hail to the Chief." The President bowed as he passed along, frequently giving a cheery response to the New Year's greet- ings extended to him from those in the line. Following the President and wife came the members of the Cabinet and their wives, the Secretary of State and ]\Irs. Hay, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War and Airs. Root, the Secretary of the Navy and Miss Long, the Postmaster General and Mrs. Smith, the Attorney General and Mrs. Knox, the Secretary of the Interior and Mrs. Hitchcock, the Secretary of Agriculture and Miss Wilson, and Secretary and Mrs. Cortelyou. The Presidential party took up their station in the Blue Parlor, with the President and Mrs. Roosevelt immediately alongside the entrance, ready to grasp the hands of callers as they were announced. The Cabinet women formed a long line extending from Mrs. Roose- velt to the further side of the room, while back of the receivmg line were grouped the members of the Cabinet and a gay party oT young people. As soon as the President took his position he turned to the many women in\'ited behind the line and g'ave each of them in turn a warm greeting and the well wishes of the day. Then the signal was given for admitting the distinguished official callers, who by this time filled the outer corridors to overflowing. President Roosevelt's manner of receiving his callers was exceed- ingly gracious and happy. As each guest was announced by Colonel Bingham the President grasped the hand of the visitor and wished him a hearty New Year, often accompanying this with some felicitous expression to any one recognized as a close friend. There was no hurrying along of the callers, and often there was considerable delay while pleasantries were exchanged. Mrs. Roosevelt proved to be a most charming New Year's hostess, and the cordiality of her greet- 490 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. ings reminded many of the callers of the days when Mrs. Cleveland was mistress of the White House. After the members of the diplomatic corps came Chief Justice Fuller and the Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court, and following them the Judges of all the other high Federal courts in Washington, representing as a whole the judicial branch of the government. Next came the legislative branch. Senators and Representatives in Congress. Speaker Henderson was among these. There was another flash of gold lace and clank of sabre and swords when, at i i.40,the highest ranking ofBcers of the army and navy were received. At the head of the army contingent strode that stalwart and well-known figure, Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, com- manding the army. By his side was Major General Henry C. Corbin, adjutant general. General Miles was in the full uniform of his high rank, with heavily gold-embroidered cap and wide scarf across his breast from shoulder to hip. Following him came the many ofScers of his staff and the heads of the army staffs stationed in Washington. In view of recent events expectation was on tip toe as General Miles appeared before the President, but the curious were not rewarded with anything unusual. The President greeted General Miles with the same hearty courtesy he had shown to others, and General Miles returned the salutation in the same spirit and then passed, smiling, along the line exchanging well wishes with the women. Admiral Dewey was another of the distinguished callers to engage the attention of the crowds. He was at the head of the long line ot naval officers, all in full uniform and including the ranking rear admirals and heads of the naval staff departments. The admiral wore the superb sword voted to him by Congress for the victory of Manila, and on his breast was the Congressional medal commemorating that event. He, too, was most cordially welcomed by the President. The PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 491 officers of the Marine Corps, with Brigadier General Heywood at their head, followed the navy. After them came ofificials of many ofificial branches, namely: The regents of the Smithsoniaji Institution, the Commissioner of Fisheries, the Civil Service Commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Commissioner of Labor, Assistant Secretaries of Departments, the Solicitor General, the Treasurer of the United States, Conmiissioner of Pensions, Commissioner of Patents, Comp- troller of the Currency, the Associated Veterans of the War of 1846-47, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, the Union Veteran Legion, Union Veterans' Union and Spanish War Veterans. At 12.30 the reception to the public began, and great crowds ac- cepted this first opportunity to grasp the hand of the President. At that hour the crowd at the outer gate stretched away in both direc- tions for several blocks. All stations, colors, creeds, sexes and ages were represented in the motley throng which elbowed up to the President. The latter in no way relaxed his cordiality, and all received the same cheery greeting. For more than an hour this human stream flowed past the President. As the last of the callers filed by the President took Mrs. Roosevelt on his arm, and, amid the strains of a quickstep by the Marine Band, the Presidential and Cabinet party withdrew to the private quarters of the mansion. It was estimated by the White House attendants that 8,100 people passed before the receiving party. Veteran officials re- garded it as one of the largest and most successful receptions ever, held. That same day, in Germany, the Emperor requested the United States Ambassador, Andrew D. White, to ask President Roosevelt to allow Miss Roosevelt to christen the new yacht, the Meteor, then building in America for the Kaiser. Prince Henry of Prussia was to 492 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. come to the United States for the launching of his brother's yacht and was to be the guest of the nation. On January 3d Mrs. Roose- velt gave a splendid ball for the entrance into society of the Presi- dent's oldest daughter. In referring to the two events a prominent journal had this to say: "Less than a year ago she was a simple young girl known and loved in the family circle at Oyster Bay^nd the quiet homes of relatives in town and the girls' schools she attended. Now she is the belle of the most splendid ball the White House has seen in a quarter of a century, and in a few weeks she will be the attraction for the eyes of two great nations and the rulers of half a dozen of the world Powers. A woman cannot be an official agent between nations, but in the social courtesies which hedge about diplomatic relations she is recognized, and in this character Miss Roosevelt will take a high place." Before the new year, however, December 17, Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith resigned, and Plenry C. Payne, of Wisconsin, was appointed as his successor by the President. Mr. Payne was a man of ability, with large experience in the management of cor- porations and not a little practical knowledge of the postal service, and there was every reason to believe that he would prove efficient as Postmaster General. Mr. Payne could give the postal service no more faithful or suc- cessful attention than Mr. Smith had done, though he was politically more forceful than his predecessor had been. How successfully his political methods would harmonize with the President's attitude as a civil service reformer was a subject for comment among those prominent in political circles. The newspapers voiced the opinion of thousands when they asked that if the time had come for the reconstruction of the Cabinet, why the Secretary of the Navy still remained in office? It was con- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 493 tended that there had been a gross miscarriage of justice in the case of Admiral Schley on the part of Long, that he had affronted the public sense of justice in the matter, and that retaining Long among his constitutional advisers would more than anything else impair confidence in the judgment and courage of President Roosevelt. Mr. Payne was Postmaster of Milwaukee for ten years, serving under President Grant, Hayes and Arthur. In the nineties he was one of the receivers of the Northern Pacific Railway, when that property was in the courts. Later he became connected with vari- ous large interests, the old Milwaukee and Northern Railroad Com- pany, the Wisconsin Telephone Company and street railway prop- erties. Following closely upon the change of Postmaster General came the appointment of Leslie M. Shaw to succeed Lyman J. Gage as Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Shaw was Governor of Iowa, and the new honor came unsought by him. Mr. Shaw was not a great banker or financier; he was not of the same type as Mr. Gage. But it is more important that the Secretary of the Treasury should have sound views on the currency than that he should know better how to manage a bank or organize an industrial combination. Though the new Secretary was not without practical knowledge of banking, it was vastly more important that he stood firm against all assaults upon a sound currency system when men in his section wavered, and that he used all the power he possessed to counteract such de- structive tendencies. Llis Department was confronted by some se- rious problems, which common sense, such as he had, would do more to solve than much experience in a bank. An accumulating surplus, dangers a tight money, and the whole currency question called for a masterly mind which would face the issues and prescribe adequate remedies. Mr. Shaw's record was such that the country raicrht look forward to his sound administration of a great office. 494 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. In both of these appointments it would seem that President Roos- velt had been wise in making his selection of able men. In the latter part of January the President received Admiral Schley's appeal from the Court of Inquiry. The petition opened thus: "The Richmond, Washington, D. C, Jan. 21, 1902. — To the President: Sir: Your petitioner, Winfield Scott Schley, a Rear- Admiral, retired, in the Navy of the United States, 'the applicant' before a Court of Inquiry, recently held at the Navy Yard in the city of Washington, of which Admiral George Dewey, U. S. N., was Presi- dent, and Rear-Admirals Andrew E. K. Benham and Francis M. Ramsay, retired, U. S. N., were members, and Captain Samuel C. Lemly, U. S. N., Judge Advocate-General, Judge Advocate, respect- fully states: "That he appeals from the findings of the said Court of Inquiry submitted to its convening authority, the Houorable the Secretary of the Navy, on the 13th day of December, 1901, and prays that in the exercise of your authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, and as the Chief Executive of the United States, vested with the power to regulate and direct the acts of the several executive officers thereof, you review the said findings in accordance with this petition; and the said petitioner does now submit the grounds upon which he bases his prayers for relief in the premises." Three general grounds are then set forth: First — That the Court erred, in the opinion expressed by the majority thereof, in ignoring the question of command at the battle of Santiago, and to the title for credit to the ensuing victory; Second — That the Court erred in its majority finding in failure to report on the question raised in the eighth specification of the precept — "The necessity for, if any, and the advisability of withdrawing the Flying Squadron at night from the entrance to Santiago harbor," etc.; PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 497 Third — That the Court erred in its majority finding in not agreeing with the presiding officer of the Court (Admiral Dewey) in all the views expressed by him in his dissenting opinion. Regarding the first point, the petition says: "Your petitioner, 'the applicant' before said Court of Inquiry, now files with this petition an argument, together with a resume of the testimony taken during the inquiry in so far as it relates to the ques- tion as to who was in command at the battle of Santiago, in support of his plea that the presiding member of said Court acted within his authority and jurisdiction in reporting his opinion as hereinbefore set forth, and that the majority members of the said Court failed in the discharge of a most important duty devolving upon them under the precept, in that they did not report their opinion upon the said (pies- tion; that it was incumbent upon such majority members to consider and determine the said question for the reason that only by so doing- could they determine the propriety of the conduct of the said Schley in said battle, since it being a fact that he did assume connnand of the American forces therein engaged, his action would, in the ab.sence of the right and duty so to do, have been highly censurable, and upon the question of such right and duty and the propriety of his conduct in the premises, the said Schley was entitled, under the precept, to a finding and an opinion from the majority members as well as from the minority members of the said Court." Therefore, the petitioner prays that the President set aside and annul that portion of the Secretary of the Navy's endorsement of the findings of the Court, which approves the Court's action in rendering no opinion on the questions referred to; and that the President "specifically approve, or direct a specific approval of that portion of Admiral Dewey's dissenting opinion, wherein Admiral Schley was held to be the senior officer in command at the battle of Santiago, and entitled to the credit due such commanding officer for the 498 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. glorious victory." Ill discussing the second point, the petition reviews the Court's report of the "pertinent facts" estabhshed in connection with the eighth specification of the precept and comments on the faikire of the Court to refer to such facts in its opinion. Says the document: Your petitioner further respectfully states that the said eighth specification was considered during the inquiry conducted by said Court as one of the most important points therein involved, and that notwithstanding the facts herein set forth, all of which appear upon the record of the said Court, the concurring mem- bers thereof have failed utterly and entirely to discharge the most im- portant duty imposed upon them by the terms of the said specifica- tion, which duty was to report their opinions upon the questions of whether or not a close or adequate blockade of said harbor to prevent the escape of the enemy's vessels therefrom was established and the propriety of Commodore Schley's conduct in the premises. "Therefore, your petitioner does most respectfully pray that you set aside and annul that portion of the endorsement of the Secretary of the Navy which makes valid the failure of the majority members of the Court to report their opinion upon that portion of the said eighth specification herein referred. to; and that you specifically approve, or direct the specific approval of, the opinion of the presiding member of said Court in holding that 'the blockade of Santiago was effective.' " Taking up the third ground, the petition says: "It appears from the report of the said Court that, in addition to the facts set forth in the first and second grounds of this petition, the presiding member thereof reported his opinion upon certain questions presented to said Court as follows: " 'The passage from Key West to Cienfuegos was made by the Flying Squadron with all possible despatch, Commodore Schley PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 490 having in view the importance of arriving off Cienfuegos with as much coal as possible in the ship's bunkers.' " 'The blockade of Cienfuegos was effective.' " 'Commodore Schley, in permitting the steamer Adula to enter the port of Cienfuegos, expected to obtain information concerning the Spanish squadron from her when she came out.' " 'The passage from Cienfuegos to a point about 22 miles south of Santiago was made with as much despatch as was possible while keeping the scjuadron a unit.' "The foregoing opinion is at variance in certain particulars with the opinion reported by the majority of the said Court, and your petitioner holds that in such instances of variance the opinion of the presiding member of said Court is the only opinion justified by the evidence taken and facts advanced before said Court in relation to the question herein involved. Wherefore, and in view of the statements presented in exhibits B and C, your petitioner does most respectfully pray that you set aside and annul that portion of the endorsement of the Secretary of the Navy which states as to points on which the pre- siding member differs from the majority opinion of the Court, the opinion of the majority is approved, in so far as the same relates to questions herein involved, and that you specifically approve, or direct the specific approval of said portion of the opinion of the presiding member of the Court. "And your petitioner most respectfully states that only by the action for which he prays in this relation can exact justice be done him, within the contemplation of the precept under which the said Court sat and whence it derived its authority." The appeal was signed by Admiral Schley and by his counsel, Isidor Rayner, James Parker and j\I. A. Teague. The argument attached to the petition was most exhaustive, going into the subject in great detail, the larger portion — forty pages — being devoted to the con- 500 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. sideration of the question of who was in command at Santiago, and to whom the credit for the victory should go. Copious extracts from the testimony were quoted in support of Admiral Dewey's dissenting opinion on this point. The "comment" of Judge Advocate Lemly and Solicitor Hanna upon the appeal as submitted to the President, said that the chief features of the case were "the retrograde movement," "disobedience of orders," "inaccurate and misleading official reports," "failure to destroy vessels of the enemy lying within sight" and "injustice to a brother of^cer." The first was that the finest aggregation of American naval vessels under one command was, by Schley's direction, turned about and headed for Key West, more than 700 miles distant, wdien within twenty-two miles of Santiago, where the enemy's ships were. The second was that Schley deliberately and knowingly disobeyed the Secretary's order overtaking him in his retrograde movement. The third was that Schley's reason, ofificially given, for the retro- grade movement and disobedience of orders, i. e., that the flying squadron was short of coal, was not true. The fourth was that for three days some of the Spanish ships lay within reach of the flying squadron and no sufficient effort was made to destroy them. The fifth involves the point of honor. The commentators say: "Upon all the above named features, believed by us to be the most important, if not only the really important matters, into which the court made inquiry, the conduct of Admiral Schley was condemned by that most distinguished tribunal. Admiral Dewey and Rear Ad- mirals Benham and Ramsay united in their findings and opinion upon all of these several points, and they united also in the significant rec- ommendation that no further proceedings be had, "in view of the length of time which has elapsed since the occurrence of the events PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 501 of the Santiago campaign." The commentators charge that Admiral Schley now ignores all these grave matters and bases his appeal upon unimportant features of the case as compared with the grave matters above referred to, "upon which there was not, and in the face of testimony could not have been any difference of opinion in the court." The commentators say they recognized the fact that Admiral Schley devotes the greater part of his appeal to the question of com- mand, and consequently gave their phase of the case considerable space. They declare that to investigate this question fairly both Admiral Schley and Admiral Sampson should be heard. They add: "To determine an important question of this nature, under such conditions, is contrary to the underlying principles of Anglo-Saxon justice. Nevertheless, this is precisely what the appeal asks the President to do." It was admitted that the precept was broad enough to have per- mitted the court to go into this question, but it was stated that the judge advocate, although expressing a willingness to enter upon it, did not consider it proper to do so. The judge advocate, they said, might have shown that it was Admiral Sampson's plan of night blockade that forced Cervera to come out in the daylight, and Captain Clark was quoted to support that statement. They quoted Admiral Schley in his testimony to the effect that the American ships charged in "according to the origmal plan to sink the enemy in the channel" and that "that plan failed because the enemy succeeded really in passing the l)attlc line." They asked why did the enemy succeed, and declared "the Brooklyn, having abandoned her position on the left of the line, thereby left an unguarded opening along the western shore, through which the Spanish fleet passed our ships and attempted to escape." The court's opinion was quoted to the effect that the Brooklyn lost distance in position by the "loop" and delayed the Texas. 502 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. To sustain their contention that Sampson was in command, the commentators quoted passages from Schley's report of July 6, 1898, as follows: "The torpedo boat destroyers were destroyed early in the action, but the smoke was so dense in their direction that I cannot say to which vessel or vessels the credit belongs. This doubtless was better seen from your flagship. * * "'^ The dense smoke of the combat shut out from my view the Indiana and the Gloucester, but, as these vessels were closer to your flagship, no doubt their part in the conflict was under your immediate observation." They said: "Nobody has ever disputed Grant's title to the victory at Appomattox, although then lying sick some miles from the place of surrender— so far that it was feared he could not be reached within the period of armistice. Though Howard was senior officer present at the capture of Savannah and Sherman absent on one of Admiral Dahlgren's gunboats, nobody has questioned Sherman's famous re- port to Lincoln: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah." And as showing Schley's own opinion as to who was in command, they quote this passage from his dispatch of July 10, 1898, to the Secretary of the Navy: "Feel some mortification that the newspaper accounts of July 6 have attributed victory of July 4 almost entirely to me. Victory was secured by the force under the commander-in-chief, North Atlantic station, and to him the honor is due." Further they quote Schley's letter of December 18, 1901, to Secretary Long, justifying the "loop" on the expressed ground that it was made "in the execution of the standing order to close in." It is asked: "But if he was then himself in command, how happens it that he was executing the orders of somebody else in command? * * * Before the Court of Inquiry every prop raised to support the contention that Commodore Schley did anything to achieve the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 503 victory by issuing orders as commanding officer of the American fleet was removed. Tlie plain truth was for the first time revealed that Commodore Schley did not exercise command on that day over any ship, except to some extent his own flagship, the Brooklyn." The comment at this point contained a number of extracts from the testimony to sustain this contention. Taking the Brooklyn's signal book it was stated that this showed that the Brooklyn gave only the two orders, "Clear for action" and "Close up." "A meager record, but it is the whole story." The commentators quoted Lieutenant McCauley, the Brooklyn signal officer, that the first signal, "Clear ship for action," was hoisted by him, "on my hook." They asserted that the ship had been sub- stantially cleared for action for over a month and that what remained to be done on shipboard was not done in pursuance of this order. They quoted Captain Clark to the effect that it was a standing order on the Oregon, upon sighting the enemy, "to immediately strike the alarm gongs for clearing ship for action," which, they declare, was a standing order, and consequently the Oregon did not act on signals from the Brooklyn. Other testimony is cited on this point and then the order, "Close up," is considered. The comment insisted that this order was not seen by any ship other than the Oregon, unless, perhaps, the Texas, and that it exer- cised no influence whatever upon any vessel of the squadron. They also quoted Admiral Schley's testimony that the Brooklyn's charge was made in accordance with the original plan. Of the order "Close up," they say: "So this order, the second of the two, signaled from the Brooklyn during the battle of Santiago to the American fleet, was really formal also, and was given in accord- ance with Sampson's original plan of battle, which required closing up with a view of sinking the Spanish vessels in the entrance. Sur- prising as this is, it is shown by Admiral Schley's own sworn testi- 504 THEODORE ROO SEVELT. mony, and is corroborated by the time and circumstances under which the signal was made. It did not influence other ships. All the captains had been advised of the plan of battle and all "closed" accord- ingly, without waiting or looking for signals from the Brooklyn, and paid no attention to this signal, which, as above stated, was not seen except from the Oregon, and not from that ship until after all vessels had closed up. It is even more surprising, but it appears to be a fact, that Admiral Schley issued no further fleet order during the progress of the battle." The commentators next said: *'If Commodore Schley was in ab- solute command during the battle, and if he made any use of his authority, he must have exercised some control over some of the vessels participating," whereupon they took up in detail the testi- mony of the commanding ofhcers on this point and said: "Wain- wright, of the Gloucester, said he saw no orders from the Brooklyn; Taylor, of the Indiana, said he saw no signals from the Brooklyn; Evans, of the Iowa, said of the Brooklyn: 'I never saw any signal from her. I did not maneuver in obedience to any signals from the Brook- lyn;' the commanding oflicer of the Texas is dead, but the of^cers' testimony makes it clear that that ship received no orders." Speaking of this ship, the commentators declared: "The question is not so much one of possible credit to, but possible censure of, Admiral Schley in connection with the w^ork of that vessel in the battle of Santiago. The plain truth is that Admiral Schley did not during the battle in any way direct or control the splendid per- formances of the Gloucester and the three battleships, Indiana, Iowa and Texas. The oflficers in command of these ships neither received nor obeyed a solitary order from him." They quoted passages from Captain Clark's testimony, in which he said in regard to the order, "Close up," "That was a standing order, to attack the enemy at once if they appeared and to keep the heads PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 507 of the ships ahvays toward the entrance," and "I rememljer a feeling of satisfaction that there was an order to close in, in case any accident had happened — any colliding with other ships." As to the alleged order from the Brooklyn directing the Oregon to fire her 13-inch guns, the commentators again quoted from Captain Clark's testimony, where, when asked if the guns were fired in pur- suance of an order from the Brooklyn, the captain said: "No, sir; I fired them after deliberating with the ofificers," and "if they (the Brooklyn) made a signal, I did not see it." The "comment" closed in the following words: "Tlie contention that the magnificent work of the Oregon, or any part of it, was done under orders from the Brooklyn, or that the Oregon received and obeyed even a single order from Commodore Schley from the time the Spanish ships were sighted to the time of the surrender of the Colon, which surrender may fairly be taken as the close of the battle, must be abandoned, and with it goes the last peg upon which to hang the pretence of a claim that during the battle of Santiago Commodore Schley effectively exercised any of the functions of a commander- in-chief. "The weight of the testimony is to the effect that the commodore controlled the movements of his flagship, the Brooklyn, well, with the exception of the loop. But it also shows, not negatively, but affirmatively and beyond question, that he did not control the opera- tions of the fleet in general on that day. "All this is established, not by theoretical deduction or expert or inexpert opinion, but by direct, positive, unimpeached and unim- peachable testimony, given under the oath by the admiral's 'brothers in arms.' The plain truth of the matter, therefore, developed for the first time under the searchlight of this inquiry, although quite inci- dentally, is that so far as the Gloucester, the Iowa, the Indiana, the Texas and the Oregon are concerned, not the stroke of a propeller 508 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. blade, not the touch of a helm, not the firing of a shot was done under the direction or by the orders of Admiral Schley during this memor- able battle." The President gave a large share of his attention to the Schley appeal, a copy of which he asked for and had from Secretary Long. Of the four officers wath whom he consulted Evans and Taylor were against Schley. Clark, of the Oregon, on the other hand, strongly sup- ported Schley and his testimony about the part played by Schley and the Brooklyn in the battle was stronger than that given by any other officer except Commander Harlow, of the Vixen. Wainwright, of the Gloucester, had never given any intimation of his views and his testi- mony furnished nothing to either side. He testified that he did not see a single American ship at any time after the action commenced. While the country waited for the decision of the President there came the news of the illness of Mr. Roosevelt's son. The boy was at school, at Groton, Mass., and there contracted pneumonia. The President and his wife went at once to Groton, and for several days it looked as though Theodore, Jr., might succumb to the disease. Messages of sympathy came from King Edward of England and the Kaiser, while the United States had few citizens who did not hope for a speedy recovery of the lad. When the welcome news came that he w^as out of danger, once more the people wished for an early word from the President regarding his decision in the Schley case. Admiral Sampson had reached the age limit in the navy and was retired, and was said to be a dying man. On February 19th President Roosevelt gave his reply to the appeal of Admiral Schley. It was a careful and conscientious view of the Santiago controversy. As it embodied no of!icial action the paper should be regarded as expressing only Mr. Roosevelt's personal judg- ment. But as he was not only the commander-in-chief, but a man able to frame an opinion upon naval matters his summary of the case PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 509 carried more than mere official weight. He did not undertake a general review of the findings of the Court of Inquiry, He justly said that if Admiral Schley had been guilty of any offenses five weeks or more before the battle of Santiago they had in effect been con- doned when he was not called to account for them. It was not till after the fight that Admiral Sampson accused him of "reprehensible conduct" on a previous occasion. If there were grounds for this accusation Sampson should not have left him as the senior officer on the blockade. The President therefore held, in effect, that the Navy Department had itself excluded all this discussion of the movements of Schley's squadron, and that the technical findings of the court, whether right or wrong, were without historical significance. The important points which Mr. Roosevelt decided were three' — the question of who was in command in the Santiago fight, that of the expediency or otherwise of the Brooklyn's famous loop and that refeiTing to the personal bravery of Admiral Schley. Regarding the first the President decided that in reality, no one was in command and that the famous engagement was virtually a cap- tains' fight. The Brooklyn's loop the President regarded as a mistake, the only mistake, he said, made that day. As for the personal bravery of Admiral Schley, President Roosevelt said that after the loop had been made the admiral handled his ship "manfully and well." President Roosevelt incidentally said that the most striking act of the battle was that of the Gloucester, "which her commander, Wain- wright, pushed into the fight through a hail of projectiles any one of which would have sunk her, in order that he might do his part in destroying the two torpedo boats, each possessing far more than his own offensive power." President Roosevelt also commended the action of Captain Claik, 610 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of the Oregon, »and said it would have been well to have given him the same advancement that was given to Wainwright. Laying emphasis on the fact that it was just to Admiral Sampson that he should receive a greater advance in numbers than Admiral Schley, the President went on to say that "there was nothing done in the battle that warranted any unusual reward for either." "Both Admiral Sampson and Admiral Schley," the President said, in conclusion, "are now on the retired list. In concluding their report the members of the Court of Inquiry, Admirals Dewey, Benham and Ramsay, unite in stating that they recommend that no further action be had in the matter. With this recommendation I most heartily concur. There is no excuse whatever from either side for any further agitation of this unhappy controversy. To keep it alive would merely do damage to the navy and to the country." A journal, commenting on the President's reply, had this to say: "It is unnecessary to go back of the engagement at Santiago, and with regard to that there is no need of controversy. The question of command is not really, vital. Sampson was hardly more than techni- cally in the fight. Schley was the senior of^cer in the operations, but he practically exercised no general command. Each captain is en- titled to his own share of the credit, and Schley to his. This share the President regards as entirely praiseworthy, with the exception of the "loop," upon which he puts an unfavorable construction. He thinks that the rewards recommended by President McKinley were proper. All were entitled to grateful recognition, and no injustice was done in placing Sampson, as the technical commander, ahead of Schley, since there was "nothing done in the battle that warranted unusual award for either." Both men are now honorably retired. There is nothing more that can be done, and there remains "no excuse for either side for any further agitation of this unhappy con- troversy." PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 611 The Court of Inquiry had been conducted in a just manner, though there were those who had hoped for a different verdict than that rendered. The President could scarcely be blamed for his opinion in the case, and, he believed that while acting on independent prin- ciples, he w-as adhering to those which President McKinley would have advocated. The Cabinet had Lad few changes made in it, those chosen under the McKinley regime remaining except for the few new men already noted. To these new men was to be added Wil- liam H. Moody, of Massachusetts, who was to take the place of Sec- retary of the Navy Long. In April the President opened the Exposition in Charleston, S. C. Plis journey toward this point was marked by every evidence of cordiahty on the part of the people, which afforded fresh evidence that the two sections of the country were again united, and that the President was the Chief Magistrate of the whole country. The trip to Charleston was the first visit which the President had paid to the South since McKinley's historic overland tour to Cali- fornia. As it was President McKinley's message to the people at the Pan-American Exposition to observe the laws of civilized trade, so it ^vas the burden of President Roosevelt's addresses at Charles- ton tha*^ we should increase our commerce by pursuing enhghtened policies. He did not hesitate to reiterate his views in regard to reciprocity^ with Cuba. He reminded Americans that the Cubans having assumed a position of peculiar relationship to our political system, they must similarly stand in a peculiar relationship to our economic system. Our treatment of the island must not be niggardly, for, as the President said, "we are a wealthy country, dealing with a much weaker one; and the contrast in wealth and strength makes it all the more our duty to deal with Cuba, as we have already dealt with her, in a spirit of large generosity." 512 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Such words were inspiriting. They indicated that the President was firmly convinced of the righteousness of Cuban reciprocity. In May Mr. Roosevelt unveiled the memorial shaft erected in Arlington Cemetery in memory of the veterans who fell in the war between Spain and the United States. His address on that occasion was as much an appeal to the living as a eulogy of the dead. From the nature of what he said perhaps it may be well to give the ad- dress in full. He said: "Mrs. President and members of the Society, and you, my com- rades, and finally, officers and men of the regular army, whom we took as our models in the war four years ago: "It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon to accept in the name of the nation the monument put up by your Society to the memory of those who fell in the war with Spain; a short war; a war that called for the exertion of only the merest fraction of the giant strength of this nation, but a war the effects of which will be felt through the centuries to come because of the changes it wrought. It is emi- nently appropriate that the monument should be unveiled to-day, the day succeeding that on which the free republic of Cuba took its place among the nations of the world as a sequel to what was done by these men who fell and by their comrades in '98. "We went to war for a specific purpose. We made for Cuba a specific pledge, and we redeemed that pledge to the letter. And I think, my comrades of the war. that we have peculiar reasons to be proud of one of our fellows who served with us in that war, and under whom during the last years Cuba has been; under whose administration Cuba has taken those strides forward which have, fitted it to stand alone — I speak of General Leonard Wood. And great though the services were that General Wood rendered during the war, they have been surpassed by the inestimable services he PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 513 has rendered in peace to Cuba, and, therefore, to our nation, for our interest was bound up in the success and wehare of Cuba. "And a word here where we meet to honor the memory of those who drew the great prize of death in battle, a word in reference to ^ the survivors. I think that one lesson every one who was capable of learning anything learned from his experience in that war was the old, old lesson that we need to apply in peace quite as much — the lesson that tlie man who does not care to do any act until the time for heroic action comes, does not do the heroic act when the time does come. "You all remember, comrades, it is barely possible some of you re- member being the man who, when you enlisted, had a theory that there was nothing but splendor and fighting and bloodshed in the war, and then had the experience at once of learning that the first thing you had to do was to perform common place duties, and per- form them well. "I remember one time in my regiment a young fellow who had come down to fight for his country complaining that he had been doing nothing but digging kitchen sinks, to which the answer was obvious, that he was to go on digging kitchen sinks. And the work of any man in the campaign depended upon the resolution and effec- tive intelligence with which he started about doing each duty as it arose; not waiting until he could choose the duty that he thought sufficiently spectacular to do, doing the duty that came to hand. That is exactly the lesson that all of us need to learn in times of peace. It is not only a great thing, but an indispensable thing that the nation's citizens should be ready and willing to do for it at time of need, and no preference for that other quality could atone for the lack of such readiness to lay down life if the nation calls. Rut in ad- dition to dying for the nation, you have got to be willing and anxious to live for the nation, or the nation will be badly off. If you want 514 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. to do your duty when the time comes for you to die the nation will be deprived of valuable services during your lives. "And now, gentlemen^ I am speaking in all seriousness, 1 never see a gathering of this kind, I never see a gathering under the auspices of any of the societies which are organized to commemorate the valor and patriotism of the founders of this nation, I never see a gathering composed of the men ready to have volunteered in time of war or who fought in the great civil war or in any of the lesser contests in which the country has been engaged without feeling the anxiety to make such a gathering realize, feel, each in his or her heart, the all-importance of doing the ordinary, humdrum, common- place duties of each day as those duties arise. "Some of the efifect on the day of battle is to be found in the aggre- gate of the individual performances of duty during the long months that have preceded the day of battle, and the way in which a nation will arise to a great crisis is conditioned upon the way in which its citizens have habituated themselves to act in the ordinary affairs of the national life. "You cannot expect that much will be done in the supreme hour of peril by soldiers who have not fitted themselves to meet the need when need comes, and you cannot expect the highest type of citizen- ship to be shovv'n in the periods when it is needed if that citizenship has not been trained by the faithful performance of ordinary duty. What we need most in this Republic is not special genius, not unusual brilliancy, but the honest and upright adherence on the part of the mass of the citizens and of their representatives to their fundamental laws of private and public morality, which are now what they have been during recorded history, and we shall succeed or fall in making this Republic what it should be — I will go a little further than that — what it shall and must be made according to the manner in which we seriously and resolutely set ourselves to do the task of citizenship, PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 515 which consists of doing the duties, private and pubHc, which in the aggregate make it up." All this was well and bravely said and the President's courageous outlook would seem to have done much to inspire confidence and hope. The summer of 1902 found the family of the Chief Executive in their usual sunnner home at Oyster Bay. In July, however, the President undertook a tour, during which he proposed to speak in thirteen States. July 4th he addressed 200,000 people at the Schen- ley Park celebration, Pittsburg. In New England, as elsewhere, what he said was sane of view and clear of diction, broad minded, non-partisan. He treated great public questions as a statesman and philosopher, not as a selfish poli- tician. In a man of less intellectual balance, having to deal with the grave responsibilities of the executive office and confronted with an oppor- tunity to take the public into his confidence, there might have ex- isted a temptation to self-exploitation and to pretentious prediction of the success to be achieved through the carrying out of his own policies. But President Roosevelt was above such considerations. He addressed the people, "men and women," as he called them. He spoke of the accomplishments of the nation, its destiny and the duties of the hour. Not one of Mr. Roosevelt's addresses was marred by any allusion savoring of the stump speech or revealing the importunate candi- date. He would rather discuss the nolMlity and prowess of Ameri- can manhood, or the exalted character of American citizenship, than parade his personal record or appeal for confidence in his own powders. No critic could charge him with fault finding or lack of dignity. He had abiding faith in the rectitude of American purpose and in the endurance of American institutions, and in his references to our citi- 516 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, zens he embraced the whole American people, not a party nor a faction. In the speech made in Boston he dwelt upon the importance of individual efforts, and insisted that the community of interests should sunnnon every man to shoulder his own responsibility as a freeman and do the work that lay at hand to promote general as well as per- sonal welfare. In accepting- a gift of llowers from wage-workers of Hartford he said: "I should like to accept that gift, as in some way personal to my- self, but I would rather accept it as I know it is made, as a gift from Americans to a man who, for the time being, embodies American governmental principles — the principles of fair and square dealing with all men, so that men shall have their rights under the law, that all shall be given a fair and an even chance in the struggle for life as we can best give it." This expression was a genuine manifestation of Mr. Roosevelt's sentiments. However disposed he might be to receive the honors accorded him as personal, he appreciated that above and beyond all regard for the individual was the respect which Americans had for the Presidential oflfice. His perception of this only added to the esteem in which he was held by the American public. ■ An able critic had this to say at the time: "Through all of the President's speeches in New England has been prominent the underlying thought of the personal responsibility of the individual citizen. PTe has dwelt upon this in various forms, and it is the basis of his very admirable speech to the Maine farmers at Bangor. .With all the growth of industrialism and the concentra- tion of population in cities, the forces that produced the majority of the great leaders in the past are still at work in the country dis- tricts. *Se]f help and individual initiative remain in a peculiar degree typical of life in the country.' It is therefore, not as a class with special WILIvIAM H.- MOODY PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 519 interests to be served or prejudices to be flattered, that the President addresses the Maine farmers, but as typical American citizens, and it is as true of the dwellers in cities as of the dwellers upon farms that 'the worth of a civiHzation is the worth of the man at its centre.' "This thought of the individual character as the basis of national strength, and of its development by 'self help and individual initia- tive' is one that we are apt to lose in the complex organization of the great cities, which nevertheless rests upon the same foundation of 'the mutual self-help which comes by combination,' both of citi- zens working in their individual capacity and of citizens working through forms of government. The problem of mutual help is simpler in the country than in the cities, where the individual seems lost in the mass. The community of interest is more apparent, the offices of neighborliness are more readily performed. But every- where the order of duty is the same — the home duties, the duty to one's neighbor, the common effort for the common good. "The special application of this thought in Mr. Roosevelt's Bangor speech was to philanthropic and charitable work. Each of us is liable to slip, and each should be always ready to help the man who stum- bles. Tt is our duty to lift him up, but it is also our duty to remem- ber that there is no earthly use in trying to carry him. If a man will submit to being carried, that is sufficient to show that he is not worth carrying.' The only kind of help that avails in the long run is that which teaches a man to help himself, and which does not impair his self-respect. 'It is almost as irritating to be patronized as to be wronged,' and it may be much more harmful. This help must be given, too, in a spirit not only of broad charity, but of broad sanity. The soft head may do more harm than the hard heart. "All this works back to the fundamental thought of individual character as the basis of the State, and of the State as an organiza- tion or instrument for mutual self-help, wherein no man can shirk 520 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. his share of responsibility, and whose progress is not measured by material prosperity, but by that 'moral lift toward righteousness' that alone can exalt a nation." * On September 3rd the New England trip ended with a tragic ac- cident. The carriage in which the President was being driven from Pittsfield to Lenox was struck by a trolley car. Mr. Roosevelt and Secretary Cortelyou were shghtly injured, Secret Service Ofificer William Craig was instantly killed, and the driver of the carriage badly hurt. After their injuries had been dressed the members of the party were able to continue their journey, and the President reached Oyster Bay in the evening. The announcement of the President's escape from death or dis- abling injury w^as received by the American people with thanksgiving and rejoicing. The safety of the Executive is always a matter of solicitude. Though provision is always made to protect the Presi- dent from the risks of travel, the Pittsfield occurrence shows that the most carefully arranged Presidential itinerary may be imperiled by some unforeseen danger. President Roosevelt's receptions in New England were a continu- ous tribute of popular respect, admiration and affection for him. The reheving feature of the lamentable occurrence at Pittsfield w^as that it evoked a sincere expression of joy from the country, testifying that the American people are one in sympathy when the life of the Execu- tive is endangered. President Roosevelt's tour had been marked by the same frank and manly declarations of opinion and policy that characterized his deliverances in other portions of the country visited by him. The New Englalnd addresses, aside from their versatility and the clear exposition of the President's views on vital themes, seemed to establish a close personal relation between speaker and hearer. It is unfortunate that the interesting series of meetings be- PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 521 tween the President and the people of New England was prematurely * closed by such a fateful accident. September 6th the President left Washington for a Southern trip. He visited Chickamauga Park and the battlefields around Chatta- . nooga. He started through the park at such a rapid pace that the troopers acting as escort were unhorsed, and it was necessary to call the ambulance corps into service. The addresses in the South raised the enthusiasm of the people to a high pitch. The value of Mr. Roosevelt's work in cementing the people of ^his great country together, in breaking down sectional, class, and even bitter, unreasoning party feeling, became more appa- rent when the "era of good feeling" of 1902 is contrasted with the era of suspicion in '96. The President said at Asheville: "The average citizen must realize that it is on his shoulders that the entire government structure rests. We get in the habit of speak- ing of the Government as if it were something apart from us. Now, the Government is us — we are the Government, you and I. And the Government is going to do well or ill accordingly as we, with sanity, with resolution, with broad charity and sound common sense, make up our minds that the affairs of the Government shall be managed." That sort of sound doctrine found ready acceptance now% but in 1896 a great many people in this country were in the frame of mind to rail at the Government as a thing apart from themselves, if not hostile. In a part of the country, if Treasury statistics were cited in debate, the retort was made that the Secretary of tlie Treasury was a liireling of the money power; in North Carolina, where the Presi- dent was enthusiastically acclnimcd as the head of this nation and the President of all the people, free speech on political questions was not welcomed. There w^re mnterial reasons for goo'd feeling, to be sure. For the year ending September i, 1902, the South showed an increase of 522 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 705,538 cotton spindles against a gain of 100,000 for all Xew Eng- land during the same time; Kansas and Nebraska towns were hold- ing "corn festivals" instead of PopuHst meetings, and the people everywhere were trying to get in touch with the money power rather successfully; but during the Populist period there was a bitterness, an uncompromising, unreasoning, pestiferous criticism of the Gov- ernment, the nation's nders and its institutions which cannot be ex- plained by bad crops or bad times generally. It was a condition which appeared to denote downright hostility to the Government regardless of the fact that ''here the people themselves are the gov- ernment." That time was passed. From the experiences of two campaigns the people had learned the lesson that in a free country stabiHty, progress and happiness depend as much upon "feeling and habit" and upon the ''hearts of men" as upon laws and statutes. As the President said, "A\'e are all going up or down together," and the direction depended on the individuals. President Roosevelt was the head of the whole nation. He was an honest, patriotic American, striving to do his best for the country. !Many people might not agree with him on many questions, but the majority believed it to be the duty of every American citizen, without regard to politics, to give always the heartiest support he conscientiously can to the President of the United States as the guardian of the nation's welfare. Judg- ing bv the good feeling ever}'where to which the President w-as suc- cessfully contributing, such fortunately, seemed to be the attitude of the country. But the President was sufTering from an abscess occasioned by his accident, and September 23rd his leg was operated upon by his sur- geons. A few days later a second operation was deemed necessan*. when tlio?e in charge of the case reported that in a short time the patient would be well ag^in. illSS ALICE R«_»05E\ i^L"] k PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 525 111 May of 1902 the miners in Pennsylvania had gone on strike. In October the strike still continued and threatened almost a national disaster. The President was asked to lend his aid to an adjustment of the difficulties between the operators and the nnners. The con- ference requested by Mr. Roosevelt, of the anthracite coal road presidents and the officials of the Mine Workers' Union failed to cause a settlement of the trouble, but the President discharged what he believed to be a patriotic duty in calling the men together. While cjisclaimiiig any right or duty to interfere in any legal or official manner, he called the attention of the contending parties to "the terrible nature of the catastrophe impending over a large portion of our people in the shape of a winter coal famine," and said in justifi- cation of his invitation to those present to meet with him in confer- ence that the gravity of the situation constrained him to insist that they should realize the heavy burden of the responsibility resting upon each of and all of them. Plis appeal to them was wise in thought and temperate and discreet in language. Both the spirit and form of it were admirable, but the conference failed, as many feared it would. Both sides, from the be- ginning of the lamentable trouble, believed they w^ere right and both stood upon their assumed right. October 13th it was proposed that a commission should l)e ap- pointed by the President, to whom should be su1)mitted all questions at issue between the respective companies and their employees, and the decision of the commission should be accepted by both sides, and thus ended the greatest coal strike on record. The first year of the President in ofifice had disclosed the sterling qualities of the man who in the beginning was often called an "acci- dency." His life as a father, as a husband, as a citizen, as a politician, and as a President had been simple in the extreme. If he accom- plished little legislative reform, and failed in his endeavors to set 636 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. some matters aright, the country had gained that which was rather to be chosen than any policy or any law — the example of "a plain strong man, living, working wholesomely, in unpretentious, old- fashioned democratic simplicity." That first year of the Presidency was not an easy matter, there was friction in many quarters and the Republican party was not always pleased with its independent Chief Executive. But Mr. Roosevelt had promised at the beginning of his tenure of office to follow McKinley's lead, and so well did he keep this promise that at the end of his first year he had done practi- cally nothing in the way of forming new policies. It might well be said of him that "if in addition to the strength of a good influence Roosevelt adds also the weight of successful political organization and efficiency in making good things come to pass, he must rise above his times to a more than passing fame." CHAPTER XXIII. President's Idea of the Fresidei.cy — Answer to Criticism of Negro Appointments — Message of 1902 — "Open Door" in the Philippines — Panama Canal — Journey of 14,000 Miles — Speeches During Journey — Tribute to Lincoln — Signing of Canal Treaty — Secretary Root Succeeded by W. H. Taft — Ratification of Panama Treaty — War Between Russ a aud Japan — Death of Senator Hanna — Estimate of his Character Death of M. S. Quay — Decoration Day Speech at Gettysburg, IN an article written for a magazine Mr. Roosevelt gave his ideas of the duties and responsibilities of the President of the United States. The paper was written in 1900, when the Chief Execu- tive was Governor of New York, and before the Republican National Convention which nominated him for Vice-President, and was pub- lished in October, 1902. In it he says : "The President of the United States occupies a position of peculiar importance. In the whole world there is no other ruler, certainly no other ruler under free institutions, whose power compares with his. Of course, there is the enormous personal factor of the incumbent him- self to be considered, entirely apart from the power of the office itself. "This is merely another way of stating that in any office the personal qualification is always of consequence. "The Senators are the constitutional advisers of the President. The Secretaries who form the Cabinet advise him on matters of general policy when he so desires. With the Senate the advice and consulta- tion are obligatory under the Constitution of the United States. The Senate has no right to dictate to the President who shall be appointed, but they have an entire right to say who shall not be appointed, for under the Constitution this has been made their duty. 527 528 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "Although many men must share with the President the responsi- bility, there is upon him always a heavy burden of responsibility. It is easy enough to give a bad administration, but to give a good adminis- tration demands the most anxious thought, no less than very unusual powers of mind. "There is every reason why the President should be held to a sharp accountability alike for what he does and for what he leaves undone. But we injure ourselves and the nation if we fail to treat with proper respect the man who, in the highest office in our land, is striving to do his duty. "We have had presidents who have acted weakly or unwisely in particular crises, but we have never had one concerning whose personal integrity there was so much as a shadow of suspicion. "Appointments and policies which are normally routine and unim- portant may suddenly become of absolutely vital consequence. The War Department was utterly neglected for over thirty years after the Civil War. Neither the regular officer nor the regular soldier takes any part in politics, as a rule, so that the demagogue and bread-and- butter politician have no fear of his vote; and to both of them, and also to the cheap, sensational newspaper, the army offers a favorite subject for attack. "So it often happens that some amiable people really get a little afraid of the army, and have some idea that it may be used some time or another against our liberties. "The army never has been, and I am sure it never will be or can be, a menace to anybody save America's foes, or aught but a source of pride to every good and far sighted American. "When an emergency like that caused by the Spanish war arises, the Secretary of War becomes the most important officer in the Cabinet. "Altogether, there are few harder tasks than that of filling well and ably the office of President of the United States. But if the man at PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 529 the close of the term is able to feel that he has done his duty well, he has the satisfaction of feeling that he has performed one of the great world tasks, and that the mere performance is in itself the greatest of all possible rewards." In November the President took part in a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the initiation of George Washington as a Free Mason. The celebration was in the Masonic Temple at Philadelphia, and the same month criticism from the South as to negro appointments was answered in this spirit: "I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each locality, but I cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope — the door of opportunity — is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my convictions, be fundamentally wrong. If, as you hold, the great bulk of the colored people are not yet fit in point of character and influence to hold such positions, it seems to me that it is worth while putting a premium upon the effort among them to achieve the character and standing which will fit them. "The question of 'negro domination' does not enter into the matter at all. It might as well be asserted that when I was Governor of New York I sought to bring about negro domination in that State because I appointed two colored men of good character and standing to respon- sible positions — one of them to a position paying a salary twice as large as that paid in the office now under consideration — one of them as a Director of the Buffalo Exposition. "The question raised by you and Mr. in the statements to- which I refer is simply whether it is to be declared that under no circum- stances shall any man of color, no matter how upright and honest, no matter how good a citizen, no matter how fair in his dealings with all 530 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. his fellows, be permitted to hold any office under our Government. I certainly cannot assume such an attitude, and you must permit me to say that in my view it is an attitude no man should assume, whether he looks at it from the standpoint of the true interest of the white man of the South or of the colored man of the South — not to speak of any other section of the Union. "It seems to me that it is a good thing from every standpoint to let the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree the qualities of good citizenship — the qualities which in a white man we feel are entitled to reward — that he will not be cut off from all hope of similar reward. Without any regard as to what my decision may be on the merits of this particular applicant for this particular place, I feel that I ought to let you know clearly my attitude on the far broader question raised by you and Mr. ; an attitude from which I have not varied during my term of office." The message of 1902 was looked for with interest. The mandate of the Constitution which provides that the President "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient" is usually met by our Presidents with ability and dignity. In this present message Mr. Roosevelt gave marked prominence to the vexing subjects of the trusts and the tariff. The opening sentence of the document furnished the key note of the Presi- dent's views of these matters. All that was said respecting national prosperity, the largeness, wealth, and power of the country was admirable. "Great fortunes," the President said, "have been won by those who have taken the lead in this phenomenal industrial development, and most of these fortunes have been won, not by doing evil, but as an incident to action which has benefited the community as a whole. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. .Ml Never before has material well-being been so widely diffused among our people." To this he added : "Of course, when the conditions have favored the growth of so much that was good, they have also favored somewhat the growth of what was evil." All this had its chief value in its absolute accuracy. The car of prog- ress is not to be stopped nor halted by the destruction of the good in order to get rid of the bad — the good is to be retained, the evil extir- pated. The President said that this object was not to be attained by doing away with corporations ; on the contrary, as these great aggregations were the natural sequences of the inevitable growth of our modern industrialism, any injudicious or violent attempt to destroy them would be likely to work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. The President's remedy for evil trusts, "publicity," was prescribed long ago in some of his public speeches. "Publicity," he says, "can do no harm to the honest corporation ; and we need not be overtender about sparing the dishonest corporation." Bad trusts were to be curbed and regulated, not crushed out, lest such striking down of active wealth should close our factories and mines, turn the wage workers idle in the streets and leave the farmer without a market. The means to the end, the President thought, lay in the authority of Congress to regulate inter-state commerce. "I believe," he said, "that monopolies, unjust discriminations, which prevent or cripple competition, fraudulent over- capitalization and other evils in trust organization and practices which injuriously affect interstate trade can be prevented" under the above named power of Congress. The President utterly rejected and flouted the suggestion that trust evils or monopolies could be restrained by repealing those parts of the tariff which were their props and stays, and yet it was proved long ago 532 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. that if the props which sustain the house be removed the house would fall to the ground. The text of the President's tariff policy was set forth by him in these words : "The stability of our economic policy must always be the prime economic need of this country. This stability should not be fossili- zation." Further, the President suggested that if Congress wished for enlightenment on the subject of tarifif "readjustment" a "Commission of experts" should be appointed to examine into and report upon the matter. With this latter exception the President's policy appeared to be that of his illustrious predecessor as outlined in the now memorable Buffalo farewell address. Of one duty the President recommended the repeal, to wit : that on anthracite coal. Apart from the recommendations regarding the Trusts and the Tariff, the most important of the many others were those respecting the reconciliation of organized labor and organized capital ; the creation of a Department of Commerce; a reciprocity treaty with Cuba; the building "at once" of the isthmian canal ; a cable to the Philippines by way of Hawaii ; the Philippine Government ; the strengthening and improvement of the army and navy nationally aided irrigation ; treat- ment of the Indians and the protection of railway employes. The general tone of the message was that of the loftiest patriotism and devotion to high ideals of statesmanship and citizenship. Early in January, 1903, the determination was reached, after careful deliberation, by the President and his advisers to accede to the claim made by Great Britain and Germany for the "open door" in the Philip- pines. This claim was made by the two Governments in order to remove the export duties in Philippine ports on certain cargoes of hemp. The determination reached by the President in the matter was PATSIOr AXD STATESitAX. sas iijc -C§~-Ci- :^::: irr-r :: :'jr rri::--: ~'r2z the pTTrers in tiv nrgota- ^^^^^s and -""anoee, ia faarmaaj with a br: -. of die ear r-->: strip was pt artiralh c- :. __ _, _ ..-oiaa ^logooo^- oco, and i- - :j gi S^jfi^^ooo ia &en of a3 tax oa i He '^ r. . " T . ^ : : ' - ; - Hi t^ trcaly it; rnliia over the ^1^ tfac 13 ''oB dns 'Ziesity aod BEE •: -BCO^ '.3 tliat in_ ^ ' - - - _ ;;r?.tgs g"f '^"^^'"^ vitfasn ,-=rT oi Colai^Ba. Tlic Inrr f "t " o€ popctBal -trt i -i Stairs ■■ 2 Eie bv trearv s". 534 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. and naval power of the United States could be used for its protection, and, if the emergency demanded it, without obtaining the consent of Colombia beforehand. The main works of the canal proper were to be begun within two years after the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, and the canal should be open for traffic within twelve years after such period of two years; but Colombia consented, in case of unforeseen delays and obstacles, to prolong the time limit twelve years. If the canal was made a sea level canal, the United States was allowed ten years more to complete the enterprise. A period of thirty-six years was therefore allowed for the construction of a sea-level waterway. Once begun, the canal would be finished with the speed which usually characterizes the execution of American enterprises. Article XXV of the treaty provided for the payment of $250,000 to Colombia in gold annually for the lease, beginning nine years after the date of ratification, and $10,000,000 in gold upon the exchange of ratifications of the treaty. The Spooner act, under which the treaty was negotiated, authorized the President to acquire for the United States, at a cost not exceeding $40,000,000, the franchises, conces- sions, rights of way and unfinished work and other property of the New Panama Canal Company. Under Section 8 of the act, authority was given for the issue of $130,000,000 2 per cent, gold bonds to meet the expenditures on the canal account. The bonds were to be issued from time to time as the money may be required for canal construction. These bonds would be open to popular subscription, but none of them would be sold to pay the $40,000,000 appropriated for the New Panama Canal Company's franchises, or the $10,000,000 appropriated for Colombia and payable to that country upon the exchange of ratifi- cations of the treaty. Fifty million dollars would therefore be paid out of the Federal Treasury within a short time to meet the immediate demands for the canal. ( MiAKi'.in, 1 i-ii, i-^ ^- ^- KoCKWuuu. GOVERNOR ROOSKVKLT IN 1900. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 537 It was impossible to forecast the future of the projected waterway, but the marvelous prosperity of the Suez Canal gave promise that the Panama venture would become increasingly important as one of the paths of the world's water borne trade. On the I St of April, Mr. Roosevelt started on a journey of 14,000 miles across the continent, visiting twenty-six States. The speeches during that trip were in keeping with the characteristic temperament of the man since his induction into politics. In Chicago : "The Monroe Doctrine has come to be accepted as a cardinal feature of our foreign policy." "This policy not only forbids us to acquiesce in territorial acquisi- tions on the American continent by European Powers, but also causes us to object to the acquirement of a control which would in its effect be equal to territorial aggrandizement." "This is why the United States has steadily believed that the con- struction of the great Isthmian Canal should be done by no foreign nation, but by ourselves." "We desired action taken so that the canal could always be used by us in time of peace and war alike, and in time of war could never be used to our detriment by any nation which was hostile to us." "After considerably more than half of a century these objects have been exactly fulfilled by the legislation and treaties of the last two years." "These treaties are among the most important that we have ever negotiated in their effects upon the future welfare of this country, and mark a memorable triumph of American diplomacy." "Both powers (referring to Venezuelan trouble) assured us in explicit terms that there was not the slightest intention on their part to violate the principles of the Monroe Doctrine." "If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at 538 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far." "To lay up a battleship, and only send it afloat at the outset of a war, with a raw crew and untried officers would be not merely a folly but a crime." "It is too late to prepare for war when war has come ; and if we only prepare sufficiently no war will ever come." In Milwaukee — "We should be false to the historic principles of our Government if zve discriminated, either by legislation or administration, either for or against a man because of either his zuealth or his poverty." "Corporations created for quasi public purposes hold their corporate powers as carriers in trust for the fairly impartial service of all the public." "The vigorous administration of the Anti-Rebate laze, and it ivill be enforced, zvill afford a remedy for certain trust evils." "Nothing of value is to be expected from ceaseless agitation for radical and extreme legislation." "You can, of course, put an end to the prosperity of the trusts by putting an end to the prosperity of the nation." "It is as foolish to ignore the good as zcilfully to blind ourselves to the evil." "We are no more against organisations of capital than against organizations of labor." "We do no man an injustice zvhen zve require him to obey the lazv." In Minneapolis — "Szvceping and violent changes in the tariff zvould be disastrous in any event, and zvould be fatal to our present zvell-being if approached on the theory that the principle of the protective tariff zvas to be aban- doned." "The general tariff policy, to zvhich, zvithout regard to changes in PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 539 detail, I believe this country is irrevocably committed, is fundamentally based upon the protection of American manufactures, American capital and American labor." "The present phenomenal prosperity has been zvon under a tariff made in accordance zvith certain fixed and definite principles." "It may be better to endure some inconvenierices and inequalities for a time than by making changes to risk causing disturbance and perhaps paralysis in the industries and business of the country." "The question of tariff revision, speaking broadly, stands wholly apart from the question of dealing with the trusts." "It is almost as necessary that our policy should be stable as that it should be wise." "We cannot afford by any freak of folly to forfeit the position to which we have triumphantly attained." "We must occupy a preponderant position in the ivaters and along the coasts in the regions south of us. "Cuba has assumed a special relation to our international political system." Speaking to the cowboys at Alliance, Nebraska, Mr. Roosevelt said that the qualities which count most for good citizenship were the honesty, courage, common sense and the capacity of the average man for hard work. He went on, further to declare : *'We must have clean and decent government; we must have good laws; we must have decent officials to make and execute the laws," and he added : 'There is no royal road to prosperity, any more than there is any royal road to good government. Good government does not come by any special genius or brilliancy ; good government comes from the average man sho\ ing the qualities which we recognize as making a good friend and a good neighbor. In St. Louis he attended the dedication ceremonies of the Expo- sition. 540 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. In Freeport, 111., he had this to say at the site of the famous debate between Abraham Lincoln and Douglass : "We meet to-day to commemorate the spot on which occurred one of those memorable scenes, in accordance with which the whole future history of nations is molded. Here were spoken the winged words that flew through immediate time, and that will fly through that por- tion of eternity recorded in the history of our race. Here was sounded the keynote of the struggle which, after convulsing the nation, made it, in fact, what it had only been in name, at once united and free. It is eminently fitting that this monument, given by the women of this city in commemoration of the great debate that here took place, should be dedicated by the men whose deeds made good the words of Abraham Lincoln and the soldiers of the Civil War. "The word was mighty, but had it not been for the word the deeds could not have taken place. But without the deeds the words would have been the idlest breath. It is forever to the honor of our nation that brought forth the statesman who, with far-sighted vision could pierce the clouds that obscured the sight of the keenest of his fellows and could see what the future inevitably held. And, moreover, that we had back of the statesman and behind him the men to whom it was given to the fight in the greatest war ever waged for the good of man- kind, for the betterment of the world. "I have literally but a moment here. I could not resist the chance that was offered me to stop and dedicate this monument, for great though we now regard Abraham Lincoln, my countrymen, the future will put him on an even higher pinnacle than we have put him. In all history I do not believe that there is to be found an orator whose speeches will last as enduringly as certain of the speeches of Lincoln. And in all history, with the sole exception of the man who founded the Republic, I do not think there will be found another statesman at once so great ^nd so single hearted in his devotion to the weal of his people. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 541 "We cannot too highly honor him. And the highest way in which we can honor him is to see that our homage is not only homage of words; that to loyalty of words we join loyalty of the heart, and that we pay honor to the memory of Abraham Lincoln by so conducting ourselves, by so carrying ourselves as citizens of this Republic, that we shall hand on undiminished to our children and our children's children the heritage we received from the men who upheld the states- manship of Lincoln in the council, and who made good the soldiership of Grant in the field." Suffice it to say, regarding that long journey, the President before he returned to Washington made 263 speeches, greeted the citizens of a majority of the States and Territories, made a large number of new acquaintances and won a host of new friends; he listened to a great shout of welcome rolling from coast to coast; he was photo- graphed with a thousand backgrounds, and he furnished the news- papers with a munificence of varied and picturesque copy. In November the Canal Treaty with Panama was signed. No one could complain of diplomatic delays in the country's dealing with the new Republic. Established under the protection of United States marines, that Republic was but a fortnight old when it entered into a treaty ceding to the United States outright the most valuable strip of its territory, for the lease of which only a few weeks before we were in negotiation with the Republic of Colombia. The negotiations with Colombia for the canal concession failed because the treaty framed at Washington required ratification at Bogota. The great advantage of the new treaty with Panama was that no reference to a home government was necessary, for the government of Panama was all here. Mr. Bunau-Varilla was, in his own person, the Republic of Panama. But in case there should be any question of the authority of a citizen of France to cede American territory, two 542 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. residents of Panama hastened to join him, and among them they had plenary powers. W^ith $io,cxx),cxx) in sight, no time was lost. With these profitable negotiations going on, it was not surprising to read that the Colombian Departments bordering on Panama were manifesting a desire to be counted in. Ten millions of dollars was considered sufficient compensation to the whole of Colombia for an invasion of her sovereignty. It was intimated at Washington that Panama was not to keep the whole douceur ; that in some way it was to be made over to the Government at Bogota, in consideration for the relinquishment of its claim to the Isthmus, and thus all parties were to be satisfied. The Panama Canal Company was well secured in any event. It was to get its $40,000,000 directly from the United States, by whomsoever the construction of the canal should be authorized. "Thus by the crea- tion of a new sovereignty lodged entirely in his hands, i\Ir. Varilla has only to turn over sovereignty, canal and all to the United States to put his company immediately in the way of realizing on its unprofitable investment. The extra $10,000,000 may be regarded as a bonus to the promoters, and a more compact Latin republic than Colombia might be distintegrated by the prospect of dividing such a prize as that." By this happy arrangement the President realized his desire to "take the matter into our own hands." We had been called on to submit to no "trifling or insincere dealings on the part of those whom the accident of possession had placed in the temporary control of the ground through which the route should pass." The President's message to the Congress in December was a lengthy paper. Without including the various detailed information to be found in the department reports, still it followed the old custom of mentioning all the prominent topics suggested by these reports, more or less extended observ-ations being made upon each. The Message begins by congratulating the country upon "tlie PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 543 amount of substantial achievement which has marked the past year, both as regards our foreign and as regards our domestic poHcy," giving first place to the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor. The column devoted to this purpose is largely defensive of the con- servative nature of the legislation, its purpose being "not to harass or assail legitimate business, but to bring about a better industrial condi- tion," under which there shall be "obedience to law and recognition of public obligation" on the part of all corporations. The idea is elabo- rated that "no man is above the law, and no man is below it," and there is expressed thankfulness on behalf of the nation that "the steps have been so successfully taken to put these principles into effect." Notice is taken of the diminution of revenues, tending to a substan- tial equality of revenue and expenditure. This is recognized as desirable, but also as imposing the duty of strict economy. Any reconstruction of the monetary system at this time is deemed imprudent, but the recommendation is renewed that the Secre- tary of the Treasury should be given the same liberty in the deposit of customs receipts as of receipts from other sources. The general desire for the revival of the mercantile marine is discussed, with the recom- mendation that a commission be formed to report upon appropriate legislation. This may be regarded as a judicious disposal of the subsidy question for the present, at least. The President's observations upon immigration — of which "we can- not have too much of the right kind and should have none at all of the wrong kind" — as well as upon the need of restricting the abuses of naturalization, met with general approval. He spoke forcibly also of the recently developed abuses in the disposal of public lands. "By various frauds and by forgeries and perjuries" thousands of acres of the public domain had been dishonestly acquired, and the President asked that the appropriation made to enable the Attorney General to prosecute offenses against the Interstate Commerce act to be extended ' 544 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. to cover these cases. "By similar means," he says, "that is, through frauds, forgeries and perjuries and by shameless briberies," the laws relating to the Postoffice Department had been notoriously violated, and the same extension was asked to cover the prosecution of these crimes also. In this connection mention was made of negotiations to include bribery within the provisions of existing extradition treaties, so that public plunderers, when detected, might not find a haven of refuge in foreign lands. A careful and clear report was given of the proceedings relating to the Alaskan boundary and the award of the Commission, a result spoken of as "satisfactory in ever>' way," and furnishing a single proof of the fairness and good will with which two friendly nations can deter- mine between themselves issues incapable of submission to a third Power. This led to the subject of the Venezuelan claims and a general consideration of the subject of arbitration as a means for the adjust- ment of international disputes. The American doctrine of the exemp- tion of private property at sea also was considered here, with a renewal of President McKinley's recommendation that negotiations be expressly authorized looking to its incorporation in the general law of nations. The President now passed over a great variety of topics — our rela- tions with Turkey and with China, the consular service, the rural free delivery, Alaska, the insular possessions, the land laws, irrigation, forestry, the cotton weevil, safety appliances, the Civil Service rules, and so forth — and thus came to the army and navy. He spoke very warmly of the organization of the army, concerning which the chief desideratum, he believed, was in the method of promotion. "The only people who are contented with a system of promotion by mere seniority are those who are contented with the triumph of medi- ocrity over excellence. On the other hand, a system which encourages PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 547 the exercise of social or political favoritism in promotions would be even worse." It should be easy to devise a method of promotion from grade to grade in which "the opinions of the higher officers of the service upon the candidates should be decisive upon the standing and promotion of the latter." When a man had rendered some conspicuous service, "it ought to be possible to reward him without at once jumping him to the grade of brigadier-general." This was well and pertinently said. The observations upon the navy were, for the most part, familiar. The reference to Panama and the isthmian canal was reserved for the close of the message, and occupied about one-fourth of its entire volume. In substance, of course, it repeated the view given by the Secretary of State at the time of the recognition of the Republic of Panama, beginning with the statement that the question of the route to be preferred, left open by the act of Congress, had been decided and the purpose of the act fulfilled. The President assumed throughout that the treaty with New Granada, securing the right of free transit across the Isthmus, "vested in the United States a substantial property right carved out of the rights of sovereignty and property which New Granada then had;" that the Government of Colombia sought to "repudiate" its obligations, but had since "ceased to own any property in the Isthmus," and that the new Republic succeeded to all the rights of the former owners and had now recognized the rights already vested in this Government. The resignation of Secretary of War Root and his succession by William H. Taft, Governor General of the Philippines, met with little opposition by the newspapers. There was but one opinion as to the wisdom regarding Mr. Taft's appointment as Civil Governor of the islands. A man of infinite tact, of the most humane and exalted views of our duty as guardian of a struggling and downtrodden people, who through 54S THEODORE ROOSEVELT. our sustaining and guiding hand are to emerge from the darkness of a long barbarism, with steadfast purpose and strong will he, accord- ing to all accounts, performed his mission with a success which was an honor to us. Governor Taft was opposed to the annexation and reten- tion of the Philippines when he was called to his trust. His spoken words on several occasions indicated that he regarded the Filipinos to be on the path to eventual self-government in the widest sense; his policy, therefore had been to govern the Philippines for the benefit of the inhabitants. His course was admirable, his triumph complete ; and perhaps the most admirable and inspiring incident of his connection with the government was his acceptance of the Chairmanship of the PhiHppine Commission in the first instance. Judge Day had the honor of first suggesting that Taft was the man for the post. President ^IcKinley accepted the suggestion, and to the lot of Secretary Root it fell to win the man. The conversation is reported thus, Secretary Root saying : ''Judge, we need you in the Philippines. You are now occupying an honorable life position on the Federal Bench, with the prospect in the near future of reaching a seat on the Supreme Court Bench, the goal of everj' lawyer's ambition who puts reputation above dollars. You have money enough to live comfortably. You can remain on the Supreme Bench for life. On the other hand, we need you in the Philip- pines. You may be prostrated and wrecked physically by the diseases incident to the climate; you may die at your post. You have the opportunity of being the saviour of the little brown men, advancing^ them centuries in civilization, and still be damned by the public for your work. You will have to resign your Circuit Judgeship; the chance of going upon the Supreme Bench may never again come to you. Which will you accept?" "I go to the Philippines." On Tune 21, 1904, the Republican National Convention was to meet PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 'A'i in Chicago to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President. Already, six months before that time, the consensus of opinion was that, unless all the Republican leaders in Washington were misinformed or not sincere, the candidate for the President would be Theodore Roosevelt. With almost one voice they declared that he would have not a single competitor for the nomination, and that the vote for him would be unanimous on the first ballot. Senator Hanna had said that he positively would not continue at the head of the National Committee during the new campaign, and that he refused to be a candidate for the Presidential nomination, popular as he might be. In the meantime the Panama discussion was to the fore. Of his attitude in the matter the President had this to say, after the contention that the United States had taken the position that no other government was to build the trans-isthmian canal : "It is plain that no nation could construct and guarantee the neu- trality of the canal with a less degree of control than was stipulated for in the Hay-Herran treaty. A refusal to grant such degree of control w-as necessarily a refusal to make any practicable treaty at all. Such refusal, therefore, squarely raised the question whether Colombia was entitled to bar the transit of the world's traffic across the Isthmus." The President contends the United States proposed a treaty not only just, but generous to Colombia. "I will not for one moment discuss the possibility of the United States committing an act of such baseness as to abandon the new Republic of Panama." "If the pending treaty with Panama should not be ratified by the Senate, this would not alter the fact that we could not go to Nica- ragua. The Congress has decided the route, and there is no alter- native under existing legislation." The revolt of Panama was justified by the President, and he pro- 550 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. claimed that "we shall, as in duty bound," keep transit across the Isthmus open, and prevent the invasion of the Isthmus. In the discussion in the House Mr. Thayer, speaking on the Panama question, asked if we were sustaining the dignity and honor of the American Republic in the affair. In answer, Mr. Grosvenor replied that the subject was worn out and "I believe that Theodore Roosevelt placed a star in the crown of his administration brighter than it had been the good fortune of any American President in the last thirty years to have established. I believe it will go down to the latest generation of our country's history as an example of what one man or one administration can do to redeem the character of the nation from the possibility of the charge of imbe- cility and lack of courage in an hour of extreme peril and excitement. I believe that if the gentleman will put his ear to the ground just now and listen to the sounds that are coming from all over the United States he will hear a sound of indorsement of Theodore Roosevelt in this particular matter of the Panama question that will unsettle his views as to the future possibility of Democratic victory in the coming election for President. "You Democrats are in a position now if you will call off a few more leaders and get rid of them to give us a whole lot of trouble in the coming summer and fall. But do not come to us with an indorsement of any man's speech, whether a Representative or a Senator, that undertakes to condemn the United States in its action in the matter of the Panama Canal. If you do there will not be enough left of you in November to make a respectable funeral procession. The brightest star in the galaxy that to-day shines upon the pathway of the candidate of the Republican party is his course in the Panama Canal question." The ratification of the treaty was still to come. This was accom- plished in the Senate February 23, the vote standing 66 to 14. The PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 551 work on the canal was to begin at once, and it would hasten the initia- tion of momentous enterprise. The United States protectorate over Panama was now a fully accom- plished fact. To quote a clever essay on the subject of the Commission : "Back of all the circuitous negotiations with Colombia and with Panama lies the indisputable fact that the sentiment of the country has determined that a canal shall be cut through the Isthmus and that the work shall be done by the United States. It is this sentiment that has supported the President and has assured the ratification of the treaty with Panama, and it is in accordance with it that Congress has placed the great undertaking substantially in the President's hands. "His earnestness and integrity of purpose in carrying this great idea into effect never have been doubted, and his sense of serious responsi- bility is shown in his selection of the Commissioners who are to be given the direction of the w^ork. They are not chosen for political or sectional influence. Theirs is not a commission to award patronage, but to execute a stupendous professional work, a work in which some of the greatest engineers and administrators of the world have already failed. Only engineers of the highest rank and attainment can grapple with the problems which the Panama route presents, and it is upon such that the President has called. "Admiral Walker, as the most conspicuous special student of this subject, rightly heads the commission. General Davis is among the foremost of military engineers, and the other Commissioners are civil engineers who already have accomplished large results in the service either of the government or of great corporations. It is probable that an abler and stronger commission could not be made up if the choice had been extended over the world. It puts the work at once upon a scientific basis and gives the country assurance that the problem will be approached with knowledge and judgment and the highest profes- 552 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. sional skill. Whether or not it is within the President's power to com- mand success, he has at least done what was possible to deserve it." Ten years was the estimate by the commission of the time necessary to complete the canal. The United States was to come into possession of all the plans and existing appliances of the New Panama Canal Company, which would be valuable so far as they went, but the com- mission made important changes in the scheme, involving much addi- tional work. The entire organization, the administration, and the sanitation of the territory, the manner of letting the contracts, the character of the labor to be employed and many other essentials were to be determined before the actual construction of the canal could be resumed at the point left off by the French. The original project of De Lesseps was for a sea-level canal from ocean to ocean. This had been always the ideal conception, but after the excavation had gone on for three or four years it was realized that it was too vast an undertaking to be carried through in one generation. As a temporary substitute, plans were prepared for a canal with locks, the summit level approximating the line of the railroad, and upon this work was going on when the original company failed in 1889, the means of supplying the summit canal with water not having been finally determined. When the new company took up the work, the necessity of accomplishing the most in the shortest time and at the least cost led to the adoption of a plan with three levels and two sets of locks on the Atlantic side. This was admitted to be only provisional, and need not be particularly described. The United States Commission decided upon a simpler and scarcely more expensive plan, a main feature of which was a great artificial lake, forming the highest reach of the canal. The distance from ocean to ocean by the Panama route is 49.09 miles. The common impression that there was a difference in sea level of the two oceans was an error ; but whereas the tide in the Carib- bean rises only about a foot, the vertical difference between high and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 553 low tide in the Bay of Panama averages twenty feet, so that the Pacific end of the canal must be protected by gates in any case. On the Atlantic side this was unnecessary. The canal, it should be said, was to be 150 feet wide at the bottom, with sloping sides and a raised embank- ment, and to have a minimum depth of 35 feet of water. De Lesseps's plan contemplated a bottom width of y2 feet and a navigable depth of 29.5 feet; but this would be manifestly inadequate for steamers of the present day. From the entrance in Colon harbor the line of the canal reached at sea level southwesterly through the marshes to a point on the Chagres River, and followed generally the line of the stream to a distance of about thirty miles from Colon, at Obispo, where it entered the Emper- ador cut, leading into the still deeper Culebra cut, where the line crossed the continental divide, the mountain ridge here having a height of nearly 340 feet. Thence the general course was along a small stream known as the Rio Grande to the Bay of Panama. It will be seen that the great factor of the problem — apart from the excavation through the mountains, which was only a question of time and money — was the disposition of the Chagres River, a mountain stream liable to violent floods. This it was purposed to control by the construction of a great dam at Bohio, 16.81 miles from Colon, This was to be a masonry dam resting on bed rock, 128 feet below sea level, converting the river into a great lake, with a surface elevation, at ordinary stages, of 85 feet above the sea. The surplus flood waters of the river would flow over a weir at some distance, and would be carried off by a waste-way into a tributary stream, re-entering the Chagres near its mouth. In this way the canal would have abundance of water for any tonnage probable in the immediate future, and it was believed that all danger from floods would be avoided. A flight of two locks at Bohio brought the canal to the summit level of the lake, which extended a distance of 13.96 miles. Thence the 554 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. canal proceeded at the same level 7.91 miles through the great cut to another flight of two locks at Pedro Miguel, which brought it down to a level of thirty feet above the sea. This stretch of the canal was but 1.68 miles to the Miraflores lock, where the Pacific level was reached, 8.73 miles from the entrance to Panama harbor. It was calculated that an average ship would require twelve hours to pass through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the former calculation it took a steamer about two months to go around. The President was eager not to delay needlessly a single hour the beginning of the work of the pick and shovel on the Isthmus. The portentous war between Russia and Japan called forth from Mr, >Roosevelt a proclamation commanding neutrality on the part of each and every citizen of the Union. The issue of that war would be to largely decide whether the new-born aspirations of Mongolians, as evidenced in the awakened spirit of Japan for a part in the world's affairs, were to prosper. The world of white men could not lightly regard the possibility of the rejuvenation of the yellow race in its teem- ing home, and the recalling to memory of the "ancient triumphs of Timour and the hordes that swept the oldest seats of civilization and ravaged the half of Europe. The course of Russia had not been of a nature to win the favor of other Caucasian nations; it had, on the contrary, estranged much sympathy which might desire to go out to a people of kindred color. And yet it was impossible, for all our neutrality, not to feel an appre- hension of what might ensue were the yellow men, the earliest awak- ened of their fellows, to triumph in the first conflict with the white race, and to raise in Asia a cry that should rouse the millions of China to contest the future with the Caucasian. In February, 1904, the country learned that Senator Hanna had PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 557 typhoid fever. Wrote one who knew him well, and who was a non- partisan : 'There are but few of his countrymen, however they may differ in their political opinions, that will not regard with sympathetic concern the serious illness of Senator Hanna. His methods as an active politi- cian have not escaped criticism, and it has been urged against him that not only within but without the realm of politics, in both which he has been so conspicuous a figure, he has unduly vaunted the sordid spirit of commercialism, subordinating greater and better political and economic principles to it. "But whatever unfavorable criticism his thought and doing have inspired, it must be recognized that Mr. Hanna is a typical American, representing in his character that personal integrity, the shrewdness, energy and enterprise which denoted the pioneers of the Republic, and which are as the cornerstone of the structure of our material prosperity. He has long been a great and, it is said, a generous employer of labor, and always a man of business — commercialism being his trade. "Mr. Hanna entered the arena of active politics at a time when the aid of a man of his determined purpose, extraordinary ability and aggressiveness was greatly needed. The Presidential contest of 1896 was fought out to its admirable conclusion, by the election of Mr. McKinley, in defense and support of national honor and honesty. The very foundations of our financial stability and integrity were being industriously sapped and ruined by the malign forces of Bryanism, marching under the flag of free and unlimited silver, the triumph of which would have meant the Mexicanization of the national currency, the virtual repudiation of a large part of the general indebtedness by the adoption of a 50-cent token of a dollar in place of the true loo-cent dollar. ' "There was no intelligent observer of the campaigns of 1896 or 1900 who did not recognize the important and efficient .service rendered to 558 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. the country by ]\Ir. Hanna in his determined assaults upon the per- nicious hosts of Bryanism. That very spirit of commerciahsm for which some of his critics have condemned him was a potent factor in the successful battle in which he was so prominent a leader on the side of national honor. "It is true that in the Senate he has urged policies which many of his countr}Tnen have regarded with disfavor; but apart from his Ship Subsidy scheme and his "stand pat" position against the proper revision of an extraordinary defective tariff law, he has discharged his Sena- torial duties with dignity, usefulness and probity. But if Mr. Hanna had done his country no other serv-ice than that of aiding so largely in the overthrow of Bryanism, his countrj-men would still confess them- selves his grateful debtors and send him sincere, earnest sympathy in his time of illness and suffering." He died peacefully on the 15th of February. The Republican ranks were to have another loss. AV'hile the party was busy preparing for the convention to be held in June, Matthew S. Quay, who had for so many years occupied a foremost place in politics, succumbed to disease. News of his death was flashed across the wires May 29th. In his Gettysburg speech on Decoration Day, Presi- dent Roosevelt, referring to the allusion of the death by the Governor of Pennsylvania, said : "Governor Pennypacker alluded to the fact that to-day Pennsyl- vania mourns its senior Senator. The regiment which Senator Quay was instrumental in raising took part in this battle of Gettysburg — the battle in which Governor Pennypacker shared. Senator Quay was not with it. He had gone with another regiment, and it is appropriate at this time to recall the fact when the term of service of that regiment expired, just before Fredericksburg, Senator Quay declined to accept the discharge, and continued as a volunteer with the army PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 559 that fought at Fredericksburg and won the medal of honor on that bloody day." The whole speech at Gettysburg was a fine effort of the President. Said he : "The place where we now are has won a double distinction. Here was fought one of the great battles of all time, and here was spoken one of the few speeches which shall last through the ages. As long as this Republic endures or its history is known, so long shall the memory of the Battle of Gettysburg likewise endure and be known ; and as long as the English tongue is understood so long shall Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg speech thrill the hearts of mankind. "The Civil War was a great war for righteousness ; a war waged for the noblest ideals, but waged also in thorough-going, practical fashion. It was one of the few wars which mean in their successful outcome, a lift toward better things for the nations of mankind. Some wars have meant the triumph of order over anarchy and licentiousness mas- querading as liberty: some wars have meant the triumph of liberty over tyranny masquerading as order; but this victorious war of ours meant the triumph of both liberty and order, the triumph of orderly liberty, the bestowal of civil rights upon the freed slaves, and at the same time the stern insistence on the supremacy of the national law throughout the length and breadth of the land. Moreover, this was one of those rare contests in which it was to the immeasurable interest of the vanquished that they should lose, while at the same time the victors acquired the precious privilege of transmitting to those who came after them as a heritage of honor forever, not only the memory of their own valiant deeds, but the memory of the deeds of those who, no less valiantly and with equal sincerity of purpose, fought against the stars in their courses. "The war left to us all. as fellow countrymen, as brothers, the right to rejoice that the Union has been restored in indestructible shape in a 560 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. country where slavery no longer mocks the boast of freedom, and also the right to rejoice with exultant pride in the courage, the self-sacrifice and the devotion alike of the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray. "He is but a poor American who, looking at this field, does not feel within himself a deeper reverence for the nation's past and a higher purpose to make the nation's future rise level to her past. Here fought the chosen sons of the North and the South, the East and the West. "The armies which on this field contended for the mastery were veteran armies, hardened by long campaigning and desperate fighting into such instruments of war as no other nation then possessed. The severity of the fighting is attested by the proportionate loss — a loss unrivaled in any battle of similar size since the close of the Napoleonic struggles ; a loss which in certain regiments was from three-fourths to four-lifths of the men engaged. "Every spot on this field has its own associations of soldierly duty nobly done, of supreme self-sacrifice freely rendered. The names of the chiefs who served in the two armies form a long honor roll ; and the enlisted men were worthy, and even more than worthy, of those who led them. Every acre of this ground has its own associations. We see where the fight thundered through and around the village of Gettysburg; where the artillery formed on the ridges; where the cav- alry fought; where the hills were attacked and defended; and where, finally, the great charge surged up the slope only to break on the summit in the bloody spray of gallant failure. "But the soldiers who won at Gettysburg, the soldiers who fought to a finish the Civil War, and thereby made their countrymen forever their debtors, have left us far more even than the memories of the war itself. They fought for four years in order that on this continent those who came after them, their children and their children's children, might enjoy a lasting peace. They took arms not to destroy, but to PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 561 save liberty ; not to overthrow, but to establish the supremacy of the law. "The crisis which they faced was to determine whether or not this people was fit for self-government and, therefore, fit for liberty. Free- dom is not a gift which can be enjoyed save by those who show them- selves worthy of it. "In this world no privilege can be permanently appropriated by men who have not the power and the will successfully to assume the responsibility of using it aright. In his recent admirable little volume on freedom and responsibility in democratic government, President Hadley, of Yale, has pointed out that the freedom which is worth anything is the freedom which means self-government and not anarchy. Freedom thus conceived is a constructive force, which enables an intelligent and good man to do better things than he could do without it ; which is in its essence the substitution of self-restraint for external restraint — the substitution of a form of restraint which promotes prog- ress for the form which retards it. "This is the right view of freedom ; but it can only be taken if there is a full recognition of the close connection between liberty and respon- sibility in every domain of human thought. It was essentially the view taken by Abraham Lincoln, and by all those who, when the Civil War broke out, realized that in a self-governing democracy those who desire to be considered fit to enjoy liberty must show that they know how to use it with moderation and justice in peace, and how to fight for it when it is jeoparded by malice domestic or foreign levy. "The lessons they taught us are lessons as applicable in our every- day lives now as in the rare times of great stress. The men who made this field forever memorable did so because they combined the power of fealty to a lofty ideal with the power of showing that fealty in hard, practical, common-sense fashion. They stood for the life of effort, not the life of ease. They had that love of country, thftt love of 562 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. justice, that love of their fellow men, without which power and resourceful efficiency but make a man a danger to his fellows. "Yet, in addition thereto, they likewise possessed the power and the efficiency: for otherwise their high purpose would have been barren of result. They knew each how to act for himself, and yet each how to act with his fellows. They learned, as all the generation of the Civil War learned, that rare indeed is the chance to do anything worth doing by one sudden and violent effort "The men who beheved that the Civil War would be ended in ninety days, the men who cried loudest 'On to Richmond!' if the}- had the right stuflF in them, speedily learned their error : and the war was actu- ally won by those who settled themselves steadfastly down to fight for three years, or for as much longer as the war might last, and who gradually grew to understand that the triumph would come, not by a single brilliant victory-, but by a hundred painful and tedious cam- paigns. "In the East and the West the columns advanced and recoiled, swayed from side to side, and again advanced ; along the coasts the black ships stood endlessly off and on before the hostile forts ; generals and admirals emerged into the light, each to face his crowded hour of success or failure; the men in front fought, the men behind supplied and pushed forward those in front, and the final victory was due to the deeds of all who played their parts well and manfully in the scores of battles, in the countless skirmishes, in march, in camp or in reserve, as commissioned officers or in the ranks — wherever and whenever duty called them. "Just so it must be for us in civil life. We can make and keep this country worthy of the men who gave their lives to save it only on con- dition that the average man among us on the whole does his duty bravely, loyally and with common sense, in whatever position life allots to him. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 563 "Exactly as in time of war courage is the cardinal virtue of the soldier, so in time of peace honest}% using the word in its deepest and broadest significance, is the essential basic virtue, without which all else avails nothing. National greatness is of slow growth. It cannot be forced, and yet be stable and enduring, for it is based fundamentally upon national character, and national character is stamped deep in a people by the lives of many generations. "The men who went into the army had to submit to discipline, had to submit to restraint through the government of the leaders they had chosen, as the price of winning. So we. the people, can preserve our libert}' and our greatness in time of peace only by ourselves exercising the virtues of honest}-, of self-restraint and of fair dealing between man and man. In all the ages of the past men have seen countries lose their liberty because their people could not restrain and order them- selves, and. therefore, forfeited the right to what tliey were unable to use with wisdom. "It was because you men of the Civil War both knew how to use liberty temperately and how to defend it at need that we and our children and our children's children shall hold you in honor forever. Here on Memorial Day, on this great battlefield, we commemorate not only the chiefs who actually won tliis battle : not only Meade, and his lieutenants, Hancock and Re)Tiolds and Howard and Sickles, and the manv others whose names flame in our annals, but also the chiefs who had made the Army of the Potomac what it was, and those who after- ward led it in the campaigns which were crowned at Appomattox ; and. furtliennore, those who made and used its sister annies : McClellan. with his ejxtraordinar)' genius for organization; Rosecrans. Buell. Thomas, the unyielding, the steadfast, and that great trio. Sherman. Sheridan, and last and greatest of all. Grant himself, the silent soldier, whose hammer-like blows finally beat down even the prowess of tlie men who fought against him. 664 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "Above all, we meet here to pay homage to the officers and enlisted men who served and fought and died, without having, as their chiefs had, the chance to write their names on the tablets of fame ; to the men who marched and fought in the ranks, who were buried in long trenches on the field of battle, who died in cots marked only by numbers in the hospitals; who, if they lived, when the war was over, went back each to his task on the farm or in the town, to do his duty in peace as he had done it in war ; to take up the threads of his working life where he had dropped them when the trumpets of the nation pealed to arms. To-day all over this land our people meet to pay reverent homage to the dead who died that the nation might live, and we pay homage also to their comrades who are still with us. "All are at one now, the sons of those who wore the blue, and the sons of those who wore the gray, and all can unite in paying respect to the memory of those who fell, each of them giving his life for his duty as he saw it, and all should be at one in learning from the deaths of these men how to live usefully while the times call for the performance of the countless necessary duties of everyday life, and how to hold ourselves ready to die nobly should the nation ever again demand of her sons the ultimate proof of loyalty." The choice of Philander Chase Knox, who had so ably filled the posi- tion of Attorney General, as Senator Quay's successor, was agreed upon on the 9th of June. After his selection Mr. Knox informed the President by telephone from his home at Valley Forge and received Mr. Roosevelt's approval of his intended change of office. The President was to spend the summer with his family at Oyster Bay as usual. His nomination for re-election was a conceded fact long before the issues on which the campaign of 1904 was to be fought to a conclusion by the contending parties were given form and sub- , stance. Mr. Roosevelt was virtually chosen by his party wxeks before the convention in Chicago, and many more than a majority of the PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 567 national delegates elected were instructed to vote for his nomination, while not one had been instructed to vote for any other nominee. It had been said that Mr. Roosevelt's political opponents proposed to contest his election upon his Presidential record — he and that record Vv-ere to be the dominating issues of the campaign. The Democrats contended that he had made mistakes. What President has not erred? Mr. Roosevelt's wisdom and judgment were only finite, and the ques- tion was not that he was wise or not in this or that official perplexity, but whether, with regard to those perplexities he worked for the general welfare of the country with sincerity and zealous patriotism. "There was the Anthracite Commission, created by the President in the absence of any single precedent to support its creation. True, but was not the Commission wisely and impartially chosen? Did it not do its work well ? Did it not bring to a desirable conclusion the most serious national crisis since the War of the Rebellion ? As to Panama, lost to or wrested from Colombia? To many it seemed not well done. But what Democratic statesman would undo it by handling Panama back to Colombia and depend upon the latter's consent for the con- struction of the canal ? The United States had to have the great, the indispensable interoceanic highway, and has it for all time." But upon the basis of this or that blunder of the past a President is not elected or rejected. The coal strike, the Panama affair, were closed incidents. The conflict in the mines was happily ended ; the canal was assured to this country forever. "The Democrats propose, it is announced, to assail the trusts, which are in restraint of trade, in their platform. So they should, but they should also recognize that the Republican President, Roosevelt, attacked and defeated the great Railroad 'Merger' Trust, and they should give him credit for doing so. Are they for or against the 'open shop' for American workingmen? President Roosevelt's 568 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. decision in that matter was a new Magna Charta, a new declaration of their inahenable independence, their right to Hve and let live. "Would they reverse his policy of upholding the gold standard as he has upheld it in the Philippines? Are they prepared to oppose his plan of army reorganization, and the reduction of it to a peace footing? Do they mean to antagonize his 'open door' in China and his insist- ence upon the autonomy of that country ? Dare they condemn him for his advocacy of a navy equal to the safe defense of the country and the maintenance of its dignity and prestige at home and abroad ? "All these policies and acts are unassailable by justice or wisdom. Had the Democrats been in power, would they not have had similar policies, done as the Republicans have done? The country is greater, stronger, more respected, more feared by the Old World nations than ever before. It has grown in stature, in power, in prosperity. How can such results be successfully assailed by any party seeking popular support ? Practical politics has little to do with the past ; it deals with the present and the future. The country is riding on the high tide of prosperity ; will a Republican or a Democratic President be most likely to cause it to rise or fall during his term ? Will work and wages con- tinue to the working millions ? Will capital still reap its profits ? Will our manufactures keep on growing; our exports increasing? These are the live questions of the campaign — the questions which will deter- mine it. "Theodore Roosevelt appeals to the imagination of his countrymen. They know him to be honest, manly, courageous, not afraid to speak the truth as he knows it, nor to do what is right as he sees it. He has proved his patriotic zeal, his ability, in peace and war. He was a brave soldier ; he was and is a good citizen, an upright public servant. Somewhat impulsive, impatient of control, it is true, but what has he done as President of the United States for the doing of which the country should not sustain him? PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 569 "The truth is that, whatever may have been the President's sins of commission or omission, he offers really few vulnerable points of attack to the adversary. Popular sentiment may not approve all he has done or left undone; but it esteems cordially this honest, blunt, impulsive American whose strenuous, courageous, many-sided life appeals to its Americanism." Thus said a non-partisan leading journal early in June. The eyes of the world were set upon Chicago, which in a few days was to set out the platform of the campaign and name the two men who were to represent the Republican party as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency. CHAPTER XXIV THE CONVEN FION OF l904_President's Address at Valley Forge, June igth—Con- vention Opens June 2ist— The Hall— First Day, Speech of Elihu Root— Second Day, The Platform — Third Day, Foreshadowing of the Vice-Preiidential Nominte— Sketch of Mr. Fai banks— The Morning of the Day— Speech of Mr. Black— Nomination of Roosevelt — The 1 nthusiasm — Mr. Beveridge's Speech — Speech of H. S. Cummings — Nomination of Senator Fairbanks — Cortelyou, Chairman — Incidents of the Nominations — The Parades — How Mr. Roosevelt Received Word of his Nomination — Congratula- tions — November to Decide. WHILE the convention of 1904 was preparing to meet in Chicago President Roosevelt, as the guest of Attorney General Knox, made a public appearance at Valley Forge, June 19, in the service in celebration of the Revolutionary camp at that historic spot. Never before had a President of the United States visited Valley Forge. Washington was only there before he became chief magistrate. The celebration was held in Washington Chapel, a temporary structure, standing in the shade of a young wood close to the spot where the winter headquarters of General Huntington's officers are said to have been. The cornerstone of the permanent cliapel was laid June 19, 1903, in the presence of a distinguished company, and the chapel was to be erected before the anniversary of 1905. The President spoke as follows : "It is a great pleasure to come here this afternoon to say a word in behalf of the project to erect a memorial chapel on this great historic site. Three weeks ago I was at the field where the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the Civil War was fought. It is a noteworthy thing that this State of Pennsylvania should have within its borders the places which marked the two turning points of our history— Gettys- 512 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. burg, which saw the high tide of the Rebellion; Valley Forge, which saw the passing of the danger point of the Revolution. There have been two great crises in our national history — two crises in which fail- ure meant the absolute breaking in sunder of the nation — one the Revolutionary War, one the Civil War. "If the men who took arms in '76 for national independence had failed, then not merely would there never have been a national growth on this continent, but the whole spirit of nationality for the younger lands of the world would have perished, still-born. And if the men of '61 had failed in the great struggle for national unity, then it would have meant that the work done by Washington and his associates might almost or quite as well have been left undone. "There would have been no point in commemorating what was done at Valley Forge, if Gettysburg had not given us the national right to commemorate it. If we were now split up into a dozen wrangling little nations, which could not show a united front to foreign aggression, then, indeed, the Declaration of Independence would read like empty sound, and the Constitution would not have been worth the paper on which it was written, save as a study for antiquarians. "There were other crises than those which culminated in the Revolu- tion and the Civil War ; there were great deeds and great men at other periods of our national history ; but there has never been any deed vital to the welfare of the nation save the two deeds of which I am speak- ing — ^the deed of the man who founded and the deed of the man who saved the republic. There have never been any men whose lives were vital to the republic save Washington and Lincoln. "I do not see how any American can think of Valley Forge without thinking of the other field, too, because they represent the same work. And think how fortunate we are as a nation, what it means to us as a people, that our young men should have as their ideals two men who, though they were conquerors, were not conquerors who won glory by PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 573 wrongdoing ; not men whose lives were spent in order to compass their own advancement, but men who Hved, and one who died, that the nation might grow steadily greater and better — the man who founded the republic, and took no glory from it himself save what was freely given him by his fellow citizens, and that only in the shape of the chance of rendering them service, and the man who afterward saved the republic without striking down liberty. "We have seen how States have been saved and liberty been stricken down. Lincoln saved the Union, and lifted the cause of liberty higher than ever. Washington created the republic ; rose by statecraft to the highest position, and used it for the w^elfare of his fellows, and only so long as they wished him to keep it. "It is a good thing that these great historic landmarks of our coun- try, Gettysburg and Valley Forge, should be preserved ; that one should commemorate a single tremendous effort, and the other what we need, on the whole, much more — much more commonly — and which is a more difficult thing — constant effort. Only men with a touch of the heroic could have lasted out that three days wrestle at Gettysburg ; only men fitted to rank with the great men of all times could have beaten back the mighty onslaugl.t of that gallant and wonderful army of Northern Virginia, whose final, supreme effort failed at the stone wall on Cemetery Hill, on that July day, now forty-one years ago. "But, after all, hard as it is to rise to the supreme height of self- sacrifice at a time of crisis that is brief ; hard as it is to make the single, great effort, it is harder yet to rise to the level of a crisis when it takes the form of a need of constant, patient, steady work, month after month, year after year; when, too, it does not end after a struggle in a glorious day of victory ; when, too, triumph is wrested bitterly away at the end. "Here at Valley Forge, Washington and his Continentals warred, not against foreign soldiery, but against themselves; against all the 574 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. appeals of our nature that are most diflicult to resist ; against discour- agement, discontent, the mean envies and jealousies and heart-burn- ings sure to arise at any time in large bodies of men, but especially when defeat and disaster have come to them; when the soldiers who carried our national flag had suffered from cold, from privation, from hardship, knowing that their foes were well housed, that things went easier for the others than they did with them ; and they conquered because they had in them the spirit that made them steadfast, not only on an occasional great day, but day after day, in a life of endeavor to do their duty well. "When two lessons such as these are both indispensable, it seems hardly worth while to dwell more on one than on the other. Yet I think as a people we need more to learn the lesson of Valley Forge than the lesson of Gettysburg. I have not the slightest doubt that this people, if the need should come, will be able to show a heroism equal to that which was shown at Gettysburg, though it may well be that they would dread a similar two years of effort, checkered with disaster, leading up to it. But the vital thing for this nation to do is steadily to cultivate the quality which Washington and those under him so pre- eminently showed during the winter in Valley Forge, steady adherence to duty in the teeth of difficulty, of discouragement and even disaster, a quality which means that a man shall do the right thing, and does it not only one day in a great crisis, but every day, day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, until success comes at the end. "Of course, all of us agree that it is a prime national need to com- memorate the men who thought and lived highly, and did and suffered for the nation. But, after all, the right way to commemorate those who led worthy lives is to try to show by our ow^n lives that we have profited by theirs. If we show that the lives of the great men of the past have been to us incitements to do well in the present, then we have paid them WILLIAM H. TAFT PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 577 the only homage that is really worthy of them. And if we treat their great deeds as matters merely for idle boasting, not as spurring us on to effort, but as excusing us from effort, then we show that we are not worthy of the sires that begot us, of the people who went before us in the history of our land. What we need as a people more than all else is the steady performance of the everyday duties of life, not through hope of reward, but because they are duties. "Many names in history shine as brightly as those of Washington and Lincoln, but with how less pure a light! I think you will find that the fundamental difference between them and almost any other men of equal note in the world's history is that when you think of our two greatest men you think inevitably not of glory, but of duty; that what they did was not for themselves, but for their fellows. They set the right ideal; and, also, they lived up to it in practical fashion. Had either of them possessed that fantastic quality of man which sets up an impossible and, perhaps, undesirable ideal, or which declines to do a creditable work of the present, because, forsooth, the implements are not such as he would choose — if either man had had that quality, his fame would have been mist ; his achievement would have crumbled into dust, and he would not have left one stroke on the book that tells of effort accomplished for the good of mankind. A man to amount to anything must be practical ; must do things — least of all, if he will not do them, must be cavil at the way in which they are done by others who go down into the arena, shedding their sweat and their blood, and greatly winning a triumph. He must have the force, the will, to accomplish results; but he must also live toward lofty things; he must be incapable of striving for aught unless it is honorable and high, unless it is something well worth striving for. "I congratulate you that it is your good fortune to be encouraged in erecting a memorial to the great man who was ecjual to the great deeds that he was called upon to perform, to the man and the men who 578 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. showed by their lives that they were indeed doers of the word, and not hearers only/' This happy address was appropriate to the time and place and befit- ting the speaker. It was a direct exhortation to patriotism of the best sort and not the intermittent species which is called forth when a stupendous danger looms before the view, but the enduring and steady kind founded on duty and followed up from conviction — the old Valley Forge patriotism. Though even a speech such as this scarcely received its meed of attention at the time, for Chicago was in the minds of the people, where political principles were to play a signal part in the next few days. The Convention opened on the 21st of June, Chicago filled with people, the hotels crowded. From a decorative point of view the Coliseum was successful. The architecture of the huge hall lent itself well to the dress given it. Flags and bunting were used in profusion, though in good taste. Foliage and palms added to the festal appear- ance of auditorium festooned with the national colors and brilliant in the light of the June day whose roses were not wanting in the general scheme of the beautifying. The crowning feature of the decorations was a painting of Senator Hanna which hung directly over the platform and occupied the most conspicuous position in the hall. A portrait of President Roosevelt v/as on the Chairman's platform. A band was stationed in a balcony near the top of the building and played as the audience filed in. The arrival of the various party leaders was attended with much interest. One of the earliest arrivals was Murat Halstead. He came in alone and took a seat back of the platform, being joined later by Congress- man Grosvenor, of Ohio. Next to them sat Congressman Hemenway, of Indiana, manager of the Fairbanks boom, and ex-Postmaster Gen- eral Charles Emory Smith., Ex-Secretary of War Alger came in with- out attracting attention. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 579 Senator Chauncey M. Depew was the first statesman to win applause from the crowd. As he came down the centre aisle to the New York delegation's section there was applause from the delegates in the vicinity and from the women in the galleries. When Elihu Root, tem- porary Chairman, came into the hall he was liberally but not enthusi- astically applauded. Speaker Cannon received a generous round of applause as he walked to his place in the Illinois delegation, but the bottled-up enthusiasm for him apparently had effervesced somewhat since his arrival here Sunday. When the tall figure of Senator Fairbanks was observed coming down the left centre aisle of the hall there was general applause and some lusty cheers, but the ovation was not prolonged. As Senator Fairbanks took his seat Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, walked over and shook hands with him. Senator Piatt came in on the arm of J. Sloat Fassett. He was cheered by the New York delegation, and some of the members of other delegations also gave him a hand. Senator Penrose received a salute from the Pennsylvania delegation when he entered. All the Pennsylvanians arose to their feet, cheered and shouted "Penrose !" as the Senator followed an usher to his seat. Then came the picturesque incident of the convention. It was the entrance of the Alaska delegation, with poles surmounted with Ameri- can eagles of the bald species. The eagles were fine specimens, and the novelty of the display awoke interest. The delegation was cheered as it went to its place. The incident of the first day of the Convention was the speech of the temporary chairman, the former Secretary of War, Elihu Root, of New York. With clearness and logical development the speech set forth the 580 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. magnificent achievement of the American people in a manner to make the patriotic heart glow with pride. Mr. Root began with a plea for party organization, as developed in this country, as necessary "to ascertain the general tenor of public judgment upon the principles to be applied in government." The people, by their choice of candidates, did not merely choose between men; "they indicate the principles and methods which they wish followed." They chose between parties, and a party was not a mere temporary association, but an organization, with a history and traditions and a record from which its action in the future might be anticipated. It was from this viewpoint that he considered the history of the country under the present administration — counting that of Roosevelt as a continua- tion of the broken term of McKinley — and set forth in detail the evi- dence of high efficiency. "We shall ask the continued confidence of the people," he said, "because the candidates we present are of proved competence and patriotism. "We shall ask it because the present policies of our government are beneficial and ought not to be set aside, and the people's business is well done and ought not to be interfered with." The sentence quoted was practically the "keynote" of this effective campaign document. It was sustained by a survey of the salient fea- tures of the past four years — the very successful administration of the national finances; the vigorous enforcement of the law against "trusts ;" the improvement of the land laws and the reclamation of arid lands; the extension of the postal service and the prosecution and punishment of unfaithful officials; the various services rendered to agriculture; more important still, the fulfilment of our promises to Cuba and the successful establishment of civil government in the Philip- pines. Under this last head was one of the very few suggestions of future policy : "None can foretell the future, but there seems no reasonable cause to PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 581 doubt that under the poHcy already effectively inaugurated the insti- tutions already implanted, and the processes already begun in the Philippine Islands, if these be not repressed and interrupted, the Phil- ippine people will follow in the footsteps of the people of Cuba." The Panama Canal, of course, Mr. Root dealt with on the basis of the fact accomplished, making only allusions to the manner in which control of the Isthmus was obtained, though with a reference to ''the weaklings whose incredulous objections would have postponed it for another generation." "We challenge judgment," he concluded, "upon this record of effective performance in legislation, in execution and in administration." But the work is not fully done." Policies "are not completely wrought out." With all this achievement abroad, "domestic questions still press continuously for solution." At this point, quite incidentally, the speaker was led to mention one question of considerable moment : "Other trusts must be regulated, and the tariff may presently receive revision, and, if so, should receive it at the hands of the friends and not the enemies of the protective system." It was a plea that served in many campaigns. It was consistent, however, with Mr. Root's entire argument, which was based on the assumption that through the Republican party, more than any other, "the moral sentiment of America finds expression," and that to it alone, therefore, should the honor and prosperity of the country be entrusted. To those who do not grant the premises, his argtunent may not be entirely convincing, but all will acknowledge its brilliancy and its adroit presentation, and his concluding tribute to "the honesty, the purity, and the courage of Theodore Roosevelt" brought to an effective climax a speech that admirably served its immediate occasion and would not fail of influence in the coming campaign. The platform of the Convention was foreshadowed by the opening speech of Mr. Root— the party was to stand upon its record and asked 683 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. a renewal of public confidence. The resolutions adopted the second day of the convention were in the main a recapitulation of the speech of the day before. The platform in full was as follows : Fifty years ago the Republican party came into existence, dedicated among other purposes to the great task of arresting the extension of human slavery. In i860 it elected its first President. During twenty- four years of the forty-four years which had elapsed since the election of Lincoln the Republican party had held complete control of the gov- ernment. For eighteen more of the forty-four years it had held partial control through the possession of one or two branches of the govern- ment, while the Democratic party during the same period had had complete control for only two years. This long tenure of power by the Republican party was not due to chance. It was a demonstration that the Republican party had com- manded the confidence of the American people for nearly two genera- tions to a degree never equalled in our history, and displayed a high 'capacity for rule and government which had been made even more con- spicuous by the incapacity and infirmity of purposes shown by its opponents. The Republican party entered upon its present period of complete supremacy in 1897. We had every right to congratulate ourselves upon the work since then accomplished, for it had added lustre even to the traditions of the party which carried the government through the storms of civil war. The country, after four years of Democratic rule, was in evil plight, oppressed with misfortune and doubtful of the future. Public credit had been lowered, the revenues were declining and the debt was grow- ing, the standard of values was threatened and uncertain, labor was unemployed, business was sunk in the depression which had succeeded the panic of 1893, hope was faint and confidence was gone. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 583 We met these unhappy conditions vigorously, effectively and at once. We replaced a Democratic tariff law, based on free trade principles and garnished with sectional protection, by a consistent protective tariff, and industry, freed from oppression and stimulated by the encourage- ment of wise laws, had expanded to a degree never before known, had conquered new markets and created a volume of exports which had surpassed imagination. Under the Dingley tariff labor had been fully employed, wages had risen and all industries had revived and pros- pered. We firmly established the gold standard, which was then menaced with destruction. Confidence returned to business, and with confidence an unexampled prosperity. For deficient revenues, supplemented by improvident issue of bonds, we gave the country an income which produced a large surplus and which enabled us only four years after the Spanish war had closed to remove over one hundred millions of annual war taxes, reduce the public debt and lower the interest charges of the government. The public credit, which had been so lowered that in time of peace a Democratic administration made large loans at extravagant rates of interest in order to pay current expenditures, rose under Republican administration to its highest point, and enabled us to borrow at 2 per cent., even in time of war. We refused to palter longer with the miseries of Cuba. We fought a quick and victorious war with Spain. We set Cuba free, governed the island for three years and then gave it to the Cuban people with order restored, with ample revenues, with education and public health established, free from debt and connected with the United States by wise provisions for our mutual interests. We organized the govern- ment of Porto Rico and its people now enjoy peace, freedom, order and prosperity. In the Philippines we suppressed insurrection, established order and 584 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. gave to life and property a security never known there before. We organized civil government, made it effective and strong in adminis- tration and conferred upon the people of those islands the largest civil liberty they have ever enjoyed. By our possession of the Philippines we were enabled to take prompt and effective action in the relief of the legations at Pekin and a decisive part in preventing the partition and preserving the integrity of China. The possession of a route for an isthmian canal, so long the dream of American statesmanship, was now an accomplished fact. The great work of connecting the Pacific and Atlantic by a canal was at last begun, and it was due to the Republican party. We passed laws which will bring the arid lands of the United States within the area of cultivation. We reorganized the army and put it in the highest state of efficiency. We passed laws for the improvement and support of the militia. We pushed forward the building of the navy, the defense and protec- tion of our honor and our interests. Our administration of the great departments of the government had been honest and efficient, and whatever wrongdoing had been dis- covered the Republican administration had not hesitated to probe the evil and bring the offenders to justice without regard to party or political ties. Laws enacted by the Republican party which the Democratic party failed to enforce, and which were intended for the protection of the public against the unjust discrimination or the illegal encroachment of vast aggregations of capital, had been fearlessly enforced by a Republican President, and new laws, insuring reasonable publicity as to the operations of great corporations and providing additional remedies for the prevention of discrimination in freight rates had been passed by a Republican Congress. In this record of achievement during the past eight years might be CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 587 read the pledges which the RepubHcan party had fulfilled. We were to continue these policies, and we declare our constant adherence to the following principles : "Protection which guards and develops our industries is a cardinal policy of the Republican party. The measure of protection should always at least equal the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad. "We insist upon the maintenance of the principles of protection, and. therefore, rates of duty should be readjusted only when conditions have so changed that the public interest demands their alteration, but this work cannot safely be committed to any other hands than those of the Republican party. "To entrust it to the Democratic party is to invite disaster. Whether, as in 1892, the Democratic party declared the protective tariff uncon- stitutional, or whether it demands tariff reform or tariff revision, its real object is always the destruction of the protective system. How- ever specious the name, the purpose is ever the same. "A Democratic tariff has always been followed by business adver- sity; a Republican tariff by business prosperity. To a Republican Congress and a Republican President this great question can be safely entrusted. When the only free trade country among the great nations agitates a return to protection, the chief protective country should not falter in maintaining it. "We have extended widely our foreign markets, and we believe in the adoption of all practicable methods for their further extension, including commercial reciprocity, wherever reciprocal arrangements can be effected consistent with the principles of protection and without injury to American agriculture, American labor or any American industry. "We believe it to be the duty of the Republican party to uphold the gold standard and the integrity and value of our national currency. 588 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The maintenance of the gold standard estabHshed by the Republican party, cannot safely be committed to the Democratic party, which resisted its adoption, and has never given any proof since that time of belief in it or fidelity to it. "While every other industry has prospered under the fostering aid of Republican legislation, American shipping engaged in foreign trade in competition with the low cost of construction, low wages and heavy subsidies of foreign governments has not for many years received from the Government of the United States adequate encouragement of any kind. We, therefore, favor legislation which will encourage and build the American merchant marine, and we cordially approve the legislation of the last Congress which created the Merchant Marine Commission to investigate and report upon this subject. "A navy powerful enough to defend the United States against any attack, to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and watch over our commerce is essential to the safety and the welfare of the American people. To maintain such a navy is the fixed policy of the Republican party. "We cordially approve the attitude of President Roosevelt and Con- gress in regard to the exclusion of Chinese labor, and promise a continuance of the Republican policy in that direction. "The Civil Service law was placed on the statute books by the Republican party, which has always sustained it, and we renew our former declarations that it shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced. "We are always mindful of the country's debt to the soldiers and sailors of the United States, and we believe in making ample provision for them and in the liberal administration of the pension laws. "We favor the peaceful settlement of international differences by arbitration. "We commend the vigorous efforts made by the administration to protect American citizens in foreign lands, and pledge ourselves to insist upon the just and equal protection of all our citizens abroad. It PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 589 is the unquestioned duty of tlie government to procure for all our citizens, without distinction, the rights of travel and sojourn in friendly countries, and we declare ourselves in favor of all proper efforts to that end. "Our great interests and our growing commerce in the Orient render the condition of China of high importance to the United States. We cordially commend the policy pursued in that direction by the adminis- tration of President IMcKinley and President Roosevelt. "We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discrimination the elective franchise in any State has been unconstitutionally limited, and, if such is the case, we demand that representation in Congress and in the electoral colleges shall be propor- tionally reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States. "Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such combinations when law- fully formed for lawful purposes are alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws and neither can be per- mitted to break them. "The great statesman and patriotic American, William McKinley, who was re-elected by the Republican party to the Presidency four years ago, was assassinated just at the threshold of his second term. The entire nation mourned his untimely death and did that justice to his great qualities of mind and character which history will confirm and repeat. "The American people w^ere fortunate in his successor, to whom they turned with a trust and confidence which have been fully justified. President Roosevelt brought to the great responsibilities thus sadly forced upon him a clear head, a brave heart, an earnest patriotism and high ideals of public duty and public service. True to the principles of the Republican party and to the policies which that party had 590 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. declared, he had also shown himself ready for every emergency, and had met new and vital questions with ability and with success. "The confidence of the people in his justice, inspired by his public career, enabled him to render personally an inestimable service to the country by bringing about a settlement of the coal strike which threat- ened such disastrous results at the opening of the winter in 1902. "Our foreign policy under his administration had not only been able, vigorous and dignified, but in the highest degree successful. The com- plicated questions which arose in Venezuela were settled in such a way by President Roosevelt that the Monroe Doctrine was signally vindi- cated and the cause of peace and arbitration greatly advanced." His prompt and vigorous action in Panama not only secured to us the canal route, but avoided foreign complications which might have been of a very serious character. He had continued the policy of President McKinley in the Orient, and our position in China, signalized by our commercial treaty with that empire, had never been so high. He secured the tribunal by which the vexed and perilous questions of the Alaskan boundary were finally settled. Whenever crimes against humanity had been perpetrated, which shocked our people, his protest had been made and our good offices been tendered, but always with due regard to international obligations. Under his guidance we were at peace with all the world, and never were we more respected or our wishes more regarded by foreign nations. Pre-eminently successful in regard to our foreign relations, he had been equally fortunate in dealing with domestic questions. The coun- try knew that the public credit and the national currency were abso- lutely safe in the hands of his administration. In the enforcement of the laws he had shown not only courage, but the wisdom which understands that to permit laws to be violated or PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 591 disregarded opens the door to anarchy, while the just enforcement of the law was the soundest conservatism. He had held firmly to the fundamental American doctrine that all men must obey the law ; that there must be no distinction between rich and poor, between strong and weak, but that justice and equal protec- tion under the law must be secured to every citizen, without regard to race, creed or condition. His administration had been throughout vigorous and honorable, high-minded and patriotic. It was commended without reservation to the considerate judgment of the American people. The third day of the Convention, however, was the one eagerly looked for. Thursday, June 23, rose clear and cool, an ideal day of the first summer month. Chicago w'as astir early, and by 9 o'clock the streets about the Coliseum were a moving mass of people. The nomination of Mr. Roosevelt was, of course, a foregone conclusion, but what of the nominee for the Vice-Presidency? On Wednesday it was conceded that "Fairbanks, of Indiana" would be the man named. The man was scarcely well known to his countrymen and his popularity was largely confined to his own section — a reserved, reticent man, with little of the personal magnetism which characterized the candidate for President, a Senator, who in the beginning of the lookout for a fitting mate for the President was first mentioned three years before in con- nection with this beginning of the 1904 campaign. Who was the man ? Charles Warren Fairbanks is another of the examples of the poor American boy who rises to fame and fortune through his own exertions. He was born on a farm near Unionville Centre, Union County, Ohio, on May 1 1, 1852. He attended the schools of the neigh- borhood, studied at home, and used every opportunity that presented to secure an education. He went as far as the local schools could .ake him, and then decided upon getting a college training. While not absolutely poor, his parents were far from being rich, and 692 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. it was a hard struggle on the farm to meet the wants of the family. Little could be spared for a college education, but young Fairbanks was determined to obtain the equipment which comes from a college train- ing, and set about overcoming the obstacles that confronted him. A neighbor lad was equally ambitious in that direction. He, too, was poor, but the two lads conceived the idea that by a combination of their forces the burden would be made easier for each. The Ohio Wesleyan College was not far from their homes, and to that institution they directed their footsteps. They rented a room jointly, their parents supplying the furniture and the necessary provisions for their sub- sistence. Young Fairbanks while on the farm had learned how to use car- penters' tools, and did odd jobs in that line to gain money. He was diligent and persistent, and soon became known as one of the hardest students in his class. He graduated in 1872. Leaving college, young Fairbanks entered upon the study of law. While thus engaged he became an attache of the Associated Press at Pittsburg and Cleveland, which enabled him to earn sufficient money to pursue his studies. Having completed his studies in the law, Mr. Fairbanks removed to Indianapolis, where he entered actively upon the practice of his profes- sion. Judge Gresham, who was at that time on the Federal Bench, was attracted to Fairbanks, and was of great service to him. The first political work that Senator Fairbanks ever did was at Judge Gresham's intigation in 1884, when he and his friends undertook to arouse a little sentiment in favor of Arthur for the Republican nomi- nation at Chicago. It did not amount to much, and he did not attract much public attention. But four years later, when Harrison was the choice of the Indiana Republicans for the Presidency, and Gresham, who in the meantime had moved to Chicago, was also a candidate, Fairbanks played a more important part. He went to the Chicago convention and was one of the three men Patriot and statesman. 593 in the Indiana delegation who voted for Gresham. Harrison was nominated and Mr. Fairbanks became his most active supporter. In 1896 he won the Indiana State Convention for McKinley. He was placed at the head of the delegation to the National Convention and was made temporary Chairman of the convention. One of President McKinley's first acts was to name Senator Fairbanks as one of the commissioners of the United States and British Joint High Commis- sion. He w-as made President of the United States Commissioners. This commission held one session at Quebec, and, later, a protracted session in Washington, and practically reached a conclusion on all the questions before the commission except the Alaska boundary question, which, within the last year, was referred to a special commission, of which ex-Secretary of War Elihu Root, Senator Lodge and ex-Senator Turner, of Washington, were members. It is related of Mr. Fairbanks that almost at the beginning of his political experience he made up his mind that he would be a United States Senator. He made it his business to study the game. He had formed relationships with railroad attorneys and banks all over the State, and through them had come into touch with the county chairmen and local political leaders everywhere. He began drawing men to him, and when Gresham left the Republican party he took all the Gresham support to himself. There was a transition stage in Indiana politics after Gresham's disappearance, and when Harrison became President and retired from active participation in political management Fair- banks forged to the front very rapidly. He was chosen as the nominee of the Republican caucus in the Indiana Legislature in 1893, but was defeated by David Turpie, a Democrat. However, he was elected to the Senate in January, 1897, to succeed Daniel N. Voorhees, a Democrat, and was re-elected last year. Mr. Fairbanks was a delegate-at-large to the convention in Phila- delphia in 1900, and as Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions reported the platform. 5&4 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. This was the man who was to be in all probability named as candi- date for the Vice-Presidency on that eventful 23d of June. By 10 o'clock on the morning of that day the great convention hall was packed, while outside the immense crowds waited and listened for the evidences of what was going on inside. The hour set for the meeting of the convention was 10 o'clock, but jnany of the delegates had been up late, and they were slow in gather- ing. The notables were not cheered on their arrival as on the previous days. The delegates seemed to realize that there would be a tax upon their power of creating enthusiasm later on, and were disposed to con- serve their energy. It was notable that when the New York delegation came in all of its members carried folded flags. Permanent Chairman Cannon was present at the appointed hour. When the Indiana delegation filed in it was noticed that Senator Fair- banks was not with it. At 10.25 Chairman Cannon's gavel fell for order, but as there was still a good deal of confusion in the hall, consequent upon the delegates taking their seats, he did not insist upon order until five minutes later, when he walked to the front of the platform and, waving his huge gavel aloft, shouted his demand for attention. When silence had been obtained- Rev. Thaddeus A. Snively was pre- sented to offer prayer. Mr. Snively read his prayer from manuscript, the vast audience maintaining such strict silence that the twittering of sparrows in the rafters was the only other sound which rivaled the clergyman's voice. The prayer lasted six minutes. Then Chairman Cannon advanced to the front of the platform again and announced that the clerk would begin the roll call of States for nominations for the office of President. "Alabama !" shouted the clerk, and Oscar R. Hundley, Chairman of Alabama's delegation, mounted a chair and said : "It is Alabama's proud and pleasurable privilege to yield to the State of New York." D ■—I d o o CJ o I— I > z o Z o < z z U !3 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 597 This declaration was greeted with cheers, which became tumultuous as ex-Governor Black arose and started for the platform. The cheer- ing was mingled with the music of the band as New York's orator threaded his way through the crowd. As he emerged from the group at the back of the platform, Chairman Cannon met him and, hand in hand, they walked to the front, while applause rang through the hall. "Three cheers for the young Abraham Lincoln !" shouted an enthu- siast in the gallery. They were given vociferously. In presenting Governor Black to the convention Chairman Cannon remarked that the New Yorker was a Republican "by nature as well as by name." As ex-Governor Black stood facing his audience, clutching a hand- kerchief which he held behind his back, the suggestion undoubtedly came to many that his being there to place in nomination Theodore Roosevelt was one of those curious turns of politics which excite both interest and wonder. It was Theodore Roosevelt who was chosen by Senator Piatt in 1898 to bring about the defeat of Black for re-nomina- tion for Governor of New York, and who accomplished it. And yet there stood Black, proud and pleased to perform the office of nominat- ing for President the man who had once checked his cherished ambition. Said Mr. Black : "We are here to inaugurate a campaign which seems already to be nearly closed. So wisely have the people sowed and watched and tended there seems little now to do but to measure up the grain. They are ranging themselves not for battle, but for harvest. In one column reaching from the Maine woods to the Puget Sound are those people and those States which have stood so long together, that when great emergencies, arise the nation turns instinctively to them. In this col- ^ umn, vast and solid, is a majority so overwhelming that the scattered squads in opposition can hardly raise another army. 698 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "The enemy have neither guns nor ammunition, and if they had they would use them on each other. Destitute of the weapons of effective warfare, the only evidence of approaching battle is in the tone and number of their bulletins. There is discord among the generals ; discord among the soldiers. Each would fight in his own way, but before assaulting his Republican adversaries he would first destroy his own comrades in the adjoining tents. Each believes the weapons chosen by the other are not only wicked but fatal to the holder. That is true. This is the only war of modern times where the boomerang has been substituted for the gun. "Whatever fatalities may occur, however, among the discordant hosts now moving on St. Louis, no harm will come this fall to the American people. There will be no opposition sufficient to raise a conflict. There will be hardly enough for competition. "There are no Democratic plans for the conduct of the fall campaign. Their zeal is chiefly centred in discussion as to what Thomas Jefferson would do if he were living. He is not living, and but few of his descendants are among the Democratic remnants of to-day. Whatever of patriotism or wisdom emanated from that distinguished man is now represented in this convention. "It is a sad day for any party when its only means of solving living issues is by guessing at the possible attitude of a statesman who is dead. This condition leaves that party always a beginner and makes every question new. The Democratic party has seldom tried a problem on its own account, and when it has its blunders have been its only monu- ments, its courage is remembered only in regret. As long as these things are recalled that party may serve as ballast, but it will never steer the ship. "When ;all the people have forgotten will dawn a golden era for this new Democracy. But the country is not ready yet to place a party in the lead whose most expressive motto is the cheerless word 'forget.' PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 599 That motto may express contrition, but it docs not inspire hope. Neither confidence nor enthusiasm will ever be aroused by any party which enters each campaign uttering the language of the mourner. "There is one fundamental plank, however, on which the two great parties are in full agreement. Both believe in the equality of men. The difference is that the Democratic party would make every man as low as the poorest, while the Republican party would make every man as high as the best. But the Democratic course will provoke no outside interference now, for the Republican motto is that of the great com- mander, 'never interrupt the enemy while he is making a mistake.' "In politics, as in other fields, the most impressive arguments spring from contrast. Never has there been a more striking example of unity than is now afforded by this assemblage. You are gathered here not as factions torn by discordant views, but, moved by one desire and intent, you have come as the chosen representatives of the most enlight- ened party in the world. "You meet not as strangers, for no men are strangers who hold the same beliefs and espouse the same cause. You may separate two bodies of water for a thousand years, but when once the barrier is removed they mingle instantly and are one. The same traditions inspire and the same purposes actuate us all. Never in our lives did these purposes stand with deeper root than now. "At least two generations have passed away since the origin of that great movement from which sprang the spirit which has been the lead- ing impulse in American politics for half a century. In that movement, which was both a creation and an example, were those great ciiaracters which endowed the Republican party at its birth with the attributes of of justice, equality and progress, which have held it to this hour in line with the highest sentiments of mankind. "From these men we have inherited the desire, and to their memor>' we owe the resolution that those great schemes of government and 600 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. huinanit}-, inspired by their patriotism and established by their blood, shall remain as the fixed and permanent emblem of their labors, and the abiding signal of the liberty and progress of the race. "There are many new names in these days, but the Republican party needs no new title. It stands now where it stood at the beginning. Memor}' alone is needed to tell the source from which the inspirations of the country flow. A drowsy memory would be as guilty now as a sleeping watchman when the enemy is astir. "The name of the Republican part}' stands over ever}- door where a righteous cause was born. Its members have gathered around every movement, no matter how weak, if inspired by high resolve. Its flag for more than fifty years has been the sign of hope on ever}^ spot where libert}' was the word. That party needs no new name or platform to designate its purposes. It is now as it has been, equipped, militant and in motion. "The problems of every age that age must solve. Great causes impose great demands, but never in any enterprise have the American people failed, and never in any crisis has the Republican party failed to express the conscience and intelligence of that people. "The public mind is awake both to its opportunities and its dangers. Nowhere in the world, in any era, did citizenship mean more than it means to-day in America. ^len of courage and sturdy character are ranging themselves together with a unanimity seldom seen. There is no excuse for groping in the dark, for the light is plain to him who will but raise his eyes. The American people believe in a man or party that has convictions, and knows why. They believe that what experi- ence has proved it is idle to resist. "A wise man is anyiool about to die. But tliere is a wisdom which, with good fortune, may guide the living and the strong. That wisdom springs from reason, observation and experience. Guided by these this thing is plain, and young men may rely upon it that the history and PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 601 purposes I have described, rising even to the essence and aspirations of patriotism, find their best concrete example in the career and doctrines of the RepubHcan party. "But not alone upon the principles of that party are its members in accord. With the same devotion which has marked their adherence to those principles, magnificent and enduring as they are, they have already singled out the man to bear their standard and to lead the way. No higher badge was ever yet conferred. But great as the honor is, the circumstances which surround it make that honor even more profound. ''You have come from even,' State and Territory in this vast domain. The countr}- and the town have vied with each other in sending here their contributions to this splendid throng. Every highway in the land is leading here and crowded with the members of that great party, which sees in this splendid city the symbol of its rise and power. Within this unexampled multitude is every rank and condition of free men, every creed and occupation. "But to-day a common purpose and desire have engaged us all, and from every nook and corner of the country rises but a single choice to fill the most exalted ofiice in the world. "He is no stranger waiting in the shade to be called suddenly into public light. The American people have seen him for many years, and always where the fight was thickest and the greatest need was felt. He has been alike conspicuous in the pursuits of peace and in the arduous stress of war. "Xo man now living will forget the spring of 98. when the .Ameri- can mind was so inflamed and American patriotism so aroused : when among all the eager citizens surging to the front as soldiers, the man whom this convention has already in its heart was among the first to hear the call and answer to his name. "Preferring peace, but not afraid of war; faithful to every private 602 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. obligation, yet first to volunteer at the sign of national peril ; a leader in civil life and yet so quick to comprehend the arts of war tliat he grew almost in a day to meet the high exactions of command. There is nothing which so tests a man as great and unexpected danger. He may pass his life amid ordinary scenes, and what he is or does but few will ever know. "But when the crash comes or the flames break out, a moment's time will single out the hero in the crowd. A flash of lightning in the night will reveal what years of daylight have not discovered to the eye. "And so the flash of the Spanish War revealed that lofty courage and devotion which the American heart so loves and which you have met again to decorate and recognize. His qualities do not need to be retold, for no man in that exalted place since Lincoln has been better known in every household in the land. "He is not conservative, if conservatism means waiting till it is too late. He is not wise, if w^isdom is to count a thing a hundred times when once will do. There is no regret so keen, in man or country, as that which follows an opportunity unembraced. "Fortune soars with high and rapid wing, and whoever brings it down must shoot with accuracy and speed. Only the man with steady eye and nerve and the courage to pull the trigger brings the largest opportunities to the ground. He does not always listen while the sages speak, but every day at nightfall beholds some record which, if not complete, has been at least pursued with conscience and intrepid resolution. He is no slender flower swaying in the wind, but that heroic fibre which is best nurtured by the mountains and the snow. He spends little time in review, for that he knows can be done by the schools. "A statesman grappling with the living problems of the hour, he gropes but little in the past. He believes in going ahead. He believes that in shaping the destinies of this great republic hope is a higher 1 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 603 impulse than regret. He believes that preparation for future triumphs is a more important duty than an inventory of past mistakes. "A profound student of history, he is to-day the greatest history maker in the world. With the instincts of the scholar, he is yet forced from the scholar's pursuits by those superb qualities which fit him to the last degree for those great world currents now rushing past with larger volume and more portentous aspect than for many years before. "The fate of nations is still decided by their wars. You may talk of orderly tribunals and learned referees; you may sing in your schools the gentle praises of the quiet life; you may strike from your books the last note of every martial anthem, and yet out in the smoke and thunder will always be the tramp of horses and the silent, rigid, upturned face. "Men may prophesy and women pray, but peace will come here to abide forever on this earth only when the dreams of childhood are the accepted charts to guide the destinies of men. Events are numberless and mighty, and no man can tell which wire runs around the world. The nation basking to-day in the quiet of contentment and repose may still be on the deadly circuit and to-morrow writhing in the toils of war. "This is the time when great figures must be kept in front. If the pleasure is great the material to resist it must be granite and iron. Whether we wish it or not, America is abroad in this world. Her interests are in every street, her name is on every tongue. Those interests, so sacred and stupendous, should be trusted only to the care of those whose power, skill and courage have been tested and approved. "And in the man whom you will choose the highest sense of every nation in the world beholds a man who typifies, as no other living American does, the spirit and the purposes of the twentieth century. He does not claim to be the Solomon of his time. There are many things he may not know, but this is sure, that above all things else he 6C4 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Stands for progress, courage and fair play, which are the SNTionyms of the American name. "There are times when great fitness is hardly less than destiny, when the elements so come together that they select the agent they will use. Events sometimes select the strongest man, as lightning goes down the highest rod. "And so it is with those events which for many months with unerr- ing sight have led you to a single name which I am chosen only to pronoimce. "Gentlemen, I nominate for President of the United States the highest Uving t}-pe of the youth, the vigor and the promise of a great country and a great age, Theodore Roosevelt, of Xew York."' And then the torrent of enthusiasm broke loose. All the delegates sprang to their feet, shouting, waving flags. The galleries took it up, the crowds outside caught the infection, for nearly half an hour the enthusiastic acclaim went on. Hats were tossed in the air, any noise at all seemed to be better than silence, and all sorts of cries filled the air, but above and over all one word rang out, and it was "Roosevelt! Roosevelt!" echoed and rolled for those thirtv- wild minutes. To give furtlier impulse to the demonstration, Chairman Cannon advanced to the front of the platform holding an American flag, faded with age and having a nimiber of holes in it. It was not until later that the explanation was made that the flag, which is the property of the Lincoln-McKinley Association, of Missouri, was first shown at the Republican Convention in Chicago in i860, and was waved at the moment Lincoln was nominated, and that it had been waved in every Republican Convention since that time at the moment the nominee for President had been annoimced. But the crowd knew from the condi- tion of the flag that it had some histon,- — a battle flag, probably, most of them thought, and when Chairman Cannon waved it aloft they went wild. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 6ot When the demonstration over the Lincoln flag had spent itself, an immense crayon portrait of President Roosevelt was brought up on the stage, and again the vast crowd worked itself up into a frenzy. Three of the sergeants-at-arms held the big picture aloft, turning it so that tb.e people in all parts of the hall might draw inspiration from its exhibition. Senator A. J. Beveridge, of Indiana, in seconding the nomination of Mr. Roosevelt, said in part : "One difference between the opposition and ourselves is this : They select their candidate for the people, and the people select our candidate for us. "This was true four years ago, when we accepted the people's judg- ment and named William McKinley, whose perfect mingling of mind and heart, of wisdom and of tenderness, won the trust and love of the nation then and makes almost holy his memory now. His power was in the people's favor, his shrine is in the people's hearts. "It is true to-day, when we again accept the people's judgment and name Theodore Roosevelt, whose sympathies are as wide as the Republic, whose courage, honesty and vision meet all emergencies, and the sum of whose qualities makes him the type of twentieth century Americanism. And the twentieth century American is nothing more than the man of '76 facing a new day with the old faith. "Theodore Roosevelt is a leader who leads ; because he carries out the settled purposes of the people. Our President's plans, when achieved, are always found to be merely the nation's will accomplished. And that is why the people will elect him. "They will elect him because they know that if he is President we will get to work and keep at work on the canal. After decades of delay, when the people want a thing done, they want it done. "They know that while he is President the flag will 'stay put' and no American advantage in the Pacific or the world be surrendered. Americans never retreat. 608 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. "While he is President no wrongdoer in the service of the govern- ment will go unwhipped of justice. Americans demand honesty and honor, vigilant and fearless. "While he is President, readjustment of tariff schedules will be made only in harmony with the principle of protection. Americans have memories. "While he is President peace with every nation will be preserved at any cost, excepting only the sacrifice of American rights ; and the vigor with which he maintains these will be itself a guarantee of peace. "The American people will elect him because, in a word, they know that he does things the people want done; does things, not merely discusses them — does things only after discussing them — but does things, and does only those things the people would have him do. This is characteristically American, for, wherever he is, the American is he who achieves." H. S. Cummings, a negro lawyer of Baltimore, made a speech seconding the nomination. The latter part of the speech is worthy of reproduction. Of the nominee he said : "With a vision unclouded by bias or prejudice, he sees through the outer clay, clad in different hues, the man within, and there beholds the image of the Divine Master indicating the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. "Criticism, bitter, severe, unreasonable, has only served to make him the more devoted to his country's welfare. "He believes that corruption and dishonesty in private life and in public office should be unearthed, exposed and punished, no matter who the guilty party may be or how high in official life he may stand. "He believes that respect for and obedience to law are the foundation upon which this government must rest and that the violation of the oath of office is little less than treason. "He believes that the Constitution of the United States and every i PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 609 amendment thereof should be rigidly enforced, and that its violation by whatever subterfuge or indefiniteness of expression should be con- demned and remedied. "He is, for these good and sufficient reasons, the man whom the people of every section and in every walk of life want for this high office. "First of all, the powerful Christian and moral sentiment of the nation demands his nomination, and every Christian and moral agency will be exercised for his election, "The laboring interest demands him. "The farmer,, as with happy heart he gathers in his bounteous harvest, stands ready to do battle for his return. The miner who, in contentment, digs away in the bowels of the earth, sees in him his salvation from oppression and encroachment. "The business man, the capitalist, to whom this Administration has brought abundant success, eagerly await his nomination. So surely as he is nominated by this convention to-day so surely will he be elected by the people in November. "With his nomination and election, what an inspiring prospect opens up before the party and the nation ! With it will come new efforts to promote a greater prosperity and a larger measure of happiness to all who dwell within our borders. "With it will come that calm and peaceful assurance, that while prosperous, happy and contented at home, a wise, safe and skilful diplomacy guards and protects our every interest throughout the civil- ized world. "And finally with it will come an advanced step toward the fulfil- ment of the great mission of the Republican party. "And that mission will not be performed until every section of our Constitution and every amendment thereof shall be respected and made effective, and until every citizen of every section, of every race and 610 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. of every religion shall proclaim in one grand chorus of that Constitu- tion, Thou art my shield and buckler.' "God grant that in our party's struggle to reach that time, it may ever have a man to place before the American people for their suffrage who has the ability, courage, honesty and aggressiveness of Theodore Roosevelt." And then Senator Fairbanks was nominated by acclamation for Vice-Presidency, and the mention of his name also evoked a great demonstration, which was a notable tribute to the Indiana Senator whose name was thus joined with Roosevelt's in the national ticket. Seconding speeches were made by Senator Depew, Senator Foraker, and Governor Pennypacker, of Pennsylvania, and all were applauded to the echo. But the rank was given to Iowa, and Senator Dolliver took the plat- form. He had this to say : "Gentlemen of the Convention : The National Republican Conven- tion, now nearly ready to adjourn, has presented to the world a moral spectacle of extraordinary interest and significance. It is a fine thing to see thousands of men, representing millions of people, fighting in the political arena for their favorite candidates, and contending valiantly for the success of contradictory principles and conflicting doctrines. Out of such a contest, with its noise and declamation, its flying ban- ners, its thunder of the captains and the shouting, the truth often secures a vindication, and the right man comes out victorious. Some- times, however, wisdom is lost in the confusion, and, more than once, we have seen the claims of leadership swallowed up in contention and strife. "We have the honor to belong to a convention whose constituency in every State and territory, and in the islands of the sea, has done its thinking by quiet firesides, undisturbed by clamor of any sort, and has PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. Cil simplified our responsibilities by the unmistakable terms of the credentials which we hold at their hands. "At intervals of four years I followed the banner of James G. Blaine through the streets of our convention cities, from Cincinnati to Alinne- apolis, and did my full share to see that nobody got any more applause than the great popular leader who had captured my enthusiasm long before I was old enough to vote. Not even his defeat served to diminish the hold which our champion had upon the hearts of those who followed him, and it has required a good deal of experience to enable them to understand the lesson of his defeat. Other conventions have met to settle the fate of rival chieftains; we met to record the judgment of the Republican millions of the United States. "They have based their opinion upon the facts of the case. They have not concluded that we have the greatest President of the United States since Washington. They know how to measure the height and depth of things better even than Professor Bryce, when he deals with the superlatives which find their way into all well-regulated banquets after midnight. They have not forgotten the grave of Lincoln, which has become a shrine for the pilgrimage of the human race. They remember still the day when the Canon of Westminster opened the doors of that venerable monument to admit the name of the silent American soldier into the household of English-spoken fame. "They have passed no vainglorious judgment upon the career of Theodore Roosevelt. They have studied it with sympathetic interest from his boyhood, as he has risen from one station of public usefulness to another, until at length, before the age of forty-five, he stands upon the highest civic eminence known among men. Their tears fell with his as he stood in the shadow of poor McKinley's death, and, as a part of his oath of office, asked the trusted counsellors who stood by the side of the fallen President to help him carry forward the work which he had left unfinished, and, while his administration deserves the tribute 612 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. which it received in this convention from the eloquent lips of our temporary Chairman, it is because he has executed in a manly way the purpose of the Republican party, and interpreted aright the aspirations of the American people. Nor can there be a doubt that if, in the years to come, he shall walk steadfastly in the same path, he will be num- bered among the great leaders of the people who have given dignity and influence to their highest office. "But the judgment of the Republican party is not only united upon its candidate ; it is unanimous also upon the fundamental principles for which it stands. I think the convention has been fortunate in harmon- izing the minor differences which unavoidably arise in a country like ours, where speech is free and where printing is free. We stand together on the proposition that the industrial system of the United States must not be undermined by a hostile partisan agitation, and that whatever changes are necessary in our laws ought to be made by the friends, or at least the acquaintances, of the protective tariff system. The things upon which we are agreed are so great, and the things about which we differ are so small, that we are able without sacrificing sincere Republican convictions anywhere, to unite as one man in defense of our common faith. "The roll call of this convention is a reminder not without its melan- choly suggestion that the veterans of Republican leadership are trans- ferring the responsibilities which they have borne to the generation born since 1850. The children of the men who laid the foundations of the Republican party are here to begin the celebration of its fiftieth anniversary. A heavy hand has been laid since we met at Philadelphia upon the men who guided the counsels of the party. Nelson Dingley, whose name is associated in immortal reputation with the industrial and commercial miracles which opened the new century, is gone, and within the borders of the same State lies all that is mortal of Thomas B. Reed, who put an end to anarchy in the American House of Representatives. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 613 Dear old Uncle Mark Hanna, whose face has looked down with the benediction of an old friend upon our deliberations, we shall see no more. Within the past few days we buried Matthew Stanley Quay in the bosom of the Commonwealth which he loved, and which in spite of the malice and calumny which pursued him while he lived, never failed in its affectionate confidence in him, while over the whole four years has hung the shadow of the national affliction which left the American people in sackcloth and ashes. "We stand at the beginning of the new era, and while the Republi- can party leans upon the counsel of its old leaders it has not hesitated to summon to the responsibilities of public life the young men who have been trained under their guidance to take up the burdens which they are ready to lay down and finish the work which comes to them as an inheritance of patriotism and duty. That is the significance of the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt, and that is the explanation of the call which has been made by the Republican party without a dissenting voice upon Charles W. Fairbanks to stand by the side of the President in the guidance and leadership of the Republican party. "While he has not sought to constrain the judgment of the conven- tion, directly or indirectly, he has kept himself free from the affectation which undervalues the duty of the second ofiice in the gift of the people, and I do not doubt that his heart has been touched by the volun- tary expression of universal good will which has already chosen him as one of the standard-bearers of the Republican party of the United States. The office has sought the man, and he will bring to the office the commanding personality of a statesman equal to any of the great responsibilities which belong to our public affairs. "A leader of the Senate, the champion of all the great policies which constitute the invincible record of the Republican party during the last ten years, his name will become a tower of strength to our cause, not only in his own State, but everywhere throughout the 614 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. country. A man of affairs, the whole business community shares the confidence which his pohtical associates have reposed in him from the beginning- of his pubHc hfe. The quiet, undemonstrative, popular opinion, which has given the Republican party a platform upon which all Republicans can stand, with no dissenting voice, here or anywhere, has long since anticipated the action of this convention is adding to the national Republican ticket the name of Senator Fairbanks, of Indiana. I take pleasure in presenting this name, honored everywhere through- out the United States, as our candidate for Vice-President," The Indiana delegation marched in a body to the Senator's hotel and gave him a rousing greeting. Hundreds of telegrams were received during the day by the Senator, and by evening Fairbanks buttons were everywhere to be seen. George B. Cortelyou was elected Chairman of the Republican National Committee at a meeting held just after the adjournment of the Convention. Before all this, however, incidents had occurred in the Coliseum building which it may not be out of place to mention. With the subsidence of the storm of applause evoked by the display of the President's picture, the New York delegation aroused the vast throng anew by starting a parade. Governor Odell led the parade, carrying one of Alaska's bald-eagle totem poles. As the New Yorkers went around the hall, the band struck up the "Star Spangled Banner" and every man and woman rose, while cheer upon cheer resounded through the hall. When the New Yorkers had returned to their seats, the band struck up "There Will be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-Night," and hundreds of the delegates and spectators began to sing the words of the song. While the singing was going on, J. Henry Smythe, of Philadelphia, a member of the Pennsylvania delegation, ran up on the platform with a megaphone in his hand. Waving a small flag with one hand, he held PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 615 the megaphone to his mouth with the other and shouted through it : "Rosey! Rosey! Rosey!" The New Yorkers and others took up the cry, a man in the gallery adding to the hilarity by shouting: "Rosey you are my posey !" At 1 1. 12 by the Coliseum clock, just twelve minutes after the first demonstration had started — for in reality it was a series of demonstra- tions linked together with cheers — the megaphone man was down and out. He was led to the rear exhausted, but revived later and gave a sort of side show in the Pennsylvania delegation. Chairman Cannon again charged to the front with the Lincoln flag to rally the hesitating forces. They responded nobly. Then California's delegation started out on a parade, carrying aloft the State banner. They were lustily cheered all along their route. Gov- ernor Odell leading the cheering for New York. No sooner had the California parade ended than the Massachusetts delegation began to march, carrying the red, white and blue umbrellas. As the Massachusetts men returned to their seats a terrific uproar was raised by members of the different delegations seizing the stan- dards of the States and waving them wildly as they stood on chairs. The standard-bearers of the States having exhausted themselves by their efforts to outshout each other. Chairman Cannon once more brought the Lincoln flag into service, this time handing it down to Governor Odell. In view of the impression which had gotten abroad that there was some feeling between Speaker Cannon and Governor Odell because of an interview, afterward repudiated, in which Mr. Cannon was made to say some harsh and ugly things about New York's Chief Magistrate, Mr. Cannon's act in passing the historic flag to Governor Odell made a big hit. Governor Odell stood in the aisle and waved the flag, receiving a big ovation. 616 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. A moment later one of the delegates from California carried a little girl in white to the stage. She was Naomi Defee, of Alpena, Mich. As she advanced to the front of the platform, waving the national emblem, the demonstration was given renewed inspiration, and when a man on the platform seized her and lifted her on to his shoulder, where all could see her, there was a wild shout. A look at the face of the delegates was sufficient to disclose what was in their minds as they deliriously mani- fested their delight over the spectacle which the child made as she sat securely on the shoulder of the big man who had picked her up. The band struck up "The Red, White and Blue," and the audience began to sing it. President Roosevelt's picture was carried on to the platform. It evoked an ovation. At 11.25 Chairman Cannon rapped for order. The sound of his gavel caused a fresh outburst of cheering, and the standards of the States and the totem poles of the Alaskans were carried to the front of the platform and stands, and with one last mighty cheer the great demonstration was brought to an end. When order had been restored, one of the secretaries read the history of the Lincoln flag, and Chairman Cannon made a short speech about it. Waving it over his head, he said : *Tt prophesied victory in i860; its life had been baptized on many a battlefield since, and it is safe in the hands of Theodore Roosevelt." Chairman Cannon then recognized Senator Beveridge, of Indiana. When the handsome young Senator walked on the platform, proud and confident of bearing, he was given a great ovation. As he stood before the cheering multitude, his face alight with the pleasure of his recep- tion, he evidently was not troubled by the thought that the assemblage in the vast Coliseum might cry "thumbs down" at him. He looked the incarnation of ambition and confidence and when his opening words rang out through the hall, so firm and strong that they were caught by all, there was fresh outbreak of cheers. 1 PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 617 His greatest hit was when he said : "No mystery was ever elected President of the United States and none ever will be." Senator Beveridge was warmly congratulated on his effort by his friends on the platform, and Congressmen Hemenway, Overstreet and Landis, of Indiana, and Murat Halstead reached over the railing of the gallery in the rear of the platform to shake hands with him. When he got back to his seat in the Indiana delegation all of the members of the delegation crowded about him to express their admiration for his effort. The last orator recognized to make a seconding speech for the Presi- dent was Harry S. Cummings, a negro lawyer of Baltimore. He made a good impression. He promised to be brief, and kept his promise, but at the same time managed to say a good many things on the negro suffrage question which appealed to his auditors. When he closed he was given a big ovation, a great part of the delegates rising in their scats to cheer him and wave flags. The roll was called, and the unanimous votes of delegations were recorded for Mr. Roosevelt without incident until the name of New Jersey was reached. New Jersey asked unanimous consent that the roll be dispensed with, and that the secretary of the convention be instructed to cast the entire vote for Mr. Roosevelt. The objection was general, and every State accepted the opportunity of casting its entire vote for the President. Pandemonium broke loose again when Speaker Cannon announced that in the Convention there were 994 votes and 994 had been cast for Roosevelt. A great picture of the President was carried about through the hall. It was followed by a banner, carried by the Oregon delega- tion, bearing the words : "First gun, Oregon, 23.04. Roosevelt, Forty per cent. Republican gain." After the nomination for Vice-President had been made, the usual 618 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. resolutions of thanks to officers of the convention, and to committees on arrangement were adopted and the great body was adjourned. President Roosevelt learned in the afternoon of his nomination. Seated on the southern veranda of the White House — a favorite resort of the President on a warm day or evening — chatting with Mrs. Roosevelt, his sister-in-law, Miss Carew, and other members of his family, the President received Mr. Loeb's important announcement. The President rose from his chair to receive the affectionate con- gratulations of those about him. He was the most unconcerned, seem- ingly of all. He chatted animatedly a few minutes with Mrs. Roosevelt, Miss Carew and Mr. Loeb, and then accompanied his secretary to the executive oflfices. Outward indications that Theodore Roosevelt was about to be chosen unanimously as the standard-bearer of his party absolutely were lacking at the White House in the morning. The President appeared at his desk at the usual hour, and began immediately the transaction of routine executive business with Secretary Loeb. The important sub- jects disposed of, he received several visitors, for whom engagements had been made. No members of the Cabinet called during the early hours of the business day. The President was kept in close touch with the situation at Chicago through the press bulletins and private messages from the convention hall, which were received over a special wire at the White House. On his return to the executive offices, after he had been informed of his nomination, President Roosevelt greeted cordially a number of newspaper men. He expressed his pleasure at receiving the warm con- gratulations of those who, in the performance of their duties, are kept constantly in touch with the President and his work. Sitting tilted back in a big arm chair at his desk, the President chatted freely and frankly with those about him. All were his personal friends, and the President realized perfectly that the little confidences PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 619 of the "executive session" as he himself termed it, would be held inviol- able. He talked and acted, not as President of the United States, not as the standard-bearer of a great political party, but as Theodore Roose- velt, the man and friend. With genial railery he chatted with one, exchanged comments on men or things with another, laughed heartily at a cartoon of himself to which his attention was drawn ; sketched in a free-hand way incidents of the convention; recalled some interesting situations, personal and political, and in conclusion, again thanked his friends for expressions of their congratulations. Aside from Secretary Loeb, Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Loomis was the first official of the administration to extend his con- gratulations. Later in the day, however, other officials called at the White House to congratulate him. During the early evening telegrams from all parts of the country poured into the White House offices by the score, each bearing its words of cheer and good wishes. As soon as the President received news of the nomination of Senator Fairbanks as the candidate for Vice-President he sent to him the following telegram : White House, Washington, June 23, 1904. Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, Chicago, 111. Permit me to extend to you and the country my hearty congratula- tions on your nomination. I need hardly add how much pleased I am personally. Theodore Roosevelt. In a short time this reply was received from Senator Fairbanks : Chicago, III., June 2Z, 1904- Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, Washington. I thank you for your congratulations. To be named by the conven- 620 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. tion as your associate in the great campaign that is before us is a distinction which I greatly appreciate. Charles W. Fairbanks. The formal resignation of Mr. Knox and the President's reply to it were made public the day after Mr. Roosevelt's nomination. The President paid a warm tribute to the services of Mr. Knox as Attorney- General and he declared that he would have refused to accept the resig- nation only that he was convinced that Mr. Knox would have an equally effective field of public service in the Senate. William H. Moody, of Massachusetts, became Attorney-General, while Paul Mor- ton, of Illinois, replaced Mr. Moody as Secretary of the Navy, and Victor H. Metcalf, of California, took the place of Mr. Cortelyou at the head of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Mr, Moody was well known as a member of the Bar in his native State, where he was District-Attorney of the Eastern District before his election to Congress. As to Mr. Morton, he was recognized as a man of ability and char- acter and his selection made a good impression. The same might be said of Mr. Metcalf, who brought to his new office sound legal training and experience. These appointments could well be regarded as non-partisan, and on a line with the commonsense regulating so many of the appointments of the President. It was expected that further changes would be made in the Cabinet in the next winter. Postmaster General Payne probably retiring after the campaign, while still other resignations would alter the personnel of the Cabinet, though no authority existed at the time upon which to base a forecast of them. It was the personality of Theodore Roosevelt which won the victory for him, the character of the man which created a popular feeling for him, with his party so powerful as to impart immense strength to his PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. 621 candidacy. An impulsive, self-poised man, not always conservative or infallible in judgment, yet honest and patriotic to the core. The nom- ination was but one step, however; the decisive one was to come in November when at the polls the whole electorate of the country, Republicans and Democrats, were to determine whether the more popular candidate was chosen at Chicago or at the Democratic Conven- tion in St. Louis. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: PRESERVATION ffcCHNOLOGlES, INC. L \ 111 Ttiomson Park Drive ) CcanberryTwp., PA 16066 , (iiPl 779-21 11 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 981 412 5