■HI <\ , 4 o A O ' - - s s «*> A v . i ' « *xmz>n:. +±j ^o' A ^ V 1 c v o N c [ ^o' ' o ^ V< V l wwW: *#*** : .«i^; a^ v ^ * ^ THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT AN ANECDOTAL BIOGRAPHY BY GEORGE WILLIAM DOUGLAS ■ i It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things. — Theodore Roosevelt. NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1907 • ' [ TONGUES! \ „. eived m bo/ Cu. if J 6*^rT Copyright, 1907 By Dodd, Mead and Company Published March, 1907 INTRODUCTORY NOTE Mr. Roosevelt is the kind of man about whom myths grow up. Even now there is a tendency to idealise him, illustrated by the remark of a discriminating lady to whom this book was read in manuscript. When I came to an instance of the Presidents unconven- tional way of doing things she said: "I would not put that in." "Why not?" I asked. "Because I don't like to think that the man who is President of the United States ever did things that way." "Why not," I persisted, "if that is the way he did things?" "Oh, I know he is just like that," she ex- plained, "but I don't think I'd leave that in. I don't like it." Unless a record of the true man is made, here vi INTRODUCTORY NOTE and now, while we know what manner of man he is, those who come after will know only the ideal Roosevelt ; and in a hundred years or so the men in the libraries will be rummaging over the documents to discover what sort of a man the "real Roosevelt" was. The intimate contemporary history which is now making in newspapers and magazines and in the gos- sip of acquaintances is recorded, when recorded at all, in such a perishable manner that it will have crumbled into dust by the time the his- torian would give all he is worth to get hold of it. If this book has any excuse it lies in a de- sire to preserve a portrait of the real man, the man whom his contemporaries know, and to show him as he behaves every day. It may be charged that it is a flattering portrait, as little notice has been taken of the criticisms of partisan opponents or of the unpleasant tales told by them. These have been deliber- ately omitted, for it was not my purpose to perpetuate animosities. Some of the things INTRODUCTORY NOTE vii recorded may seem trivial, but they all have value in creating the picture. It is the multi- tude of brush marks, none of them significant in itself, that makes a portrait on canvas. I am persuaded that such a contemporary por- trait as is here presented will be useful to those alive to-day, and will be of inestimable interest to those who come after. It is only fair to say that Mr. Roosevelt himself is in no way responsible for what appears, save as he has done the things which observers have noted. The book has grown out of the material which I began to gather several years ago for my own information. As it accumulated, it oc- curred to me that if the multitude of incidents and remarks and impressions could be properly arranged they would make such a picture of the man as could be obtained in no other way. My task has been little more than that of an editor who arranges the matter at his hand. I have attempted to classify it in such a way as to make, so far as possible, a connected narra- tive ; but from the nature of the case the re- viii INTRODUCTORY NOTE suit is not what it would have been had I at- tempted to do more than work a series of anec- dotes into a mosaic of narrative. Those who wish more complete information concerning Mr. Roosevelt's views of the great public questions with the settlement of which he is connected will find it in his published addresses and messages. The wisdom of his policies, as they must be tested by time, is a matter for future historians to discuss. I have been at considerable pains to verify the tales that have been told and have had correspondence or personal interviews with those acquainted with the facts in nearly every case. Among those to whom my thanks are due for their assistance in this respect are General Charles F. Manderson, Senator Henry Heitfeld, H. H. Kohlsatt, Esq., Judge Alton B. Parker, Baron Speck von Sternburg, the Honourable St. Clair McKelway, the Hon- ourable S. N. D. North, the Honourable Rockwood Hoar, the Honourable Timothy L. Woodruff, Justin McCarthy, Jr., Esq., Sena- INTRODUCTORY NOTE IX tor P. C. Knox, Representatives William P. Hepburn, John F. Lacey, and William C. Adamson, the Honourable Jotham P. Allds, Colonel William A. Gaston, Judge O. J. Semines, Colonel J. R. Nutting, William W. Sewall, J. A. Ferris, Daniel Velsor, Ralph Smith, and many others. January 21, 1907. CONTENTS I The National Max 1 II The Developing Man 17 III The Man of Ambitions 36 IY The Western Man 51 V The Strenuous Man 79 VI The Human Man 116 VII The Democratic Man 142 VIII The Literary Man 170 IX The Military Man 185 X The Political Man 207 XI The Political Man (concluded) 238 He masters whose spirit masters — he tastes sweetest who results sweetest in the long run. The blood of the brawn beloved of time is un- constraint. In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners, engineering, an appropriate native grand-opera, shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original practical example. ***** Talk as you like, he only suits These States whose manners favour the audacity and sublime turbu- lence of The States. — Walt Whitman, Chants Democratic. THE NATIONAL MAN Theodore Roosevelt is a force : his enemies say an erratic and irresponsible force ; his friends insist that he is a beneficent and in- spiring influence. All, friends and enemies alike, agree that he is a force to be reckoned with. It is too early yet to decide on the exact nature of his influence on his times. We are too near him and all other contemporaries to judge them accurately. But it is evident to all observers that Mr. Roosevelt is very human — and very fallible, as all men are — but withal, sincere and honest. As he has grown with the passing years the opinion of him held by his contemporaries has changed in many ways. For instance, one public commentator wrote of him in June, 1900, that "Roosevelt is no hero or genius, but just a fine, brave, hearty, honest, manly 2 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT fellow, trained in many schools of life, abso- lutely democratic, absolutely American, ambi- tious with a high ambition and having a singular gift for inspiring a personal liking or disliking, as the case may be. There is nothing of the dummy or wax figure about him. You may swear by him or you may swear at him, but you can't be indifferent about him. He owes almost as much to his enemies as to his friends. Newspapers have tried to write him down. He has been sneered at, jumped upon, anathematised. He never held any but subordinate offices until he was Governor, and yet by perseverance, by indus- try, by main pluck and essential energy, he became a leading figure in the public eye, a man to be reckoned with. Reformers and ma- chinists have had their quarrels with him. Mugwump and unregenerate fists have been shaken in his face. All the time he has been pegging away at something worth doing, and he has tried to do it well, whether he was writ- ing books, or legislating at Albany, or cow- THE NATIONAL MAN 3 punching, hunting mountain sheep, or spoils- men, or Spaniards." In July, 1904, the same commentator wrote: "If we were rewriting [the estimate just quoted] in the light of his subsequent career, we think we should give him credit for the pos- session of somewhat more of that indefinable quality called genius." Indeed, many men who tried to account for him began to suggest, in 1904, that he was more than an ordinary man. If he should be called great by future generations, they will doubtless say that his greatness was due to his grasp of the basic facts of life and to his in- sistence on the fundamental virtues of con- duct: namely, that men must be honest and decent, that women must still be proud of their motherhood, and that both men and women should be patriotic, that is, should possess that virtue which conserves the organised state as the maternal instinct conserves the organised family. His strength, it has always seemed to me, resides in the fact that he stands with his 4 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT feet firmly planted on mother earth, and is not ashamed of the old-fashioned instincts and emotions. Of course, he inherited much from his an- cestors, both of intellectual qualities and of political traditions. He was born just be- fore the Civil War, of a Northern father and a Southern mother, each sympathising deeply with his or her native section of the country. His father, after whom he was named, was a public-spirited New York merchant and banker, who found time outside of his business to interest himself in the work of making good citizens of the children of the poor. During the war he was influential in securing the ar- rangement for the payment of the soldiers in such a way as to provide for their families at home. After the war, when President Hayes was reforming the abuses in the New York custom-house, and was saying that the whole nation was interested in the businesslike con- duct of the collector's office, he selected Theo- dore Roosevelt, Sr., as the ideal business man THE NATIONAL MAN 5 for collector. He believed that Mr. Roosevelt would transform the office from a political clearing-house for the New York "machine" into a place for the honest collection of the revenues. Senator Roscoe Colliding, however, succeeded in preventing the confirmation of the nomination by the Senate. Nicholas J. Roosevelt, who, in 1811, built and navigated the New Orleans, the first steam- boat to go down the Mississippi River from Pittsburg to New Orleans, was the great-uncle of the present Theodore Roosevelt. This great-uncle shares with Robert Fulton the honour of developing the steamboat. The Roosevelt family, originally Dutch, is one of the oldest in the country. The first Roosevelt came here in 1652, and his descend- ants married the descendants of other immi- grants till the family became typically Ameri- can. Of this matter the President once wrote to one of his correspondents : "I myself repre- sent an instance of the fusion of several dif- ferent race stocks, my blood being most 6 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT largely Lowland Scotch ; next to that Dutch, with a strain of French Huguenot and of Gaelic, my ancestors having been here for the most part for two centuries. My Dutch fore- bears kept their blood practically unmixed until the days of my grandfather — that is, for a century and a half; and his father was the first in the line to use English as the invariable home tongue." Mr. Roosevelt's mother was Martha Bullock, of Roswell, Georgia, whose family has been identified with the interests of the South for generations. His mother's brother was Cap- tain James D. Bullock, who enlisted in the navy in 1840 and rose to the rank of lieuten- ant. He resigned to enter the mercantile ser- vice with the Cromwell Steamship Company, running a line of boats between New York and New Orleans. During the greater part of the Civil War he was one of the most trusted finan- cial agents of the Confederacy in Europe. When he died, in January, 1901, it was said of him by an acquaintance : "Self -reverence, self- THE NATIONAL MAN 7 knowledge, self-control, were the three pillars which supported his life, and as an object- lesson in morals and devotion to duty his life cannot be too often reviewed, nor can his ex- ample be too closely copied by the youth." Mr. Roosevelt's own opinion of his kinsman was expressed in a letter acknowledging the receipt of a newspaper containing an account of his death. He wrote : The Vice-President's Chamber, Washington, D. C. Oyster Bay, N. Y., May 31, 1901. S. A. Cunningham, Esq., Nashville, Tenn. My dear Mr. Cunningham: I thank you very much for sending me the copies of the Confederate Veteran. My uncle, Captain Bul- lock, always struck me as the nearest approach to Colonel Newcome of any man I ever met in actual life. With great regard, sincerely yours, Theodore Roosevelt. At the time of his visit to his mother's home in Roswell, on October 20, 1905, he re- ferred to this uncle again in an address to 8 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the townsfolk who had gathered to greet him. He spoke to them as "friends whom it is hard for me not to call my neighbours, for I feel as if you were." Then he described how his mother had made him familiar with the place and its history and continued : "It has been my very great fortune to have the right to claim that my blood is half South- ern and half Northern, and I would deny the right of any man here to feel greater pride in the deeds of every Southerner than I feel. Of the children, the brothers and sisters of my mother who were born and brought up in that house on the hill there, my two uncles after- ward entered the Confederate service and served in the Confederate navy. One, the younger man, served on the Alabama as the youngest officer aboard her. He was captain of one of her broadside thirty-two pounders in her final fight, and when at the very end the Alabama was sinking and the Kearsarge passed under stern and came along the side that had not been engaged hitherto, my uncle, THE NATIONAL MAN 9 Irving Bullock, shifted his gun from one side to the other and fired the last two shots fired from the Alabama. James Dunwoody Bul- lock was an admiral in the Confederate ser- vice. Of all the people whom I have ever met he was the one that came nearest to that beau- tiful creation of Thackeray — Colonel New- come. Men and women, don't you think that I have the ancestral right to claim a proud kinship with those who showed their devotion to duty as they saw the duty, whether they wore the grey or whether they wore the blue? All Americans who are worthy the name feel an equal pride in the valour of those who fought on one side or the other, provided only that each did with all his strength and soul and mind his duty as it was given him to see his duty." On this same trip to the South the President's train stopped at Charlotte, North Carolina. A committee of ladies, headed by Mrs. T. J. Jackson, the widow of "Stonewall" Jackson, was present at the station to greet Mrs. Roose- 10 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT velt. When the President was introduced to Mrs. Jackson he exclaimed: "What! The widow of the great Stonewall Jackson? Why, it is worth the whole trip down here to have a chance to shake your hand." He reminded her that he had appointed her grandson, Jackson Christian, to a cadetship in the Military Academy at West Point, re- marking as he did so, "He is a mighty fine fellow, Mrs. Jackson, a mighty fine fellow." And Mrs. Jackson, in speaking of the matter later, was as enthusiastic in referring to the President as he had been in speaking of her husband. The sympathy of the South with him was shown still further at this time when the Presi- dent's train reached Mobile, Alabama. It is estimated that forty thousand people gath- ered in Bienville Square to greet him. In their behalf Judge Oliver J. Semmes, son of the Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes, presented him with a souvenir badge. THE NATIONAL MAN 11 "We, proud citizens of a proud Republic," said Judge Semmes, "feel and believe that you, as the head of that Republic, will by your broad views and judicious actions so unite in bonds of friendship all sections of our beloved country that Americans will advance till they become the foremost of nations and may with- out misgiving defy a world in arms. Should this awful necessity ever arise, then the sons of the South will be found a mighty armed camp. Take this little reminder, and when you look upon it amid your arduous and mul- tifarious duties, feel and know that the people of Mobile have buried the past and look with- out fear to the future, recognising that you, as is shown by your later utterances, are President of the North and South, our whole country." The Confederate veterans in the city had ob- jected to taking any part in the welcome to Mr. Roosevelt. The Judge had urged that they forget the past and unite with the other citizens. 12 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "If any one among you have cause to feel any bitterness I ought to be among that class," said he, "as the people of the North and the Northern press commonly spoke of my father as a pirate." Mr. Roosevelt's mother was an enthusiastic Southern woman, who was as devoted to the Southern cause as her brothers had been. Not long after the close of the war she visited her old home, and was welcomed by her friends in Savannah, who were aware of the diffi- cult position which she had occupied in the North during the conflict. There is a story current in Savannah about the way she dis- played the Confederate flag in New York un- der trying circumstances. It is said that she told it herself while on her visit South. The story runs that just before the surrender at Appomattox the city of New York was aflame with patriotism, which found expression in de- nunciation of the South for prolonging the conflict. Ordinary Southern sympathisers took care that their opinions should not be THE NATIONAL MAN 13 expressed freely in any promiscuous com- pany. Just about that time Mr. Roosevelt decided that his house should be decorated with flags in honour of some social function of importance. The Stars and Stripes were to be hung from every window. When Mrs. Roosevelt's room was reached she refused to allow the flag to be displayed there. As the decorators left the room she got from a drawer in her bureau the Stars and Bars of the Con- federacy and flung it to the breeze from her window. People passing on the street at once stopped to look at the unusual spectacle, and a crowd soon gathered. It attracted the atten- tion of her husband, and he went to the door to see what had occasioned it. Then for the first time he discovered what his wife had done. He went to her room and made an unsuccess- ful attempt to persuade her to take in the flag. They say that the crowd threatened the house, but that Mr. Roosevelt persuaded it to respect his wife's feelings and to disperse. Thus the present Theodore Roosevelt has in- 14 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT herited an appreciation of the feelings of both sections of the country. This has made it easier for him to take a broadly national view than it would have been had he come from stock entirely Northern or wholly Southern. He frequently speaks of his love for the South, and when he was younger than he is now he resented an attack upon the honesty of motive of the Southerners. They tell a story in Texas of how he rebuked a noisy traducer of the South in Washing- ton, soon after President Harrison appointed him to the Civil Service Commission. He was in a company of men one evening when one of them referred contemptuously to the South- ern people as traitors. Mr. Roosevelt remon- strated mildly. But the man insisted that the people in the South were traitors. Again Mr. Roosevelt protested, saying that his mother was a Southern woman and that many of his kins- men had engaged in the war on the Southern side, and that under the circumstances the word "traitor" was offensive to him. The man THE NATIONAL MAN 15 failed to note the expression on the young Civil Service Commissioner's face, and used the offending word a third time. Thereupon, ac- cording to the story as it is told, Mr. Roose- velt's right fist shot out straight from the shoulder, and hit the jaw of the other man with terrific force. He talked no more about traitors that night in Mr. Roosevelt's pres- ence. His inheritance from his mother led him to defend the South. His inheritance from his father is responsible for the high opinion in which he has always held the soldiers who fought for the preservation of the Union. And it was his Northern heritage, together with his contempt for self-seeking politicians, which stirred him to write a letter of protest, in 1895, against the selection of what he re- garded as an unworthy man to speak at a Memorial Day celebration in that year. In the course of that letter he said : "By the way, will you permit me to ask how it happened that Senator was invited to deliver the 16 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT address before the G. A. R., here in New York on Commemoration Day ? Senator 's con- duct in the Legislature has been such as to make those of us who are interested in decent politics feel that his figuring as an orator is a deep discredit to any organisation, and that an organisation such as the G. A. R., of which all good citizens are proud, should be particu- larly careful about the guests whom it honours." The antebellum marriage of a Northerner and a Southerner produced a son with national sympathies reaching from Canada to the Gulf. II THE DEVELOPING MAN When Mr. Roosevelt was a small boy in short trousers he used to play tag in Madison Square, New York, which was not far from his home in East Twentieth Street. It was then a much more suitable place for a small boy to play in than it is now. On the east side of the square stood a Presbyterian church. The sexton, while airing the building one Saturday, noticed a boy — it was the youthful Roosevelt — peering curiously in at the door, but mak- ing no move to enter. The sexton invited the boy inside. "No, thank you," the little fellow replied. Then he added confidentially, "I know what you've got in there." "I haven't anything that little boys may not see. You'd better come in and look around." "I'd rather not," said he, after casting a 18 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT sweeping and somewhat apprehensive glance around the pews and galleries. Then he ran off to his play again. The open church seemed to fascinate him, however, and he returned to it again and again. When he went home his mother asked him about his play, and he told her that the sexton wanted him to go into the church, but that he kept out. "Why didn't you go in?" she asked. "It is a church, it is true, but there is no harm in en- tering it quietly and looking around." He seemed reluctant to explain, but after a little urging he shyly confessed that he was afraid lest the "zeal" should jump out at him from behind a pew or from the gallery or some other place of concealment. "The zeal? What do you mean by the zeal?" his mother inquired. "Why," the boy explained, "I suppose it is some big animal like a dragon or an alli- gator. I went there to church last Sunday with Uncle R., and I heard the minister read THE DEVELOPING MAN 19 from the Bible about the zeal, and it made me afraid." Mrs. Roosevelt got the Concordance and read the texts containing the word "zeal," one after another. Suddenly the child's eyes grew big and his voice excited, as he ex- claimed : "That's it — the last you read." It was from the Psalms : "For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up." His youthful amusements were not confined to playing in Madison Square or to dodging "zeal." Indeed, when he discovered what zeal meant he seems to have decided that he be- lieved in it, and, that he might not be charged with plagiarising the Scriptures, he decided to call it strenuosity. According to a Philadel- phian who went across the ocean with him as a boy in 1869, however zealous he might be, he did not believe in wasting his energies. "One of the first things I remember about the voyage," says the Philadelphian, "was that after the ship got out of sight of land Theo- 20 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT dore remarked that there ought to be a good many fish in the water. Then an idea sud- denly struck him, and turning to me, he said : " 'Go get a small rope somewhere and we'll play a fishing game.' "I went after the line, and while I was gone he thought out all the details of the game, and had climbed on top of a coiled cable, for he was to be the fisherman. " 'Now,' said he, as I handed him the line, 'all you fellows lie down flat on the deck here, and make believe swim around like fishes. I'll throw one end of the line down to you, and the first fellow that catches hold of it is a fish that has bit my hook. He must pull as hard as he can, and if he pulls me down off this coil of rope, why then he will be the fisherman and I will be the fish. But if he lets go, or I pull him up here off the deck, why I will still be the fisherman. The game is to see how many fish each of us can land up here. The one that catches the most fish wins.' "The rest of us lay down flat on our THE DEVELOPING MAN 21 stomachs, and made believe swim, and Theo- dore, standing above us on the coiled cable, threw down one end of the rope. My brother was the first fish to bite. Then began a mighty struggle. It would seem to be much easier for the fish to pull the fisherman down than for the fisherman to haul up the dead weight of a heavy boy lying flat on the deck below him. My brother held on to the rope with both hands and wrapped his legs around it grape- vine fashion. Theodore braced his feet on the coiled cable, stiffened his back and held on, but did not pull much. Of course the fish pulled hard. He rolled over on his back, pull- ing and twisting, just as Theodore hoped he would do. You see, all this time, while my brother was using his strength, Theodore simply stood still and let him tire himself out. Before long the fish was so out of breath that he could not pull any longer. Besides, the rope cut his hands and made them sore. Then the fisherman began slowly and steadily to pull on the line, and in a very few minutes he 22 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT had ray brother up beside him on the coil of cable." A large part of his youth was spent at Oyster Bay, where his permanent home now is, and the people there have many recollections of his active boyhood. It would be difficult for one to decide, perhaps even for the people them- selves to tell, how much of their remembrance of his doings there is affected by their desire to recall something which gave promise of fu- ture achievement. At any rate, the tales they tell disclose characteristics of perseverance and determination, which must have mani- fested themselves early. An incident described by Daniel Velsor is typical of many. Mr. Velsor was working on the bar that sep- arates Oyster Bay harbor from Long Island Sound one day in 1873, when young Roose- velt, in a blue swimming suit, with the arms cut off at the shoulders, came up along the beach in a small boat. The wind was blow- ing and the waves were smacking against the small craft, sending the spray all over the boy. THE DEVELOPING MAN 23 He asked Mr. Velsor to help him across the bar into the sound, as he wished to row around Center Island. Mr. Velsor advised him not to attempt to go outside, as the sound was rough and a storm was threatening. "And if anything should happen to you out there, I should be to blame if I helped you," he concluded. "All right," the boy replied, "if you won't help me I'll have to do it myself." He ran the bow of the boat up on the sand, jumped out, and began to haul it along, dig- ging his bare feet into the ground to get a better purchase. At each pull the boat would move a foot or two. When the boat was about half way across Mr. Velsor decided that it would be better to save the boy's strength, as he seemed determined to go anyway, so he helped him for the rest of the way. Young Roosevelt then tried to launch the boat, but the waves were so high that he was spilled out the first time, and both boat and boy were driven back ashore. The second at- 24 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT tempt was no more successful than the first, but the third time he succeeded. The boat went out of sight in the trough of the waves, reappearing on their crest, but the boy man- aged to keep it head on. Mr. Velsor watched him till he was convinced that young Roosevelt was able to take care of himself. Then he went back to his work. The boy was not drowned, but by all the rules of amateur seamanship he ought to have been. Besides boating at Oyster Bay, he studied botany in the fields and hunted such small game as was to be found there. He began hunting larger game in these days, too. He has written that his "first attempt at big-game shooting when a boy was 'jacking' for deer in the Adirondacks on a pond or small lake sur- rounded by the grand Northern forests of birch, beech, pine, spruce and fir. I killed a spike buck, and while I have never been will- ing to kill another in this manner, I cannot say that I regret having once had the experience. The ride over the glossy, black water, the THE DEVELOPING MAN 25 witchcraft of such silent progress through the mystery of the night cannot but impress one." It was the kind of an experience to ap- peal to an imaginative youth. He survived many other adventures, and went to college, entering Harvard University in the class of 1880, not a very strong youth, but with an unusual amount of energy. We hear of him, in 1877, as one of twelve mem- bers of the sophomore class "prominently men- tioned," as the politicians say, for the editorial board of the Harvard Advocate. A commit- tee was appointed to inquire into the fitness of the men for the places, that the board might vote with intelligence. When the editors came together to hear the reports, the man who had looked into the qualifications of young Roose- velt said: "I cannot see that he is the kind of man we want. Although I find that he is a thoroughly good fellow and much liked by his classmates, I do not believe that he has much literary in- terest. He spends his spare time clipping off 26 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT pieces of rock and examining strata, catching butterflies and bugs, and would, I think, be better suited for a scientific society than for us." The board sustained this view, and instead of Roosevelt, elected a man who has since won considerable fame as a writer of fiction. Later in his course, however, Mr. Roosevelt was elected to the board, but did little editorial work. Further evidence of his early bent comes from Mr. William W. Sewall, of Island Falls, Maine, who later went West with him to his ranch on the Little Missouri River, in Dakota Territory. While still a student he was sent into the Maine woods in charge of Sewall, who was told that "he was a young college student, out of health, but gritty and headstrong." Sewall says that in those days the youth always insisted that "he was going to be a naturalist." The reason for this purpose is doubtless found in his physical condition at the time. He sought some occupation that would not THE DEVELOPING MAN 27 compel him to remain indoors, for he had de- termined to get a strong body, if that were possible. "When I was a youngster," he said once, "I was pigeon-chested and asthmatic. Exercise has knocked all that out of me — exercise and being in the open air." His hunting books show the results of his observation of nature about him. They are not mere tales of hunting. One might call them the diversions of a naturalist, so keen a love for the things of nature do they dis- close. It is not the ordinary hunter or ranch- man who would interrupt his story of cattle and game to write such a passage as this about song birds : The meadow-lark is a singer of a higher order [than the plains skylark], deserving to rank with the best. Its song has length, va- riety, power, and rich melody ; and there is in it sometimes a cadence of wild sadness inex- pressibly touching. Yet I cannot say that either song would appeal to others as it appeals to me, for to me it comes forever laden with 28 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT a hundred memories and associations ; with the sight of dim hills reddening in the dawn, with the breath of the cold morning winds blowing across lonely plains, with the scent of flowers on the sunlit prairie, with the motion of fiery horses, with all the strong thrill of eager and buoyant life. I doubt if any man can judge dispassionately of the bird songs of his own country ; he cannot disassociate them from the sights and sounds of the land that is so dear to him. And this brief quotation from "A Trip on the Prairie" shows that he saw more than game on his hunting trips : Getting up and loosing Manitou [his horse] to let him feed round where he wished and slake his thirst, I took the rifle, strolled up the creek valley a short distance and turned off out on the prairie. Nothing was in sight in the way of game, but overhead a skylark was singing, soaring above me so high that I could not make out his form in the grey morn- ing light. I listened for some time, and the music never ceased for a moment, coming down clear, sweet, and tender from the air above. Soon the strains of another answered from a THE DEVELOPING MAN 29 little distance off, and the two kept soaring and singing as long as I stayed to listen ; and when I walked away I could still hear their notes behind me. Only a naturalist would note the small plains animals as he has done in one of the chapters in "The Wilderness Hunter." He writes that the ordinary cowboy or hunter pays little heed to the smaller birds or to many of the smaller mammals. He continues : The prairie-dogs he cannot help noticing. With the big pack-rats also he is well ac- quainted, for they are handsome, with soft grey fur, large eyes, and bushy tails ; and, moreover, no one can avoid remarking their extraordinary habits of carrying to their bur- rows everything bright, useless and portable, from an empty cartridge-case to a skinning knife. But he knows nothing of mice, shrews, pocket gophers, or weasels ; and but little even of some large mammals with very marked characteristics. Thus I have met but one or two plainsmen who knew anything of the curi- ous plains ferret, that rather rare weasel-like animal, which plays the same part on the plains that the mink does by the edges of all our 30 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT streams and brooks, and the tree-loving sable in the cold Northern forests. His e} T es were continually alert for the un- usual when on hunting excursions. Once while in the Selkirks after caribou with a hunter and an Indian guide he amused him- self while resting after lunch by getting a specimen of rare animal life for a friend. He says: I was sitting on a great stone by the edge of the brook, idly gazing at a water-wren which had come up from a short flight — I can call it nothing else — underneath the water, and was singing sweetly from a spray-splashed log. Suddenly a small animal swam across the little pool at my feet. It was less in size than a mouse, and as it paddled rapidly underneath the water its body seemed flattened like a disk and was spangled with tiny bubbles like specks of silver. It was a water-shrew, a rare little beast. I sat motionless and watched both the shrew and the water-wren — water-ousel, as it should rightly be named. The latter, em- boldened by my quiet, presently flew by me to a little rapids close at hand, lighting on a round stone and then slipping unconcernedly THE DEVELOPING MAN 31 into the swift water. Anon he emerged, stood on another stone, and trilled a few bars, though it was late in the season for sing- ing, and then dived into the stream again. . . . In a minute or two the shrew caught my eye again. It got into a little shallow eddy and caught a minute fish, which it carried to a half-sunken stone and greedily devoured, tugging voraciously at it as it held it down with its paws. Then its evil genius drove it into a small puddle alongside the brook, where I instantly pounced on it and slew it, for I knew a friend in the Smithsonian at Washing- ton who would have coveted it greatly. Although he did not become a professor of natural history, it is evident that his love for nature began early and continued late. While in college he went in for athletics as well as for the other sciences, and he believed in exercise for others as well as for himself. In his sophomore year some one entered the name of his classmate, William A. Gaston, in a wrestling match in the college games without Gaston's knowledge. Gaston did not learn that he was entered until a few days be- 32 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT fore the match was to come off, and wished to withdraw, but Roosevelt persuaded him to stay in, promising to coach him. Ac- cordingly Roosevelt hunted up fellows to wrestle with Gaston, rubbed him down after the bouts, and in general acted as his trainer. One Saturday Gaston met' four other men in the gymnasium to be "tried out." He threw two of them twice, one of them once, and was thrown twice by the other one. In the final matches the victor had to throw his opponent twice out of three times. The rules, however, were rather loose then, as ath- letic sports were not in the present highly organised condition. In a day or two Roose- velt and Gaston learned that Gaston had been put on the final programme to wrestle with the man whom he had thrown once, as though this man were a new candidate. This did not seem fair either to the wrestler or to his trainer, and they decided to enter a protest. As they were about to appear before the ath- letic committee Roosevelt said: THE DEVELOPING MAN 33 "You are too hot-headed, Gaston, to state the case. What it needs is cold, hard logic. Let me present the case calmly, and then we shall be more likely to win. They can't help see- ing how unjust it is to make you throw that man three times, when he will win if he throws you only twice." Roosevelt accordingly stated the case, be- ginning with an assumption of judicial calm, but before he got through with the discussion he had threatened to thrash two of the mem- bers of the committee. The outcome, hoAV- ever, was as he had predicted. The committee saw the force of his arguments and the pro- gramme was changed. Roosevelt had considerable faith in Gaston's ability, for he backed him in a sparring bout with Ramon Guiteras, the champion middle- weight of the college. Guiteras was large and heavy, too heavy, indeed, for his class, and Gaston was a light-weight, and under weight at that. Roosevelt believed that Gaston's grit and perseverance would win over the other 34 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT man's greater weight. The series of bouts in which this match occurred attracted a good deal of attention. Interest centred especially in this bout between the light-weight and the middle-weight. And there was much gratifi- cation among their friends when Roosevelt's judgment was vindicated by Gaston's victory. To this period of his life belongs what might be called the episode of the rooster. He liked fighting cocks ; whether he ever fought them does not appear, and he had some in Maine. One of the cocks escaped from its coop and wandered about the village streets, feeding as it went along. Roosevelt attempted to catch the fowl, but this was not easy, for it flew over the fences and rushed through the yards, and the faster Roosevelt ran, the more excited the fowl became, until in its terror it flew into the second-story window of a house, frighten- ing half out of her wits an old woman who was in bed in the room. Roosevelt, instead of going in by the door, got a ladder and fol- lowed the fowl into the house by way of the THE DEVELOPING MAX So window. He soon came out the same way with the bird squawking and struggling under his arm. He said that he could not have suc- ceeded in catching it if it had not run under the old woman's bed. He cornered it there and then crawled under and brought it out. When he left college he went to Europe and studied in Dresden. In his spare time he took a walking tour, swimming rivers as he came to them and climbing such mountains as pleased his fancy. In recognition of his achievements in ascending the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn he was elected a member of the London Alpine Club. On his return to the United States, he was ready to enter upon the serious work of life, with a mind well trained by the discipline of four years in college, his outlook broadened by European travel, and with a body that would respond to the demands of his will, a fine example of the man described in Juvenal's famous aphorism. Ill THE MAN OF AMBITIONS As far as the records show, Mr. Roosevelt's chief ambition has been to be of service. Just how did not matter much, as long as he accom- plished something for the good of his genera- tion. He did not consent to become a candi- date for membership in the New York Legis- lature the year after he left college until he had been persuaded that it was his duty. The district leader who induced him to accept the nomination has said that Mr. Roosevelt ob- jected to going into politics in that way and urged several other candidates upon him ; but before the interview was ended, the leader, act- ing on the suggestion of an acquaintance who knew the young man thoroughly, had told him that he owed it to the city to accept the nomination. "You go and see those other men," said Mr. THE MAN OF AMBITIONS 37 Roosevelt. "One of them ought to take the nomination, and any of them would stand a better chance of election than I would. But if they won't accept, why then maybe I'll run." "I had him where I wanted him, then," said the leader afterward, in telling of the inter- view. "And I didn't trouble myself to see the other men. After a decent time I went back and told him he would have to take the nomina- tion, and he did." When he left college he began the study of law in the office of his uncle, Robert B. Roose- velt, in New York, intending to practise that profession. This uncle was nominated as a Democratic Presidential elector from the Twelfth Congressional District of New York in 1904, but declined to serve, setting forth his reasons in a letter containing this pleasant reference to his nephew : "While I differ with the President and the party with which he is associated as to certain fundamental principles of public policy, I have the highest apprecia- 38 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT tion of him personally and of his unselfish and unquestioned devotion to the public good. I feel that while he is a candidate of that party for the highest position in official life, our family relations and the strong personal affec- tion which I have for him would make it im- proper and unbecoming in me to take any part in the approaching national canvass." Before he had been in Robert Roosevelt's law office long enough to take his examination for admission to the bar, he was elected to the State Legislature, and he never practised law. He had ideas, however, on the way to win suc- cess at the bar, for he expressed them a few years later for the benefit of a struggling young lawyer. "If I were you," he said, "I would hang out my shingle and get a case. I don't care how you get it. Your own wits ought to find one, at least, which no other lawyer has. I would not take a justice-shop case, either. I would find a case that was right up in the regular courts and which possessed some merit. I THE MAX OF AMBITIONS 39 wouldn't take it up for nothing, either, or on a contingency. I would have a decent fee at- tached to it. In other words, I would have as many respectable features attached to the case as possible under the circumstances. "Having got that case, I would try it as if it were the last case I ever expected to have or which would ever be in the courts. I would not make a nuisance of myself — you know enough to avoid that — but you can be so per- sistent that you will win the respect of every one who in any way comes in connection with the trial. Put all of yourself into the case. Get every side of it, and above all things, hammer it into your client by the force of your actions that your integrity is above reproach. "When you get done with the case you will have a reputation that many lawyers devote years in other ways trying to obtain. You will find that a second case is certain to come to you whether you lose or win the first case. I would treat the second case just as I did the first one. Live and act as if there never were 40 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT such a case in existence before, and master it, just as you are required to master your studies at the law school. If you find yourself weakening at all, use the spur and whip until you have created an enthusiasm in your work that imparts itself to client, court, and jury, and results in your victory. "Go at the third case in the same way. And for the matter of that, as your patronage increases, give the same treatment to all your cases. You will create confidence in yourself that will insure you a constant practice, and your clients, once secured, will never leave you." It may be worth while noting that this theory worked, for the young man put it into prac- tice and won his first case on a technical point which all the other lawyers had overlooked. Mr. Roosevelt himself finally settled upon literature as a profession, after reaching the conclusion that there was no room in politics for such a man as he. He expressed himself on this subject quite emphatically as long ago THE MAN OF AMBITIONS 41 as April, 1884, just after his remarkable triumph in the Republican State convention in Utica, New York, which elected him as one of the four delegates-at-large from the State to the national convention. He was then only twenty-five years old and had within a few months suffered a double bereavement in the death of his first wife and of his mother. Con- sequently this letter, which he wrote to Mr. S. N. D. North, then managing editor of the Utica Herald, is almost as remarkable as the personal triumph to which it refers. State of New York, Assembly Chamber, Albany, April 30, 1884. Dear Mr. North : I wish to write you a few words just to thank you for your kindness towards me, and to assure you that my head will not be turned by what I well know was a mainly accidental success. Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat. 42 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT I have very little expectation of being able to keep on in politics ; my success so far has only been won by absolute indifference to my future career ; for I doubt if any one can realise the bitter and venomous hatred with which I am regarded by the very politicians who at Utica supported me, under dictation from masters who were influenced by political considerations that were national and not local in their scope. I realise very thoroughly the absolutely ephemeral nature of the hold I have upon the people, and the very real and posi- tive hostility I have excited among the poli- ticians. I will not stay in public life unless I can do so on my own terms ; and my ideal, whether lived up to or not, is rather a high one. For very many reasons I will not mind going back into private life for a few years. My work this winter has been very harassing, and I feel both tired and restless ; for the next few months I shall probably be in Dakota, and I think I shall spend the next two or three years in making shooting trips, either in the far West or in the Northern woods — and there will be plenty of work to do writing. Very truly yours, Theodore Roosevelt. THE MAN OF AMBITIONS 43 In 1893, nine years later, he wrote another letter in a similar vein. He was then a mem- ber of the National Civil Service Commission. Since writing the first he had been an unsuc- cessful candidate for the mayoralty of New York, and had been devoting his time to ranching, hunting, and writing, as he had told Mr. North he expected to do. In the course of this second letter he frankly declares that "my career is that of a literary man." Here is the letter: If a man has political foresight, who lives in a district where the people think as he does and where he has a great hold over them, then he can seriously go in for a continuous public career ; and I suppose in such a case it is all right for him to shape his public course more or less with a view to his own continuance in office. I am a little inclined to envy a man who can look forward to a long and steady course of public service, but in my own case such a career is out of the question ; and per- sonally it seems to me that a man's comfort and usefulness in public are greatly impaired the moment he begins to get worrying about 44 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT how his votes and actions will affect his own future. When I was in the Legislature I soon found that for my own happiness, as well as for the sake of doing good work, I had to cast aside all thoughts of my own future ; and as soon as I had made up my mind to this end and voted simply as I thought right, not only disregarding people themselves, if I honestly thought they were all wrong on a matter of principle, not of men or expediency, then I began thoroughly to enjoy myself and to feel that I was doing good. It is just the same way with my present work as Civil Service Commissioner. I believe in it with all my heart, and am absolutely certain that I could not possibly be engaged in any other work at the present moment more vitally important to the public welfare; and I liter- ally do not care a rap what politicians say of me, in or out of Congress, save in so far as my actions may help or hurt the cause for which I am working. My hands are fortu- nately perfectly free, for I have not the slight- est concern about my political future. My career is that of a literary man, and as soon as I am out of my present place I shall go back to my books. I may not ever be called to take another public place, or I may be ; in any event, I shall try to do decent work while THE MAN OF AMBITIONS 45 I am in office. I shall probably enjoy the life greatly while I am taking part in it, and I shall certainly be ready at any time to go out of it with a perfectly light heart.* It was evidently not because he liked "the quiet life" that he said his career was to be literary. Things were not quiet in the Civil Service Commission when he was a member of it. And he enjoyed the work, as we have just seen. When he resigned to become president of the Police Commission of New York City it was because he thought that things would be happening there. As he said to a friend at the time: "I thought the storm centre was in New York, and so I came here. It is a great piece of practical work. I like to take hold of work that has been done by a Tammany leader, and do it as well, only by approaching it from the opposite direction. The thing that attracted me to it was that it was to be done in the hurly- burly, for I don't like cloister life." * Quoted in New York Tribune in 1901. 46 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT He left the Police Commission to become As- sistant Secretary of the Navy because he thought that there was work to be done in preparation for a possible war over Cuba, and when war became inevitable, he resigned again, to organise a regiment to go to the front that he might still be in the "storm cen- tre," as he called it. After he returned from Cuba he expressed to many people his desire to go to the Philippines as Governor, to bring order out of chaos there. The problem was a difficult one, he knew, but its solution was of first importance, and he wished to have a hand in it. He was nomi- nated for the Governorship of New York in- stead. Even after he was elected Governor the thought of the Philippines was not dismissed altogether. It has been said that he expressed his desire to go there to Alton B. Parker, then chief judge of the New York Court of Ap- peals, and that Judge Parker told him that he was destined for the Presidency. But Judge Parker himself sa3 T s that though he had many THE MAN OF AMBITIONS 47 pleasant conversations with Mr. Roosevelt while he was Governor, this one never oc- curred. During the campaign for the governorship lie still had the literary life in view as a per- manency when he should have leisure from his public avocations. When the nomination had been made the newspaper men flocked to Oys- ter Bay to discover what manner of man he was and what kind of life he led there. To one of them he said : "This house has been my home for fifteen years. It is the one place where all my things are. Whenever I live anywhere else I simply rent a house. Eleven of those fifteen years I have spent in government service, so I have not stayed here in the winters often. I am not certain of being elected Governor, of course. If I am not in Albany this winter I shall go on with my literary work. I shall go on with my 'Winning of the West,' which I am much interested in, and I shall start my history of the Cuban war." 48 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT After a winter in Albany, intimately con- nected with the making of law, his early love for the legal profession returned, and his re- gret that he had not given more attention to it in his youth led him, when he was elected to the Vice-Presidency, to plan to devote to the study of the law what leisure he would have. He expressed this determination to a friend who was wondering what use a man of his ac- tive temperament would make of his time. He replied that there were good opportunities in Washington to read law. He could either enter the classes of a law school there, or he could read law with some firm in the city. In two years he could be admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia, so that at the expira- tion of his term as Vice-President he would be in a position to return to New York to prac- tise there. He felt sure that he could then make an advantageous connection with a firm with a large practice. The accident of the death of President Mc- Kinley changed these plans, and laid upon him THE MAN OF AMBITIONS 49 new and strange duties. There naturally came to him the ambition to succeed himself as Pres- ident and to have the approval of the country on his administration. This ambition was gratified, and when the news reached the White House on election night that he had been chosen it gave him great satisfaction. The pressure of circumstances has forced upon him the career that he most desired when a young man, and at the age of fifty-one he will leave the national capital, after having reached the highest position attainable by an American. What next ? He tells his friends that he would like to spend a year or so in travel, hunting large and small game in Europe and Asia. This would give him a period of rest at the close of seven years of arduous labour. After that he has declared more than once that it would delight him to enter the Senate as one of the representatives from the State of New York. Two other Presidents have served in Congress after the expiration of their term. 50 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT The first was John Quincy Adams, who was elected to the House of Representatives two years after he retired and remained in the House for many years. The other was An- drew Johnson. He was elected to the Senate from Tennessee and took his seat in the special session of 1875. He died a few months later. What the future holds for the ambitious man in Washington no one can tell. But when a man is so eager as he to serve his generation, it is certain that he will find some way to accomplish his desire. IV THE WESTERN MAN Mr. Roosevelt's sympathies with the North and the South were bred in him. Indeed, he has suggested that some of his tastes as well are inherited. "Those of us who are in part of Southern blood," he once wrote, "have an hereditary right to be fond of cross- country riding; for some of our forefathers in Virginia, Georgia, or the Carolinas have for six generations followed the fox with horse, horn, and hound." His comprehension of the West is his own achievement. And curiously enough, this off- spring of the old families and the old civilisa- tions of the seaboard finds himself in greater sympathy with the fundamental democracy of the plains than with the more complicated life of the East. In the West as he knew it, a man stands or 52 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT falls according as he masters, by his own strength, the natural conditions about him. The man who succeeds on the plains and in the mountains is like the animal which holds its own in the forest. He must take what he wills from a resisting earth. The life there de- velops men who can look with level eyes and unabashed upon anything that walks on four feet, or on two feet, either. It is a trying-out place for developing defenders of government by the people, and those who survive are fit, indeed. Into this country Mr. Roosevelt went in 1883 to hunt buffalo. He arrived at Medora on the Little Missouri River in Dakota Territory in September of that year, and when he inquired about the hunting prospects was told that he would have to ride fifty miles into a rough, unbroken country before finding any big game. Saddle-horses were difficult to obtain, and were not trustworthy when they could be got. Camping in the open was not agreeable or restful after a long day in the saddle, and THE WESTERN MAN ♦ 53 only strong men voluntarily endured the hard- ships of buffalo hunting in that part of the country. Mr. Roosevelt did not look like a strong man. He is not tall and then he was rather slender, as a young man of less than twenty-five naturally would be. Besides, he wore glasses, which Westerners living in the open fortunately do not need till age dims their sight. No one was anxious to go hunt- ing with the slight Easterner, but finally his determination impressed Mr. J. A. Ferris, an experienced guide, and he consented to go with him. "We started out with a hunting outfit to the head of Bacon Creek, about fifty miles from the railroad crossing," said Mr. Ferris later, in describing the trip. "Mr. Roosevelt was on horseback, and where he learned to ride I don't know ; but he rode as well, if not better, than I did and could stand just as much knocking about. "In making or breaking camp he was as handy as a pocket in a shirt and seemed to 54 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT know just what to do. On the first night out, when we were twenty-five or thirty miles from a settlement, we went into camp on the open prairie, with our saddle-blankets over us, our horses picketed and the picket ropes tied about the horns of our saddles, which we used for pil- lows. "In the middle of the night there was a rush, our pillows were swept from under our heads and our horses went tearing off over the prairie, frightened by wolves. Away they tore, and we heard the saddles thumping over the ground after them. Mr. Roosevelt was up and off in a minute. Together we chased those frightened horses over the prairie until they slackened speed and we caught up with them. The night was dark and there was little to guide us on our return. Mr. Roosevelt's bump of locality was good, and he led the way back to camp straight as a die. "On the following day we reached our hunt- ing grounds, and for several days travelled about without being able to get a shot at a THE WESTERN MAN 55 buffalo. On the fourth or fifth day out, I think it was, while we were riding along, our horses pricked up their ears, as they will do when big game is near, and I told Mr. Roose- velt that there was a buffalo close at hand. "We dismounted and advanced to a big wash- out near by and peered over the edge. There stood a huge buffalo bull calmly feeding and unaware of our presence. " 'Hit him where that patch of red shows on his side,' said I, 'and you've got him.' "Mr. Roosevelt was as cool as a cucumber. He raised his gun carefully, took aim calmly and fired. Out came the buffalo from the washout with blood pouring from his mouth and nose. " 'You've shot him,' I shouted, and so it proved, for the buffalo plunged a few steps and fell dead." He has since shot nearly, if not quite, all kinds of big game to be found in North Amer- ica, and even now the highest compliment which he can pay to a man is to invite him to 56 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT go shooting with him. Indeed, he took this way of indicating his personal admiration for the German Emperor, when soon after becom- ing President he sent an invitation to him through Mr. Andrew D. White, then United States Ambassador in Berlin, to hunt with him in the Rocky Mountains. He said that he envied the emperor for having shot a whale, but that if his majesty would come to America he should have the best pos- sible opportunity to add a Rocky Mountain lion to his trophies, and that he would thus be the first monarch to kill a lion since Tiglath Pileser, whose exploit is shown on the old monuments of Assyria. Mr. Roosevelt had not been long in the West before he discovered, if he did not already know, that the social conventions there differ from those in the East. And he had several interesting experiences before he convinced those whom he met that he was entitled to as much consideration as any self-respecting Westerner. THE WESTERN MAN 57 One evening after supper he was reading at a table in the public room of a frontier hotel where he was passing the night. The room was office, dining-room, barroom, and every- thing else. A man, half drunk, came into the hotel with a swagger, marched up to the bar and with a flourish of his arm commanded everybody to drink. Everybody was willing to obey, that is, everybody but Mr. Roose- velt. He still sat at the table busy with his book. "Who's that fellow?" the man asked, point- ing in Roosevelt's direction. 5 'Oh, he's a tenderfoot, just arrived," some one said. "Humph," he grunted. Then he turned square around and called out : "Say you, Mr. Four-eyes, I asked this house to drink. Did you hear me?" Mr. Roosevelt made no reply. The man swaggered over to him, pulling out his pistol and firing as he crossed the room. "I want you to understand that when I ask a 58 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT man to drink with me, that man's got to drink," he threatened, fondling his still smok- ing pistol. "You must excuse me to-night. I do not care for anything to drink," said Roosevelt. "That don't go here. You just order your drink or there'll be more trouble." "Very well, sir," Roosevelt replied, rising slowly to his feet and waiting till he was firmly poised on them before completing his remark, "I do not care for anything, but if I must " With the word "must" he let his fist fly, strik- ing the bully a terrific blow on the jaw and knocked him to the floor. In an instant Roose- velt was astride of him with his knees hold- ing down the man's arms. After taking away all the weapons he could find he let the man up. "Now, I hope you understand, sir, that I do not care to drink with you," said the young "tenderfoot," who had hardened his muscles to some purpose before he went West. This is the common version of the story. THE WESTERN MAN 59 Mr. Roosevelt has referred to the incident in this way : "I was never shot at maliciously but once. This was on the occasion when I had to pass the night in a little frontier hotel where the barroom occupied the whole lower floor, and was in consequence the place where every one, drunk or sober, had to sit. My assailant was neither a cowboy nor a bona fide 'bad man,' but a broad-hatted ruffian of a cheap and commonplace type who had for the mo- ment terrorised the other men in the barroom, these being mostly sheep-herders and small grangers. The fact that I wore glasses, to- gether with my evident desire to avoid a fight, apparently gave him the impression — a mis- taken one — that I would not resent an in- jury." His suggestion that the sheep-herders are easily bullied is characteristic of a Western cattle-men. The cowboys were the real heroes of the West in those days, for the care of the cattle called into use the manly qualities of physical courage and endurance. A success- 60 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT fu] cowboy must be a skilled horseman, must be able to handle a rope, and be at home on a trackless range. An amusing reference to the persistence of his feeling about the superiority of the cattle-men was made after he became President. The friends of several applicants for appointment as United States marshal in one of the Western States were urging the claims of their candidates, when the chairman of one delegation spoke of another candidate as a "sheep-man." The President assumed an air of mock solem- nity as he remarked: "Gentlemen, that is not fair. You should not appeal to my old preju- dices as a cattle-man in this way." When the Marquis de Mores, whose ranch was in the same part of the territory as Mr. Roosevelt's, attempted to bulldose him — there is no foundation in the story that the Marquis challenged him to a duel — he met the situa- tion with perfect self-possession. The Mar- quis had the reputation of being a "bad man." This was because he was a mediaeval French- THE WESTERN MAN 61 man born out of his time, and thought that any reflection upon his honour or upon any- thing that concerned him must be resented to the death. Naturally he got into frequent trouble in the democratic surroundings of the cattle country and he was not let alone until he had killed a man. This did not improve his reputation, and when his cowboys and Roose- velt's clashed, everybody expected trouble be- tween the masters. The Marquis justified the expectation by sending a messenger to Mr. Roosevelt, bear- ing a letter containing the intimation that there was a way for gentlemen to settle their differences and calling his attention to it. This was as near a challenge to a duel as it came, but it was near enough. Roosevelt had no book at hand on the etiquette of duelling. It might have told him that in such circum- stances he should reply, "Yours of even date at hand and contents noted. Shall be glad to meet you under the lone pine at seven o'clock to-morrow morning," or words to that effect. 62 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT He did not think duelling worth while, and, regardless of the precedents of an antiquated code, he sent word that there must be some misunderstanding, and that he would follow the messenger in an hour or so to discover what it was all about. The Marquis, not to be made ridiculous by such a matter-of-fact treat- ment of the case, sent another messenger to meet Mr. Roosevelt with an invitation to din- ner as soon as the reply arrived. The invita- tion was accepted, and coffee for two was served without the pistols of the old-fashioned "affair of honour." Mr. Roosevelt had been ranching some time when this happened. It was during his buf- falo-hunting trip that he decided that the country which supported big game would also support cattle, and he made arrangements to fatten steers on the land, supplying the cattle in the first place to a partner who had a ranch. Later he acquired two ranches and persisted in the business for some years, notwithstanding the severe losses he sustained through the de- THE WESTERN MAN 63 struction of his cattle by blizzards. He lived and worked among his men and was like them save that he carried a razor and read good literature. He usually carried a book or two with him on his hunting trips or whenever he expected to be away from the ranch-house for any great length of time. He had pocket editions of Burns and Shakespeare and other classics. On one occasion while he was hunt- ing for a lost horse, he was overtaken at night by a snowstorm and took refuge in a deserted hut in company with a cowboy whom he had run across on a similar errand. There were no inhabited houses, if there were houses of any kind, for man}' miles. The two men built a fire and ate their supper together. Then "to while away the long evening," Mr. Roosevelt writes, "I read Hamlet aloud from a little pocket Shakespeare. The cowboy, a Texan — one of the best riders I have ever seen, and also a very intelligent as well as a thor- oughly good fellow in every way — was greatly interested in it and commented most shrewdly 64 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT on the parts he liked, especially Polonius's advice to Laertes, which he translated into homely language with great relish, and ended with the just criticism that 'old Shakespeare saveyed human natur' some.' " In all respects Mr. Roosevelt entered into the life about him with a wholesome zest. His horses were as good as the best, and his men, both those whom he took with him from the East and those whom he employed in the West, were as loyal to him as it was possible for men to be. He washed his own clothes the same as the others. He went to the frontier balls and danced with the women, opening one cowboy ball with the wife of a small stockman, who had not long before killed a noted bully of the neighbourhood in self-defence, the stockman himself dancing opposite. The dance was the lancers, and Mr. Roosevelt says that the stock- man knew all the steps better than he did. During his residence in the West he did not forget his duties as an orderly citizen of a dis- orderly country, in which each man had to de- THE WESTERN MAN 6 5 fend his own property. The part of the ter- ritory in which he was living had been pretty well cleared of horse and cattle stealers in the early winter of 1885, but three suspected men remained, and as spring approached they be- came anxious to leave that part of the coun- try, as threats to lynch them had been made. The leader of these three was named Finne- gan. He usually explained that he was "from Bitter Creek, where the further up you went the worse people got," and he "lived at the fountain head," a description, when you come to think of it, not devoid of merit. Finnegan and his companions— a German and a half- breed— had a hut on the river-bank about twenty miles above Roosevelt's ranch, and Roosevelt knew it. He knew, too, that they wished to get away. Therefore, when one of his men told him, in March, 1886, that his Eastern-built skiff, used in crossing the Little Missouri to the horse range on the other side, had been stolen, he at once decided that these men were the thieves. The skiff was light and 66 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT strong and was much more easily handled than the flat-bottomed scow which they were known to have. Mr. Roosevelt decided to deliver the men up to justice, if possible, as he believed that to sub- mit tamely on this occasion would invite fur- ther depredations from lawless characters. He therefore had Sewall and Dow, the two Maine men whom he had taken with him to the West, make a flat-bottomed boat. They com- pleted it in three days of rapid work. Then it was loaded with provisions enough to last for about two weeks, and Mr. Roosevelt, Dow, and Sewall embarked in it in pursuit of the thieves. They counted on overtaking them in a short time, as they knew that Finnegan was aware that the Roosevelt skiff was the only boat be- sides his own scow on that part of the river and would conclude that he was safe from pursuit. It was not practicable to follow the thieves down the river on horseback. Finnegan had not counted on the building of a new boat, so he was taken unawares, when, on the afternoon of THE WESTERN MAN 67 the third day of the pursuit, Roosevelt's party, as they turned a bend in the river, saw the smoke from a camp fire and not far from it, on the river-bank, the stolen boat tied to the shore. Then they knew that the thieves could not be far away. They fastened their own boat to the bank and separated, planning to sur- round the camp. When they came near enough to see what was going on they dis- covered that only one of the three men was there, and he was sitting down without his weapons. Mr. Roosevelt covered him with his gun and ordered him to hold up his hands. Then the three men rushed in and searched him to make sure that he had no pistols in his pockets, and to prevent him from giving an alarm to his companions. Dow was left in charge of the prisoner while Sewall and Mr. Roosevelt went some distance to a point from which they com- manded all paths to the camp and awaited the return of the others. After a time they heard voices approaching, and soon Finnegan and his G8 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT companion came in sight. They were at once covered by the Roosevelt guns and commanded to surrender. As they had no alternative worth considering, they obeyed and were marched back to the camp. As it was late they all remained where they were that night. It was bitterly cold, and the problem of guarding their prisoners became a difficult one. If their feet and arms were bound tightly enough to make them helpless the circulation of the blood would be stopped and the hands and feet of the men would be frozen. As the next best way of making the men helpless, their boots were taken off and they were compelled to sleep all to- gether in one blanket. The country was so full of prickly cactus that Mr. Roosevelt knew that the men would not attempt to es- cape in their stocking feet. As an additional precaution, the night was divided into two watches, one of the captors sitting up half the night and another the other half, while the third man had his sleep unbroken. The next morning the start was made down the river to THE WESTERN MAN 69 the nearest sheriff and gaol, which they hoped to reach in throe or four days at the most. But their plans were disarranged by the ice in the river. For ten days they followed an ice- jam down stream, which moved so slowly that before they reached the "C Diamond" ranch, their provisions were almost exhausted and for two or three days they had been living on flour and water mixed up together and baked. On the outskirts of this ranch they found a hut with a solitary cowboy and some bronchos. Mr. Roosevelt left his prisoners here while he rode to a ranch fifteen miles away, where he was told he could get a waggon for carrying them safely to the sheriff at Dickinson. After en- gaging the waggon, a "prairie schooner," and a team of horses, with the ranchman for a driver, he returned to the cowboy's hut and his prisoners. The next day he walked the pris- oners, with Dow and Sewall as assistant guards, to the ranchman's house and loaded them into the schooner. Then he dismissed Sewall and Dow and sent them back up the 70 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT river with the boats. The start for Dickinson and the gaol was made with Mr. Roosevelt on foot behind the waggon with his cocked gun over his shoulder. He knew that the only way to prevent the men from overpowering him was to remain out of their reach and to keep his gun ready. The trail over the prairie was a track of deep mud and progress was slow. Night overtook the party at a small hut, where they stopped. The prisoners were put into the upper bunk, from which it would not be easy for them to get out, and Mr. Roosevelt mounted guard over them, seated with his back against the cabin door all night, fighting sleep. It was one armed man against three desperadoes and the possible treachery of his own physical exhaustion. The one man with the gun remained master of the situation and got his prisoners into the waggon again all right in the morning and followed them into town on foot, arriving there about six o'clock in the afternoon, completely exhausted after thirty- six hours without sleep. He turned them over THE WESTERN MAN 71 to the sheriff with a statement of the charge against them. Then, after making up his lost sleep, he returned to his ranch, satisfied that he had established his reputation for taking care of his own property. These three prisoners were the last of the gang of outlaws the expulsion of whom from that part of the country had been be- gun some time before the skiff was stolen. A meeting of the cattle-men had been held in the freight shed at Medora to form an organisa- tion for their mutual protection against the marauders. It had been openly hinted that a certain deputy sheriff was in collusion with the outlaws. The deputy was present at the meet- ing. After the preliminaries of organisation, it is said that Mr. Roosevelt rose in his place and addressed the deputy. He openly accused the man of dishonesty and incompetency, and ig- noring the menace of the officer's revolver, the handle of which was projecting above his belt, he expressed his scorn of him as a man 72 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT unworthy and unfit for the office which he held. In the history of that part of the coun- try such a speech had never been heard be- fore. Few men would have had the courage to make such an accusation in such a company, and many of those present held their breath till they saw that the accused man dared not retaliate. He sat with downcast head and said not a word ; but his prestige was gone forever, and it was not long before another deputy suc- ceeded him. This account of the incident has had wide currency, and in the course of my efforts to verify it, I wrote to Mr. William W. Sewall, who was one of the men to assist Mr. Roose- velt in arresting Finnegan. He replied: "I cannot vouch for the sheriff story, as I do not remember an} 7 such case. Perhaps it has some foundation, but has been magnified. Many things happened to which we did not attach particular importance at the time, and I may have forgotten. He [Roosevelt] would have done it if he had deemed it necessary. If he THE WESTERN MAN 73 did, we did not deem it very dangerous. Re- marks of that kind might have been made. We three [Roosevelt, Sewall, and Dow] were Eastern men, but we did not intend to be bluffed and were not. We were all men of peace, but did not intend to let any one stand on our toes until they trod the nails off. Mr. Roosevelt is not that kind of man and would not have had us with him if we had been." There were other things in this Western life besides taming bullies and defying negligent officials. The business there was raising cattle and taking care of them on the plains. Mr. Roosevelt rode with his cowboys and was as good as any of them. On the round-up he endured all sorts of hardships with his men, riding all day and sleeping on the ground at night. On one rainy night he was awakened by the report that his cattle were being driven before the storm and were in danger of stam- peding. Every man rushed to his horse, saddled him and rode to the herd, hoping to head it off. But the storm raged and the 74 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT cattle continued to retreat before it, at first slowly, but as the thunder grew louder the animals began to show terror, and it was not long before the men were riding for their life in front of the stampeding brutes. A vivid flash of lightning revealed an empty corral not far away, and Mr. Roosevelt shouted to the two men near him to make an opening into it, while he tried to guide the cattle around to it. By the time two sections of the fence were down Roosevelt dashed through on his horse, with the maddened animals at his heels, and he barely escaped through a narrow opening at the other side. The herd w r as saved with the exception of a few animals that were trampled to death in the struggle to get through the break in the fence. Then the ranch-owner and his men rolled themselves in their blankets and went to sleep again. Mr. Roosevelt not only stood the test when it was a question of presence of mind or of physical endurance, but also when it was a question of public spirit. It was while on a THE WESTERN MAN 75 hunting trip with three other men that he fought a fire on a cattle range all one night that he might save the grass for his own and his neighbours' cattle. He had noticed the fire in the morning away to the southward, and thought it was too far off to be of concern to him ; but in the afternoon he was surprised to see it bursting out not more than a mile away. After he and his companions had vainly striven to turn the course of the flames he rode off to seek a way of escape, but the fire was moving so rapidly that he soon saw that their only way out would be cut off before they could reach it. He has- tened back to the men and the hunting waggon, which he found on the lee of a damp stretch of ground, where the men were busily engaged in beating down the grass, so that when the fire passed around the place it might not eat back to where they were. They succeeded in saving their belongings, as the fire went around them, as they had planned. When the wind went down at sunset they killed a stray 76 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT steer that had been caught for the purpose, and split the carcass open down the centre. They dragged one half of this to the fire, which was now eating its way slowly along in a line not much broader than the length of the steer's body. A passageway was beaten through the flames to the dry grass on the other side and one of the horses forced through with a rope attached to one end of the carcass. The other end of the carcass was attached to another horse, so that the wet and bloody flesh might be dragged along the ground, ex- tinguishing the flames. Mr. Roosevelt rode one of the horses, and one of his men the other, while the two remaining men walked behind and stamped out what few sparks were left. They continued till the flesh was worn off the bones and the backbone broke. Then they got the other half of the carcass and used it up the same way, working all night, and then stopping only because they were completely exhausted. They made a heroic effort, but four men and one steer carcass were not THE WESTERN MAN 77 enough to put out a fire in the rough country. His knowledge of the West has served him well on many occasions. It has enabled him to understand the needs of that part of the coun- try and to comprehend the minds and purposes of its citizens. He is fond of them and grows enthusiastic when they call on him. When a delegation of Montana men interested in an irrigation project were presented to him in February, 1906, he said as he entered the room where the men were: "If the proprieties did not forbid, a whole- souled yell from me would be in order in greet- ing you. A clean-cut yell is the proper salu- tation for you men of Montana. Montana is like home to me. I have a warm spot in my heart for it. Your irrigation plan concerns the Red River District. I have hunted all over that district. I will do all I can for you." Another Montana delegation called on him in December of the same year to interest him in 78 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT a plan for breeding horses on an Indian reser- vation. A portfolio of photographs of the district was shown to him. "I know that country very well," he re- marked as he looked over it. "And those horses, I know them pretty well," and a remi- niscent smile broke over his features. The broad and vigorous West still calls to him and his spirit responds. THE STRENUOUS MAN The thing which impresses one most in con- sidering Mr. Roosevelt is that he is a man of abounding vitality. As noted in a previous chapter, he has confessed that he was a sickly boy. He determined to get a strong body as an instrument to be directed by his mind, and he succeeded. He has developed all his mus- cles by rigorous training and has expanded his chest till his capacious lungs are qualified to feed his blood with oxygen ; and his vigor- ous heart sends that rich, vitalised fluid through his big neck into his active brain. And the result is what has come to be known as strenuosity. How this physical vigour displays itself in his daily life has been remarked by many ob- servers close to him. A notable instance of his apparent tirelessness has been described by 80 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT Mr. George Cary Eggleston, who called on him at the White House in the spring of 1902. "My personal visit was made on the evening of the day on which he returned from his comet-like trip in the Carolinas," says Mr. Eggleston.* "He had got back to Washing- ton in the morning after five days of soul- wearying travel, still more wearying speech- making and function-holding, and the cease- less strain of social and every other sort of ex- citing experience. Almost any other man would have gone to bed and put business aside for one day at least. Mr. Roosevelt had gone to his desk, instead, to clear off the work accumulation of nearly a week. He had then held an important Cabinet meeting, re- ceived many official and other callers who had vexing business matters to discuss, made sev- eral appointments to office, and attended to a multitude of other trying affairs. Yet, when I desired to withdraw on the ground that he *New York Herald, April 20, 1902. THE STRENUOUS MAN 81 must be well-nigh exhausted, he cheerily an- swered : " 'Oh, no, I'm not at all tired. In fact, I never feel much of weariness. Light a cigar. I want to talk with you about an historical point which you criticised some years ago in one of my books.' "Fortunately I was sitting at the time in a well-armed easy-chair," Mr. Eggleston con- tinues, "otherwise I think I might have fallen. Think of this busy man, ceaselessly engaged with strenuous public affairs, still remember- ing that poor little criticism of mine, years after it was written ! The criticism concerned a minute detail of very small consequence in any case, yet so earnest and sincere is this man, and so 'strenuous' in all that he does, that he remembered the point perfectly, and men- tioned it now only because he was interested to explain to me how he had been led into the insignificant little error. It seemed to me that in this incident more than one admirable quality of the President's mind and char- 82 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT acter were revealed in a very enlightening way." An earlier record of the way he employs his time was made by a man who accompanied him on his tour of the country as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 1900. It is the schedule of a day's occupations, and for vari- ety of interest it would be difficult to find it equalled in the lives of any other two men. Here it is: 7 a.m. — Breakfast. 7.30 a.m. — A speech. 8 a.m. — Reading an historical work. 9 a.m. — A speech. 10 a.m. — Dictating letters. 11 a.m. — Discussing Montana mines. 11.30 a.m. — A speech. 12 m. — Reading an ornithological work. 12.30 p.m. — A speech. 1 p.m. — Lunch. 1.30 p.m. — A speech. 2.30 p.m. — Reading Sir Walter Scott. 3 p.m. — Answering telegrams. 3.45 p.m. — A speech. 4 p.m. — Meeting the press. 4.30 p.m. — Reading. THE STRENUOUS MAN 83 5 p.m. — A speech. 6 p.m. — Reading. 7 p.m. — Supper. 8 to 10 p.m. — Speaking. 11 p.m. — Reading alone in his car. 12 p.m.— To bed. He was practising then what he has always preached. One version of his gospel of life has been given by Major W. H. H. Llewellyn, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, who commanded a company in the regiment of Rough Riders. The Major said one day after his old com- mander had become President : "The Colonel [he will always be Colonel to the Rough Riders] was talking the other day with one of his old boys who has come out into our country to do business, and he said to him : i " 'Get action ; do things ; be sane ; don't frit- ter away your time ; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be Somebody ; get ac- tion.' "That's the Colonel all over," continued the Major. "It's the story of his own life. It's 84 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the advice he gave us all when we parted with him at Montauk Point. Do you remember that evening in the camp when the regiment stood in front of him, and the parting came? I can hear him say now as he did then : " 'Remember when you go out into the world to-morrow, for nine days you will be regarded as heroes, and then you will have to take your places as ordinary citizens. You will be judged then for what you are, what you do as men, not as to what you have been. Don't get gay.' " The Major paused a moment, and then con- cluded, reflectively: "I've seen young fellows in our clubs sit three hours discussing the character of the cork in a polo pony's hoof. That kind of action the Colonel hates." Mr. Roosevelt is happy where things are hap- pening. He remarked once that he liked to be where something was going on, and that he. generally managed to make something happen where he was. Danger arouses in him a keen sense of enjoyment, as was illustrated THE STRENUOUS MAN 85 in a small way in Victor, Colorado, during the campaign of 1900. A mob tried to prevent him from speaking there. One man hit him in the breast with a piece of scantling six feet long from which an insulting banner had been torn. Another man tried to strike him m the face, but was prevented by a miner. The same observer who recorded the routine of a day's work on the tour said afterward : "When the storm of the mob swept up to him I stood on the lower step of the Pullman sleeper with George W. Ogden. Ogden ex- claimed : " 'See the Colonel's face !' "I looked. Rocks were flying over him and the scantling waved savagely. And he? He was smiling and his eyes were dancing; and he was coming ahead to safety as composedly as though he were approaching the entrance to his own home among friends." When it was all over he exclaimed enthusias- tically : "This is magnificent. Why, it's the best time 8G THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT I've had since I started. I wouldn't have missed it for anything." He seems to enjoy everything in the same en- thusiastic way. His comment after he was defeated for the mayoralty of New York by Abram S. Hewitt was characteristic: "Well, I've had a bully time, anyway." His interest in athletics has continued since he left college, as those realise who have at- tempted to keep up with him on his rides or walks about Washington. He is an expert boxer and fencer ; he sits a horse as if he were part of the animal ; and he has made practical investigations into the mysteries of jiu jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence. In his youth he played football, and when he received the team of the Carlisle Indian School at the White House on the morning after the Thanksgiving Day game in 1902, he proved that his interest in the sport still survived. He had read the ac- count of the game in the morning papers and was full of it all day, talking football at the Cabinet meeting and with nearly every one he THE STRENUOUS MAN 87 saw. When Mr. W. G. Thompson, who had charge of the Indians, introduced them to him, he knew all about them. Johnson, the captain, was presented first. "Delighted," exclaimed the President, grasp- ing his hand. "You play quarter back. The mass play of your team was splendid, I am delighted." Parker came next and was greeted in a simi- lar way, according to the account of the Washington correspondents. "Your play was brilliant. You made three touchdowns, didn't you ? How in the world did you do it?" And so it went along the line. The President talked football with every man in the party. Sometimes he would call back one of them to discuss a point in the game. Nearly every man was asked to what tribe he belonged. One said he was a Kaw. "Yes, Congressman Curtis belongs to that tribe," the President remarked. "I'm glad to meet a fellow-tribesman of his." 88 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "You're a football player, that's self-evi- dent," he remarked as he looked at one of the boys who had been bruised in the game. To another battered player he said, "I see with- out asking that you played yesterday, and it didn't improve your beauty." The stolid Indian smiled cheerfully at this and passed on. Mr. Roosevelt made every one of them feel at his ease. He knew the big chiefs in some of the tribes represented, and when he mentioned their names the players addressed were greatly pleased. Most of the Indians have adopted the names of white men, and the President asked these what they were called by their own people. "No need to ask you, Mr. Tomahawk," said he, beaming on the right guard. "I know what yours means." There was one player whose Indian name was Bear. When the word was spoken the President cried: "Delighted," and grasped the boy's hand THE STRENUOUS MAN 89 warmly. "I'm well acquainted with the bear family. I met some of them in Mississippi, and I know Baer of the Reading Coal Com- pany. He is harder to catch than any of them. You are built like a football player. I'm glad you are not one of the bears I chased in Mississippi. They would make good foot- ball players, too." At the end of the line was the only player who was not an Indian. He was Exendine, a full-blooded Eskimo. When Mr. Thompson presented him, the President reached out and crushed the youth's chubby hand in his own and said : "Delighted to meet you. I congratulate you on coming to this country to get an education. So you are an Eskimo? I don't suppose the coal famine worries you a bit." He was unf eignedly interested in these young men, not only because they were Indians, but because they were developing vigorous bodies. Virility always appeals to him. Way back in 1890, or earlier, he was preaching it in so 90 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT original a way that Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who was visiting this country at the time, remem- bered him and his gospel through the interven- ing years till he became President. Mr. O'Connor said in September, 1901 : "I never had the pleasure of being introduced to President Roosevelt, but I had an oppor- tunity of studying him pretty closely through an evening in New York. There were three papers read by three different speakers. One was by a wild man — I forget his name — who was preaching a Know-nothing crusade against Germans, Italians, and Irish immi- grants ; the other was by St. Clair McKelway, the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle; and the third was by Mr. Roosevelt. "Though it is eleven years ago, I have a very distinct impression of the speeches. The one in particular which impressed me was, curi- ously enough, not that of the present Presi- dent, but that of the editor. I never heard a wittier, a more sensible or more pulverising speech than that of St. Clair McKelway. THE STRENUOUS MAN 91 With perfectly equable temper, showing no passion and no indignation, though he felt both, Mr. McKelway got rid of the frothy fulminations of the Know-nothing orator un- der a cannonade of chaff mingled with sense, so that you really felt pity as you saw the remains of the narrow-browed and blatant fanatic strewn on the floor. The one man who could have made such a speech in my experience is Sir William Harcourt; and I am not sure that even he could have made it. "That is, perhaps, the reason why my recol- lection of Mr. Roosevelt is not so clear as it might be. To tell the truth, he was eclipsed by the journalist. But still, I do remem- ber the speech ; still more do I remember the man. One sentence was characteristic of the one and the other; and I think I can recall it verbatim. Mr. Roosevelt was speaking of the undesirable element from the point of view of the population of New York, and he signal- ised for eminence among these the four hun- 92 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT dred and the politicians. And then, amid the titters of a well-dressed and self-restrained audience, Mr. Roosevelt proceeded to declare that he thought the politicians much less un- desirable than the four hundred. 'They are more vicious,' said Mr. Roosevelt, 'but they are more virile.' "It is curious that I should remember that sentence now; and perhaps it is lucky, for it gives the key to the whole philosophy of the man who so suddenly and so tragically has been called to the greatest of human posi- tions." It certainly is a novel doctrine that mere ani- mal vigour is a good thing in itself, as well as for the potentialities that lie in it. If it were preached more there would be fewer dys- peptics and fewer hypochondriacs and fewer men with brains awry because they receive too little nourishment from the body. If Hamlet had taken more out-door exercise he would have married Ophelia, led a revolution against his uncle and sat on the throne of THE STRENUOUS MAN 93 Denmark himself instead of mooning about the possibilities in a bare bodkin. Mr. Roosevelt's own virility has kept his nerves steady, so that he does not succumb to physical suffering, as appeared at the time of the accident in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on September 2, 1902, when the carriage in which he was riding was demolished by an electric car, its occupants thrown out, and Craig, the special Secret Service officer trav- elling with him, killed. Dr. Lung, who reached the President first, found him on his knees, raising himself uncertainly from the grass, thirty feet from the smashed carriage. The doctor threw his arms about him and lifted him to his feet. "Where do you feel pain ?" the doctor asked, at the same time patting the President's sides gently, searching for broken ribs. The President broke away from him roughly. "I'm all right," he said. "Some of the others are badly hurt ; look after them." 94 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT Mr. Roosevelt's jaw was set in an expression that no man who has seen it ever forgets. He felt a sense of outrage at this sort of treatment for himself and his friends. He dived into the crowd of those who had run up from the Country Club, for which he had originally started, and sought out the motorman, who was standing behind his car looking stupidly at the mangled body of Craig. The eight wheels of the car had passed over him. The Presi- dent strode up to the motorman with his fist doubled and shook it under his nose. "If your car got out of control," he said with his voice shaking, "if it got away from you, why, then, that is one thing. But if it is any- thing else, this is a damnable outrage!" Then suddenly checking himself he dropped on one knee beside Craig's mangled body. "Too bad, too bad," he said. "Poor Craig ! How my children will feel!" Craig was the hero of the Roosevelt children. The President's face was badly bruised in this accident, and the bone of one of his legs THE STRENUOUS MAN 95 so seriously injured that two operations had to be performed on it later — one in Indianapolis and one in Washington — and he had to cut short a Western trip on account of it. But he did not think of himself. His physicians had to do that for him. The nature and extent of the injury to his leg are best indicated by the official bulletins issued concerning them. Before the President was taken to the hospital in Indianapolis Mr. George B. Cortelyou, then Secretary to the President, gave out this statement : As a result of the trolley accident at Pitts- field, Massachusetts, the President received several severe bruises. One of these, on the left leg between the knee and the ankle, has devel- oped a small abscess. The President is entirely well otherwise and has continued to meet the several engagements of his itinerary, but in view of the continuance of the abscess, and out of an abundance of caution, Drs. Oliver and Cook, of Indianapolis, were requested to meet Dr. Lung, the President's surgeon, at Indian- apolis, Dr. Richardson, of Washington, D. C, being also of the number. In the opinion of 96 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the doctors the trouble necessitates an opera- tion, which they think should be performed at once at St. Vincent's Hospital, in this city. As after the operation the President will re- quire entire rest, probably for at least ten days or two weeks, it has been necessary to cancel all the remaining engagements of this trip, and he will go directly from Indianapolis to Washington this evening. The physicians say that the case is not in any way serious and that there is no danger whatever. This state- ment is made so that no false rumours may disturb the people and that they may be au- thoritatively advised of the exact nature of the case. At the conclusion of the operation the physi- cians authorised the following statement : As a result of the traumatism (bruise) received in the trolley accident at Pittsfield, Massa- chusetts, there was found to be a circumscribed collection of perfectly pure serum in the middle third of the left anterior tibial region, the sac containing about two ounces, which was removed. The indications are that the President should make speedy recovery. It is absolutely imperative, however, that he should remain quiet and refrain from using THE STRENUOUS MAN 97 the leg. The trouble is not serious, but tem- porarily disabling. The injury did not heal as rapidly as was desired, and on September 28th another bul- letin was issued, describing what had been done to bring relief. Here it is: Dr. Newton M. Shaffer, of New York, joined the President's physicians in consulta- tion this morning at ten o'clock. The increase m local symptoms and a rise in temperature rendered it necessary to make an incision into a small cavity, exposing the bone, which was found to be slightly affected. Thorough drainage is now established and the physicians feel confident that recovery will be uninter- rupted. The operation was performed by Surgeon-General Rixey, assisted by Dr. Lung, and in consultation with Surgeon-General O'Reilly and Doctors Shaffer, Urdo, and Stitt. The next day, to put at rest various alarm- ing rumours about the President's condition, the following official statement was made : The condition of the wound is satisfactory. The temperature this morning is normal. The 98 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT patient slept well and at present is occupying a rolling chair. He is cheerful and from the beginning has shown neither impatience nor restlessness, but has carried out the directions of the physicians with scrupulous care. Since the use of the aspirating needle to evacuate the sac on the 22d instant, which left no wound, there has been no operation until yesterday. (Signed) George B. Cortelyou, Secretary to the President. 11 a.m., September 29, 1902. The blow must have been painful, indeed, when it was received, to cause such grave re- sults; but the President made light of it at the time. At the places where he was to speak after he left Pittsfield he explained that owing to the killing of his faithful friend, Craig, he could not talk on public topics ; and later in the day, in referring to his own injuries, he said : "In my salad days I have received many worse injuries at football, polo, and other games, and I would have been ashamed to ac- knowledge that I felt hurt. If it were not for THE STRENUOUS MAN 99 the death of poor Craig, I wouldn't care a snap of my finger for what has happened." He might have referred to his stoicism when his bones were broken and not merely bruised, if he had thought fit. For he astonished his friends then, as he had done later with his apparent indifference at Pittsfield. It hap- pened not long after he had built his house on Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay. He gave a hunt breakfast to the Meadowbrook Hunt Club, and after it was over set out with his fellow- huntsmen for a ten-mile "drag." Less than an hour later a friend who was in- specting the new stables saw Mr. Roosevelt ride up. He noticed that his host had liberal quantities of court-plaster on his face, that he showed some blood, that he had his right hand tucked between two buttons of his waistcoat, and that when he dismounted he did so cau- tiously/. The friend began to think that he had had a bad fall, but Mr. Roosevelt was so cool and played so unconcernedly with one of his 100 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT children that was being wheeled by the nurse near the stables that the man decided that he was only scratched. And that was what he himself said when asked about the matter. "Only a scratch — just a little scratch." In a few minutes Mr. Roosevelt went into the house and his guest dismissed the incident from his mind. A quarter of an hour later the man was standing in front of the house when a horse, covered with lather, tore up the drive- way. Its rider, a well-known Long Island doc- tor, pulled up at the steps and inquired: "How's Mr. Roosevelt? Has he come home ?" "What's the matter, doctor?" the guest asked. "Yes, he is home, but as far as I can see he has only got about a yard of court-plas- ter on his face. He can't be hurt very much, for he has been playing with his baby since he came back." The doctor looked astonished, and exclaimed as he hurried into the house: THE STRENUOUS MAN 101 "Why, man, he broke his arm when his horse went down !" A few days later the same friend met Mr. Roosevelt with his arm in a sling on Fifth Avenue in New York. "Sorry you didn't tell me the other day that your arm was broken," he said. "Perhaps I could have helped you." "Pooh ! Pooh !" Mr. Roosevelt replied. "It was merely a scratch," and turned the con- versation. Mr. Roosevelt has referred to this accident in an essay on "Hunting with Hounds," in the course of which he says : Before there had been a chance for much tail- ing, we came to a five-bar gate, out of a road — a jump of just four feet five inches from the take-off. Up to this, of course, we went one at a time, at a trot or hand-gallop, and twenty-five horses cleared it in succession with- out a single refusal and with but one mistake. Owing to the severity of the pace, combined with the average height of the timber (although no one fence was of phenomenally noteworthy proportions), a good many falls 102 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT took place, resulting in an unusually large percentage of accidents. The master partly dislocated one knee, another man broke two ribs, and another — the present writer — broke his arm. However, almost all of us managed to struggle through to the end in time to see the death. On this occasion I owed my broken arm to the fact that my horse, a solemn animal originally taken out of a buggy, though a very clever fencer, was too coarse to gallop alongside the blooded beasts against which he was pitted. But he was so easy in his gaits, and so quiet, being ridden with only a snaffle, that there was no difficulty in following to the end of the run. On another occasion, while on a hunting trip in the West, he was thrown from a bucking horse at the beginning of a day's jaunt and his thumb was put out of joint. He pulled the dislocated member back into position and remounted and rode off, making no further reference in his account of the trip to what was an extremely painful injury. Mr. Roosevelt now takes more physical ex- ercise than any other man in Washington. He outwalks his friends and outrides them, too. THE STRENUOUS MAN 103 One of his favourite amusements is riding, and he likes to get a friend to go with him. He sits close to his horse in the Western style and makes fun of his acquaintances who have adopted the English fashion of riding. When Prince Henry of Prussia visited Washington the President took him riding through the country roads about the capital in a driving rain-storm. Most of the party turned back when the rain became heavy, but the Prince and the President kept on, each seeming to enjoy the battle with the elements. Indeed, he seems to delight in testing the willingness of his friends to expose themselves to the weather. Not long after Mr. Robert Bacon, his class- mate in Harvard, was made First Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Roosevelt initiated him into the strenuosities of life in Washing- ton under the present administration. He in- vited Mr. Gifford Pinchot, of the Forestry Bu- reau, and Mr. Bacon to take a walk with him one afternoon at the close of a busy and tiring day. It was raining hard and he advised them 104 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT to put on old clothes. Instead of following the advice, they arrived at the White House dressed as usual. Mr. Roosevelt met them in a badly worn suit with a slouch hat and heavy shoes. The three started out in the rain. Their walk took them to the open country, where they came to a considerable body of water. They wished to cross to the other side, but there was no bridge within a mile. The President told Mr. Bacon that he could go to the bridge and cross and meet them on the other side, as he and Mr. Pinchot would wade over. Mr. Bacon objected and declared that if the others waded he would too. "Bully ," shouted the President. "Come on, then !" and he plunged into the water, that proved to be so much deeper than he antici- pated that he had to swim for some distance, Bacon and Pinchot following after. A few weeks before this, while the President was still at his Long Island home, he boarded the submarine boat Plunger, which was in the THE STRENUOUS MAN 105 harbour at (tyster Bay, and spent nearly an hour under water. He desired to learn for himself how the submarines behaved when in service. The day was stormy, the rain falling in sheets, and the wind kicked up a choppy sea. The boat was put through various manoeuvres by Lieutenant Nelson, who was in command. He dived to the bottom, came to the surface for a few seconds and went down again ; he remained stationary under water with the lights out, turned the boat around, let it come to the surface stern foremost, and did every- thing that a submarine can do. The Presi- dent himself took the wheel in the conning tower and with the assistance of Lieutenant Nelson operated the boat, making it rise to the surface and descend. Finally he fired a blank torpedo with his own hand. His abounding physical vitality has kept him youthful in more ways than one. It even affects his personal tastes, as he once confessed to Senator Beveridge and Mr. H. H. Kohlsaat. These gentlemen were waiting for him in the 106 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT large room adjoining the executive office when the door suddenly burst open and the Presi- dent, in his riding clothes, hurried into the Cabinet room. Both of the visitors began laughing simultaneously. "Well, what are you laughing at?" asked Mr. Roosevelt as he shook hands gaily with them. "We want to congratulate you," said one of them. "On what?" "Why, on the necktie." Then the President joined heartily in the laughter at his own expense. The necktie would have attracted attention anywhere. It was a four-in-hand of silk with three bright coloured stripes of red, green, and yellow. Each colour stood out distinctly from the others, and the tie was of such generous pro- portions that it spread over a large expanse of shirt-front which showed above a rather low-cut vest. The President defended his taste in selecting THE STRENUOUS MAN 107 the tie, and then with a twinkle in his eye he remarked : "Well, you know, I have a very youthful side." He certainly has no more hesitation than a healthy boy in doing things that appeal to him. This has made it easy for him when hunt- ing to take game into camp, when less adven- turous hunters would have been unwilling, if not unable, to do what he has done. While at the Keystone Ranch in Colorado, for instance, on a hunting trip, he and his guide held at bay a large lion in a crevice on the precipi- tous side of a rock ledge which extended from the point of the crevice sheer down fifty feet. Mr. Roosevelt shot at the lion, and the beast disappeared under a perpendicular wall of rock. A large slab of stone projected over the rim of the ledge, and if one of the men could hang head first over this slab he could see the lion and might be able to shoot it. "The question which confronted us," said the guide in telling of the incident, "was how to 108 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT hang over the rock. Finally Colonel Roosevelt looked at me intently and said, 'Goff , we must have that lion if he is there. I'll tell you what I'll do. I will take my gun and crawl over that rock. You hold me by the feet and let me slide down far enough to see him. If I can see him I will get him.' This plan was carried out, and he killed the lion, hanging head downward, while I held him by the feet." But of all the pictures of Mr. Roosevelt, either verbal or photographic, the one which gives the best and most vivid impression of the vigorous human animal rejoicing in his vital- ity is that one which shows him mounted on a hunter taking a fence. Horse and rider are instinct with life, and while you look at them they seem to leap out of the paper and dash down the road with the drum-beat of the hoofs ringing in your ears as they disappear from view. Mr. John Morley's characterisation of him, after spending a day or so at the White THE STRENUOUS MAN 109 House, puts in words what the photograph represents. "I have seen two tremendous works of na- ture," the British statesman said; "one is Niagara Falls, and the other is the President of the United States." That he does not dislike to be represented as a man of vigour was made evident in the sum- mer of 1905, when an equestrian statuette of himself as a Rough Rider by Frederick MacMonnies was presented to him. The horse on which the figure is mounted is leaping into the air as though going over a five-barred gate. It is supported in this position by a shield bearing the inscription, "Vi Virtute Vir," which may be loosely translated, "Vigor- ous, virtuous, and virile." "I now feel myself a really great man," he said laughingly when the statuette was given to him by Miss Janet Scudder, a pupil of MacMonnies, in the presence of Mrs. Roose- velt, Admiral and Mrs. Dewey, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles J. Bonaparte. "The distinction 110 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT of 'being done' by either St. Gaudens or Mac- Monnies might flatter anybody. I had al- ways hoped to have something in my posses- sion by MacMonnies, but it never occurred to me that I should have something by MacMon- nies of me. The statuette is exactly as I should like to have it — the cavalry horse, the Rough Rider clothes, and the emblematic sup- port to the whole." The office of the Presidency makes severe de- mands upon the strength of its occupants. Most of them have had little time or energy left for anything else. There are few things, however, in which Theodore Roosevelt does not interest himself. He might well use for his motto the famous saying of Terence, "Homo sum — humani nihil a me alienum puto" — I am a man interested in all that concerns my fellow-men. It is necessary to review his extra- Presidential activities for only a few months to discover how far his sympathies extend. In the summer of 1905 he travelled from his home at Oyster Bay to Coney Island, on New THE STRENUOUS MAN 111 York Bay, for the sole purpose of visiting a hospital for the treatment of children of the poor suffering from tuberculosis of the bones. When he saw what benefit the children derived from the sea air he made an appeal to the pub- lic for the support of the institution. Some months later he took time to write to the president of the National Mothers' Congress : I believe so heartily in the Congress of Mothers that I will break through my rule of not writing such letters to wish you all possible success in your Mothers' Congress of Georgia, which is your native State and was the native State of my own mother. This solicitude for the coming generation, this care that there shall be men and women in sympathy with American ideals, extends to the development of the physical bodies of the children. In August, 1905, he accepted the honorary vice-presidency of the Public Schools Athletic League, organised to secure systematic athletic drill for the boys. In a let- ter addressed to General George W. Wingate, 112 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the president of the League, he said the organisation "is performing a service of the utmost importance, not merely from the standpoint of the physical, but also from the standpoint of the ethical needs of these school- children." He wrote further : "I am also par- ticularly pleased that you are about to organ- ise a woman's auxiliary branch, for the girls need exercise quite as much as the boys." From athletics in the schools in August his attention was transferred in the autumn to football in the colleges. In October he invited representatives of the athletic interests of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities to meet him at the White House to consider re- forming the abuses in the game, and in No- vember he had Dr. J. W. White of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania as his guest when he discussed the same subject. Dr. White re- ported, after his conference, that the Presi- dent had clear and positive views on the kind of reforms needed. They included the aboli- tion of brutality and foul play, with such THE STRENUOUS MAN 113 power given to the umpire as would permit him to order from the field not only individual players, but whole teams when detected in bru- tality or in violation of the rules of fairness ; and he urged that the responsible heads of colleges whose teams play together should have a "gentleman's agreement" to secure the enforcement of the spirit as well as the letter of the rules intended to make an honourable defeat more glorious than an unfairly won victory. The complete history of the President's in- tervention in the war between Russia and Ja- pan has not yet been written ; but whether he intervened on his own initiative, or whether he acted on the suggestion of some one else, he had the time and the strength in the summer of 1905, as well as the disposition, to attempt to bring two warring nations together. The Peace of Portsmouth was properly the Peace of Theodore Roosevelt — not Roosevelt the American President, but Roosevelt the citizen of the world, seeking to prevent unnecessary 114 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT bloodshed and using the prestige of the high office which he temporarily holds to bring to pass the results which the man desires. From making peace he turned his attention to encouraging Irish industries, for he wrote to the managers of an Irish industrial fair ex- pressing deep interest in the whole exhibition, but particularly in that part of it which was intended to interpret the Irish.revival, or the revival of the study of the ancient Celtic language. A few weeks later he sent a signed photograph of himself to the Manhattan Chess Club, to go to the winner in the cable chess match between that club and the Berliner Chess Society. In December he sent a mes- sage of appreciation and congratulation to be read at the dinner in honour of the seven- tieth anniversary of the birth of Mark Twain, and in the same month he had as his guest in Washington Herr Engelbert Humperdinck, the composer of "Hansel and Gretel," with whom he discussed music and German litera- ture. And at about this time he was interest- THE STRENUOUS MAN 115 ing himself in securing for the National Art Gallery the superb collection of paintings by Whistler owned by Mr. Charles L. Freer, of Detroit. When Mr. Walter Wellman sailed from New York in the spring of 1906 to arrange for an attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon, Mr. Roosevelt sent to him a telegram of good wishes ; and when the Americans won a vic- tory at the Olympic games in Greece, he tele- graphed to the manager of the team : Hearty congratulations to you and the American contestants. Uncle Sam is all right. At his suggestion, a race between Ameri- can and German yachts was arranged for the early autumn of 1906, and after the race he presented the prize, a cup called after him, to Commodore Trenor L. Park, owner of the Vim, the successful boat. His activities have extended even to an attempt to reform the spelling of the English language. VI THE HUMAN MAN Speculate as men will about the purpose of life, and strain as they may on the cords which bind them to the elemental facts, one truth remains. The organisation of society is based on the sanctity of the family, on the anticipa- tion of offspring, and on the importance of safeguarding the future for the benefit of those that shall come after. Practically all our progress has come because men have sought to improve the conditions of life for *heir children. This desire has built railways, has equipped factories, has painted pictures, has erected splendid buildings, to say nothing of endowing colleges and founding scholar- ships for the immediate benefit of the younger generation. The child with the morning in his face is the motive of the man and the woman, and in a a THE HUMAN MAN 117 very real sense the babe is leading the world. There is a divine allegory in the singing of the angels in celebration of the Advent of the Child in Bethlehem, as well as in the pilgrim- age of the Wise Men to do homage with pre- cious gifts before the cradle of the New Born. Whatever else it was, the Great Miracle put the divine seal upon the lesser miracle of the advent of the humblest child with its guaran- tee of racial continuity. In these days of the restless woman, seeking out her mission in the world, Mr. Roosevelt's glorification of fatherhood and motherhood attracts attention, because in some circles it has been assumed that human ingenuity could devise a better occupation for women than training their children into unselfish and help- ful men and women ready to take up the work of the world where their elders leave it. This is only one of many instances of his grasp of the elemental virtues and of his courage in urging the importance of what men sometimes overlook because it is so common. He is not 118 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT ashamed to show his fondness for chil- dren, and is touched when they respond. Mr. Eggleston, whose wonder at his tire- lessness we have seen expressed, says in further description of what happened during his call: "There was a glisten as of tears in his eyes when I told him the other evening that a stal- wart boy had recently said to me : " 'Anyhow, Mr. Roosevelt always stands for us boys when we want to do things.' "I had seen him receive a boy a few days be- fore," Mr. Eggleston continues. "The boy, a fine lad with a head that meant something, had come with his father to be 'presented.' The father was received cordially. The boy was almost embraced. The President took him by the shoulders in caressing fashion and talked with him as any good-natured senior in a school might do with a new scholar who pleased his fancy. The boy had looked abashed and terrified before his presentation. When it was over he seemed to me to be the THE HUMAN MAN 119 happiest boy in the world — with the excep- tion, perhaps, of Mr. Roosevelt." Two little girls were going to Oyster Bay to visit their grandmother for a second time while Mr. Roosevelt was at his home there in the summer of 1903. When asked if they had seen the President, one of them responded: "Of course I have. He goes by our house almost every day. He always waves his hand and takes off his hat to me." "To you!" exclaimed the other child. "He takes off his hat to all of us." "Well, he may do that, but he smiles at me. I know he does, because we are acquainted. I was on the fence one day, alone, and he went by on horseback. He leaned over and said, 'How do you do, little girl? What is your name?' 'Ethel, sir,' I said. And after that he always smiles at me, because he knows me." One day he was sitting in his library there, talking over public affairs with a friend, when a lot of boys entered the room. 120 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "Uncle Teddy," said one, respectfully, "it's after four." "So it is," responded Mr. Roosevelt, looking at the clock. "Why didn't you call me sooner ? One of you boys get my rifle." Then he turned to his guest and added, "I must ask you to excuse me. We'll talk this out some other time. I promised the boys I'd go shooting with them after four o'clock, and I never keep boys waiting. It's a hard trial for a boy to wait." Then he walked off down the lawn with a crowd of boys surrounding him, all talking at the same time and appealing constantly to "Uncle Teddy." A wholesome woman who had called to see him in Washington in connection with public business, said, as she was leaving, that his con- ception of family life was beautiful, and added that she thought his children must be a great pleasure to him. "Pleasure !" he said with a smile ; "you would be surprised and perhaps shocked if you could THE HUMAN MAN 121 see the President of the United States engaged in a pillow fight with his children. But those fights are the joy of my life." During the special session of Congress in November, 1903, it became necessary to ap- point a Federal Judge in one of the Western States. The President believes that it is right to consult the Congressmen from the State in which an appointment is to be made. The Congressmen from this State had not been able to agrpe on a man for the vacancy. The supporters of one candidate had charged that the candidate of another group was guilty, among other things, of playing poker with many lawyers and winning their money. It was said that such a man could not be trusted to make an impartial judge when these lawyers were practising before him. The President, however, would not rule this man from consideration just then, and in- sisted that the Congressmen should agree among themselves. One afternoon, while thej' were in caucus 122 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT together, one of the Republican leaders of the State went to the White House and talked to the President about the case. In the course of the interview he told Mr. Roosevelt how dis- tressed the candidate's family was over the charges against him, and exhibited a letter which the man, who was in Washington look- ing after his own interests, had received from his young daughter at home. The letter read : Dear Papa : Why don't you go to the Presi- dent and tell him about it? If he sees your face he will never believe those nasty charges. Mr. Roosevelt took a rose from among the flowers on his table and handed it to his caller. "I wish," said he, "that you would send that flower to that daughter and tell her I like a young girl who has that kind of faith in her father." At this moment a messenger from the De- partment of Justice came in and presented a paper to the President. It was a note from Attorney-General Knox, stating that at the THE HUMAN MAN 123 President's command he had investigated the charges against the man and found them un- true. The President showed the note to the State leader and then, sitting down, wrote out the candidate's nomination and sent it at once to the Senate. The combination of a loyal daughter de- fending her father against unjust charges made an appeal not to be resisted. On an- other occasion executive action was prompted by an appeal to prevent the separation of the members of an immigrant family. This was in the case of two Syrian children whose father came to this country in 1902. He left his wife and family behind, planning to send for them later. He settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, and declared his intention of becoming a citizen. Within a year he had saved money enough to bring his family to the United States. They sold their small belong- ings in Turkev and started for America. When they arrived in New York they were met by the husband and father, and the family 124- THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT reunion was joyous. They were all to live to- gether in the land of freedom and could hardly wait till the inspection officers had admitted them. Then came the tragedy. The children could not pass the medical examination. While on board they had contracted some disease of the eyelids, said to be contagious, and they must go back on the steamer which brought them. The mother might remain here. Indeed, she would have to, as there was not money enough left to pay her way back to her own country. And if she went back she would have no place to which to go. There are many such trage- dies at the immigration office. The inspectors are used to them and their indifference made the thing seem harder to bear. "Is it nothing to you that I have spent my all to bring my family here, where there is oppor- tunity for every man, and now find that for reasons beyond our control my innocent young children must be torn from their mother?" is what the man said, in effect, wondering at the THE HUMAN MAN 125 heartlessness of the letter of the regula- tions. But he hastened to get assistance. Through a friend he interested Mr. Rockwood Hoar, of Worcester, son of Senator Hoar. Mr. Hoar assured the immigration authorities that a bond would be given to guarantee that the children would not become public charges. When the authorities refused to accept any bond, he persuaded his father to use his in- fluence. The Senator, in his turn, urged that the children be admitted, telling the officers that their father was an industrious man, fully capable of taking care of his family. He re- ceived word, in reply, that the terms of the law were explicit and that the children with the diseased eyes would be sent back on the follow- ing Thursday, when the steamer that brought them sailed. Exceptions had been made in the past in favour of special cases and trouble had always followed. The Senator then tele- graphed a statement of the case to the officers in Washington, but they replied that nothing 126 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT could be done ; it was contrary to public policy to make an exception in favour of any one. He then telegraphed to Senator Lodge, who was in Washington, and Mr. Lodge made an unsuccessful appeal at the Treasury Depart- ment. This was on Tuesday. Mr. Hoar tele- graphed to the President on Wednesday morn- ing, explaining the situation and saying that if an exception were ever allowable, it ought to be made in this case ; and that the naturalisa- tion laws, which gave to the minor children of naturalised citizens the same rights as their parents, ought not to be nullified by the immi- gration laws, or the execution of those laws. In less than half an hour after the receipt of the despatch, a message left the White House ordering the New York immigration officers to admit the children at once. The President believed that whatever might be the terms of the law, its provisions did not extend to such cases, and acted accordingly. There has seldom been a finer example of the genuineness of American democracy. The THE HUMAN MAN 127 highest executive power in the land reached down to put into the mother's arms the suffer- ing child, barred out by the officers who had decided to enforce the letter rather than the spirit of the law. It was the appeal of the child to the elemental man. When the President was in Worcester a few months later, he asked about the children, and they were taken to him at Senator Hoar's house, where, the ailment of their eyes entirely cured, they looked the gratitude which their tongues, untrained in English, could not speak. The President frequently shows an interest in the families of the men he meets. When the train reached Nebraska on one of his tours of the country, Governor John H. Mickey joined the party to escort it across the com- monwealth. The President was delighted to meet him and asked many questions, ending with : "How many children have you, Governor?" "Nine," the Governor replied. 128 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "You are a mighty good man," said the President with evident delight. "You are a better man than I am. I have had only six." We have seen his attitude toward children and toward the fathers and mothers. His theories on the subject of safeguarding the future of the race were set forth in a letter to Mrs. John Van Vorst, who, in collabora- tion with Miss Marie Van Vorst, had recently written a remarkable book on the trials of working women. It is better to present them in full than to summarise them. He wrote: White House, Washington, D. C, October 18, 1902. My dear Mrs. Van Vorst: I must write to vou to say how much I have appreciated your article "The Woman Who Toils." But to me there is a most melancholy side to it, when you touch upon what is fundamentally in- finitely more important than any other ques- tion in this country — that is, the question of race suicide, complete or partial. An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a de- sire to be "independent" — that is, to live one's life purely according to one's own desires — THE HUMAN MAN 129 are in no sense substitutes for the fundamental virtues, for the practice of the strong racial qualities, without which there can be no strong races — the qualities of courage and resolution in both men and women, of scorn of what is mean, base, and selfish, of eager desire to work or to fight or to suffer, as the case may be, provided the end to be attained is great enough, and the contemptuous putting aside of mere ease, mere vapid pleasure, mere avoid- ance of toil and worry. I do not know whether I most pity or most despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that the only things really worth having in life are those the ac- quirement of which normally means cost and effort. If a man or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied of those highest of all joys, which spring only from home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy — the sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the beginning of the campaign, or the man who toils hard and is brought to ruin by the fault of others. But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and 130 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people. Of course no one quality makes a good citizen, and no one quality will save a nation. But there are certain great qualities for the lack of which no amount of intellectual bril- liancy or of material prosperity or of easiness of life can atone, and which show decadence and corruption in the nation just as much if they are produced by selfishness and coldness and ease-loving laziness among comparatively poor people as if they are produced by vicious or frivolous luxury in the rich. If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognise that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother — why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future. There is no physical trouble among us Ameri- cans. The trouble with the situation set forth is one of character, and therefore we can con- quer it if we only will. Very sincerely yours, Theodore Roosevelt. THE HUMAN MAN 131 The human side of the man does not mani- fest itself in friendliness toward children alone. His sympathies are broad enough to take in all ages and conditions. When Henry C Payne, Postmaster-General, died in Washing- ton, October 4, 1904, Mr. Roosevelt stopped a moment to talk with a group of newspaper correspondents as he was leaving the house of death. He asked them if they had known Mr. Payne, and when they nearly all replied in the affirmative, he said : "He was the sweetest, most lovable, and most trustful man I have ever known." His telegram of sympathy to Mrs. Quay, on the death of her husband earlier in the same year, was similar. He wrote: Mrs. M. S. Quay, Beaver, Penn. : Accept my profound sympathy, official and personal. Throughout my term as President, Senator Quay had been my staunch and loyal friend. I had hoped to the last that he would, by his sheer courage, pull through his illness. Again accept my sympathy. Theodore Roosevelt. 132 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT His tribute to the men who were killed by the explosion of a gun on the warship Missouri, in the spring of 1904, was even more emphatic. It was made in a letter to Secretary Moody, of the Navy Department, accompanying a cheque for one hundred dollars. Here is the letter : My dear Mr. Secretary: May I send through you this contribution to be used for the dependent kinsfolk of the enlisted men who have just been killed on board the Mis- souri? Under the conditions of modern war- fare, in order efficiently to prepare for war, risk must be run similar in kind, though not in degree, to the risk run in battle, and these men have died for their country as much as if the ship had been in action against the enemy. Sincerely yours, Theodore Roosevelt. It is the human side of the man that makes him believe that good government is more than a matter of enforcement of abstract theories. It must in some way make human fellowship an easier and a less restricted enjoyment. THE HUMAN MAN 133 There is the case of Peter Kelley, for instance. Kelle} 7 was a young Brooklyn lawyer who was sent to the New York Legislature by the Democrats in 1883, when Mr. Roosevelt was serving in that body. Kelley attached himself to Roosevelt, and the two worked together for those things in which both believed. The Brooklyn Democratic organisation was not pleased with Kelley's independence and he was not renominated. He had given so much atten- tion to his legislative duties that his law prac- tice suffered and he could not get it back again. As time went on he fell ill, and his landlord threatened to evict him for non- payment of rent. Mr. Roosevelt heard of the matter, and sent a cheque for several hundred dollars to Kelley, with a message telling him to consider it as a loan to be repaid at his convenience. Kelley accepted it in the spirit in which it was offered. Then Mr. Roosevelt was asked to speak at a meeting in Brooklyn, held some time after the mayoralty election in 1887. He said as he 134 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT arose, "You wish me to talk about civic reform and good citizenship, I suppose." Some voices were heard saying "Yes," and "That is what we came for." "Then," said he, "I will tell you about one of your own neighbours, my friend Peter Kelley. He is a Democrat, while I am a Re- publican, but honesty in public service knows no party lines. The first duty of decent citizenship is to stand by a good man when you have found him ; that is the only way you can keep popular government respectable, and the people of Brooklyn have not stood by Peter Kelley." Then he told the story of Kelley's record in the Legislature and of the treatment which he had received from his party at home, and aroused so much admiration and sympathy for the man that it began to look as if he would have clients enough in the future. And Alfred C. Chapin, who had just been elected mayor, offered to appoint Kelley to a city office. Mr. Roosevelt's appeal to the humanity of his THE HUMAN MAN 135 audience came too late, as Kelley died that night. Probably the finest illustration of Mr. Roose- velt's admiration for the splendid human traits in the men with whom he has been associated is found in the tribute which he paid to Leonard Wood, William H. Taft, and Elihu Root in his speech at the Harvard Commencement dinner, June 25, 1902. He reviewed briefly their work in the War Department, in the Philippines and in Cuba, and concluded : "These three men have done that service. I can do nothing for them. I can show my appreciation of them in no way save the wholly insufficient one of standing up for them and for their works, and that I will do." Dr. Edward Everett Hale appreciated the significance of the address, for that same day, at a reunion of the members of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, he said, after Mr. Roose- velt had presented a gold medal to him in behalf of his fellow-fraternity men : "Some of you heard the President's speech. 136 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT To those who were not there, I say you should have been there, because it is a speech not to be remembered for a lifetime, but for cen- turies, by one who gave every moment he had to extol the work of three of his great lieu- tenants that they might have the fair honour which they deserve. I do not know that there is anything like it in literature, where a chief has stood so loyally by three men who stood so lo}rally by him and the country as well." When he attended his class reunion at Har- vard in 1905, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his graduation, he manifested the same dis- position to say a good word for others. It was at the meeting of the alumni, presided over by Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, presi- dent of the association, that he said: "I speak on behalf of the younger men here present when I say that we shall count our- selves more than happy if we can in any way approach the service of the older men of Har- vard to the Union. In Bishop Lawrence's very touching introduction of me he spoke of the THE HUMAN MAN 137 effort I am making for peace. [The Presi- dent's intervention in the war between Russia and Japan, which was later followed by a ces- sation of hostilities and a treaty of peace.] Of course I am for peace. Of course every President who is fit to be President is for peace. But I am for one thing before peace — I am for righteousness first, and for peace, be- cause normal peace is the instrument for ob- taining righteousness. I am speaking now on behalf of the class of '80, and as nobody else has blown our horn for us I am going to blow it j ust a little. We have followed the example so admirably set by the class of '79 in seek- ing to show in practical fashion our desire to do something for the University. Acting largely under the lead of Mr. Robert Bacon, we have raised — gentlemen, I am going to ask you to give nine cheers for Robert Bacon." The President led the cheering and continued : "We have raised a fund to be used without conditions at all for the benefit of the Univer- sity, but we hope it will be used in increasing 138 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the salaries of those employed to teach in Harvard University. We ought to raise sal- aries for the sake of giving a more adequate reward to the men. But even if the}' would go on working at improperly low salaries, we ought to give them decent ones for the sake of our own self-respect." It is this sort of whole-souled plea for others that is partly responsible for the great affec- tion in which the country seems to hold him, an affection so great that even the children share it and speak of him familiarly. A school- teacher in Syracuse disclosed this mental atti- tude when she asked a little girl in class to name the head of the government. "Mr. Roosevelt," she replied. "That is right, but what is his official title ?" "Teddy !" was the instant response, made with great assurance. Even the small boys who are taken to Wash- ington by their fathers to see the President get impatient in the waiting-room and ask: "When are we going to see Teddy?" and THE HUMAN MAN 139 again, "Is this where Teddy Roosevelt works ?" Mr. Roosevelt's interest in the old home of his mother in Roswell, Georgia, and in the old family servants, manifested during his visit there in 1905, has been well described by Mr. Ralph Smith, who says that as the President's carriage passed through Roswell on the way to the homestead on the hill an old man shouted : "There's Teddy, Martha's son!" The President himself made a low bow and waved his hand in the direction of the old man. At the homestead "Mom" Grace and "Daddy" Williams, old servants of the Bullocks, had gathered with the Wing family and their rela- tives. When the President and his party reached the house the people assembled were introduced by Senator Clay to the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. It was not long; before the President's attention was drawn to an old negro woman, stooped under the weight of years, her skin black and wrinkled. "This is Auntie Grace," said one of the 140 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT ladies, who had noticed Mr. Roosevelt's evi- dent interest. "Mom Grace, you mean, don't you?" asked he. "I have always heard her called 'Mom' Grace, not Auntie Grace." "Yes, sah," said the old woman; "dis am 'Mom Grace,' Miss Mittie's nuss, and you was Miss Mittie's son?" she asked. "Yes, Mom Grace, I am Miss Mittie's son, and I am certainly very happy to see you," and the President cordially grasped the old woman's hand. "I sho' 'member Miss Mittie, just like it was yestiddy," she said, "and I sho' is happy to see you, too." "Where is Daddy Williams?" the President asked, referring to a servant who had been raised as a slave by the family. The old man was brought forward and was greeted heartily. The President then turned to Mrs. E. H. Wood and asked about the "beautiful bed of violets that my mother used to talk about." It was shown to him with THE HUMAN MAN 141 many flowers in blossom. Then he desired to see the old well that was used as a cold-storage vault. He went through the house from top to bottom and explored the back yard, talking all the time of the many things which his mother had told him of the place. Finally he stood for his photograph on the front porch. Before the group was posed he said: "Where are Mom Grace and Daddjr Will- iams? They must be in this picture." And Theodore Roosevelt, son of Martha Bul- lock, stood before the Southern homestead be- side his mother's old black nurse and another family servant, an intensely human man yield- ing to the natural impulses of interest in the all that pertained to the life of his family in the generation before him. VII THE DEMOCRATIC MAN Some day men may wonder whether Mr. Roosevelt's ideals were formed by his study of the little volume of Burns which he carried with him while herding cattle, or whether he read Burns because the Scotchman's sympa- thetic democracy appealed to him. Certain it is that he is entirely free from the affecta- tions which Burns despised, for he has in- sisted in season and out of season that "a man's a man," whatever may be the outward gar- ments that clothe the manly spirit. He seems to have given to himself the advice that the Texan gave to his son who was about to go to New York. "Whenever you meet a man," said the Texan, "who allows he's your superior, you just look at him and say to yourself, 'After all, you're just folks.' You want to remember for your- THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 143 self, too, that you're just folks. After you have lived as long as I have, and knocked round the world, you'll learn that that's all any one of us is — just folks." He has never regarded himself as better than anybody else and has never asked that rules be suspended in his behalf. Years ago, while he was still a very young man, he visited the Yel- lowstone Park. His seat mate on the stage that carried the party from the railroad to the park says : "When we reached the government station, at the entrance to the national park, an official asked that all hunting arms be passed to him in order that he might seal them. Mr. Roose- velt promptly turned his guns over to the offi- cer ; but the man instantly recognised the trav- eller and offered them back. The recognition was mutual. " 'Your guns are all right, Mr. Roosevelt,' said the government officer in a low tone. " 'No ; they have no seals upon them,' was the prompt reply. 144 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT " 'I can trust you,' answered the inspector. " 'Not on your life,' answered the visitor. 'Seal 'em up ! No special privileges for me, just because we have met before, old man.' "And Mr. Roosevelt's guns were sealed like the others." Mr. Roosevelt might have been different, for we find men, descended from honourable an- cestors and blessed with inherited wealth, who think that the}^ are better than others and talk about the "lower orders" and the importance of rescuing control of government from the plain people because they do not agree with those pleased to call themselves the "educated classes." It would have been easy for Mr. Roosevelt to have fallen in with the theories and practices of the people who believe in gov- ernment by the few on the ground that the many cannot be trusted to decide what is good for them. But the notion of imposing govern- ment from above on anybody save the crimi- nal, seems never to have occurred to him as a just or a righteous thing. As previously re-' THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 145 corded, he told a New York audience in 1890 that he had more confidence in the virile vicious than in the inefficient and degenerate "higher society." He only elaborated this idea when he said on another occasion : "For myself, I'd work as quick beside Pat Dugan as with the last descendants of the Patroon. It literally makes no difference to me, so long as the work is good and the man is in earnest. I would have the young men work. I'd try to develop and work out an ideal of mine, the theory of the duty of the leisure classes to the community. I have tried to do it by example, and it is what I have preached — first and foremost, to be American, heart and soul, and to go with any person, heedless of anything but that man's personal qualifications." It is always the man that counts with him. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp." And when he has found a man he is always loyal to him. All those who have had a^rthing to do with him know this. He showed it in Bangor, 146 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT Maine, when lie was there in the summer of 1902. At a suitable pause in the proceedings of the meeting which he was addressing he went to the edge of the platform and called out: "If 'Old Bill' Sewall is in town I want him to join me at luncheon, for I feel like a man who has lost a partner in a crowd." It was William Wingate Sewall, of Island Falls, that he wanted, the man who went West with him when he bought his ranch in Dakota Territory. There was a scurrying hunt for Sewall, and when he was found he shared the honours of the day with the President. "I knew that if the President knew I was around," said he in the evening, when the ex- citement had subsided somewhat, "he'd have me right with him, but I didn't think it would be anything like this. I have known him for twenty-three years — ever since he was a col- lege boy. We didn't talk much about politics to-day. We had other things to talk about." According to General Charles F. Manderson, THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 147 former United States Senator from Nebraska, Mr. Roosevelt's democratic manner had a somewhat startling effect on a prominent Eng- lishman who saw him when he was Governor of New York. "I was in Buffalo, attending a meeting of the American Bar Association," said General Manderson, who was its president. "Among the distinguished guests present from abroad was Sir William Kenned}', of London, eminent in the profession, and one of the justices of the High Court of Justice of Great Britain and president of the International Law Asso- ciation. "One night while seated in the parlour of our hotel the attention of the English lawyers who were present was attracted by consider- able hilarity in an adjoining room. Later on the door opened and in walked Governor Roosevelt. He greeted me in his usual breezy fashion, and in explanation of his presence in town stated that he had been addressing some of the agricultural societies of the State and 148 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT had come to Buffalo to dine and spend the evening with a number of his personal and political friends. He spoke to me of having lately attended a reunion of Rough Riders, and greatly amused and interested me and the group of foreign gentlemen, all of them law- yers, seated near, with a vivid and picturesque description of his army life in Cuba ; of the life on the plains in which he had figured, with tales of bucking bronchos and cavorting steers with heads aloft and tails over their backs in wild stampede. He also gave inter- esting bits of hunting scenes, and wound up with some unique views of men and things in- teresting to him in his brief but strenuous existence. "I took advantage of a pause in the conversa- tion," General Manderson continues, "to in- troduce the foreign gentlemen present. After Mr. Roosevelt had taken his departure, Sir William Kennedy broke out with, 'But, I say, Senator, that is a very remarkable man, you know, a very remarkable man. And you say THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 149 he is Governor of New York. That is very surprising, you know. I really can't say that I ever before met exactly such a man. And he seems to be a fighter. I rather like that in him. And you say he is a writer of high re- pute, too? Well, by Jove, he is the queerest combination I have ever met.' "During the summer of 1901, while I was in London, I again met Sir William. Mr. Roose- velt's impressive individuality still dominated his mind, for after indulging in some prelimi- nar} T conversation he remarked: 'By the wa}^, I see that your friend Roosevelt, whom we met in Buffalo, is Vice-President. That is very as- tonishing, very astonishing, indeed. I was much interested in him at the time and have watched his course and have read some of his writings. He seems to write as well as he fights, and is very young to have had such an eventful career.' "I told him to watch the future and not be astonished at what could be achieved by young men in this young country of ours. I then in- 150 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT creased his amazement by telling him the story of Roosevelt's nomination as Vice-President, and how it was forced upon him. When he heard that his great desire was to be re-elected as Governor of New York, that he might carry out certain bold reforms, the amazement of this intelligent and appreciative jurist in- creased. "Sir William Kennedy was in this country again in the summer of 1904," General Man- derson concluded, "and I met him at the Con- gress of Lawyers in St. Louis. He has ceased to be amazed, and his astonishment has given way to the satisfaction that all prominent Englishmen seem to feel over the advancement of this typical American." The human and humane things seem to be easy for him, even though at times it means taking note of trivial matters. One day while Governor he was walking from the Capitol in Albany, accompanied by a friend, when he noticed two sturdy but tired horses striving to haul a load up the ice-covered street. THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 151 One of the horses slipped. Mr. Roosevelt stopped at once, and with the absorbed ex- pression on his face which he wears when deeply interested, watched the horse get up on his feet. The animal stumbled again and fell. "Stop a moment," Mr. Roosevelt said to the driver. "Drive sideways." The man did not recognise the Governor and was about to curse him for interfering when Mr. Roosevelt caught his eye. Then the man zigzagged his horses up the hill past the ice with never a word. The grim look on the Governor's face dis- appeared as quickly as it came, and the next moment he had lifted his hat to a little child who had saluted him in military fashion. With equal sympathy he relieved the em- barrassment of a new page who was overawed by his boyish idea of the greatness of the head of the State government. The boy had to deliver a message to the Governor and he en- tered the executive chamber with his heart in 152 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT his throat and his knees trembling from em- barrassment. When he reappeared from the room after delivering the note he was smiling blissfully, and as he met another page he exclaimed enthusiastically : "Say, ain't Teddy a peach!" Neither as Governor of his own State, nor yet as President, has he for one moment for- gotten that he is "just folks." He does chafe, however, under the awesome manner with which he is sometimes approached. In refer- ring to this subject in conversation with a friend at dinner, he said : "I am losing all my manners. The ladies won't sit down where I am unless I sit down first." When a woman from Jacksonville, Florida, was presented to him in his office, she an- nounced : "Mr. President, I have come all this way just to see you. I have never seen a live President before." "Well, well," was the reply, while the woman THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 153 looked shocked, "I hope you don't feel disap- pointed, now that you have seen one. Lots of people in these parts go all the way to Jacksonville to see a live alligator." He surprised a painter who was at work on the White House just as he astonished the woman from Jacksonville. He went out of the house one day to see how the men were getting on with their work. One of them was swinging his brush in a leisurely fashion and Mr. Roosevelt stopped near him to see how slowly the man could work. Pretty soon he demanded : "How much do you get a day?" "Three and a quarter," the painter replied. "That's big pay for such pleasant work," re- joined the President. "When I was a boy I used to think that I would like to be a painter. It always appealed to me because you can see something accomplished with each stroke of the brush." By this time Mr. Roosevelt was close beside the man, who asked him if he did not want to 154 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT try his hand at painting now, and offered his brush. Much to his surprise, the President took it and for a time covered the wall with paint at a rapid rate. He went over fully ten square feet of surface before he surrendered the brush. Then he nodded, as much as to say, "That is the way you ought to work," and walked over to a gang of men who were shovelling dirt into a waggon. One of his South Dakota friends went to Washington to renew his acquaintance with Mr. Roosevelt soon after he became President. While he was there he attended a musicale at the White House. At the close of the pro- gramme — classical music only had been played — some one asked the man banteringly how he had liked the entertainment. "I am afraid," he replied dryly, as many another man would have done, "I'm afraid it was a spell too far up the gulch for me." The President, who heard the pertinent criti- cism, laughed heartily, turned to the man's wife and saved the situation by remarking THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 155 "You'd better take care of the captain's pis- tol. I know that out in his country they shoot the fiddler when he doesn't play the tunes they want." In the autumn of 1903 a committee of labour men from Montana went to Washington to talk about the labour situation in that State. Before entering on the discussion of their business the President entertained them at luncheon, with Secretary Cortelyou, of the Department of Labour and Commerce; Car- roll D. Wright, Labour Commissioner ; Repre- sentative Dixon of Montana, and Wayne Mc- Veagh, as the other guests. He told the labour man he was "as glad to welcome them as he would be to receive seven of the richest and most influential men in the country," and then led the conversation around to life in the West, with which his guests were familiar, and still further appealed to them by stories of his own experience. "The best meal I have ever eaten," said he, among other things, "or at least, the one that 156 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT tasted best, I got in Butte, and it cost me just twenty-five cents. "In 1885, Jack Willis, a cowboy friend of mine, and I landed in Butte. Our remittances had been delayed and we had just half a dol- lar between us. We were so hungry we could hardly see, and we were much afraid that our fifty cents would not go far toward satisfying our appetites. "Finally we found a twenty-five-cent restau- rant — not a Chinese restaurant, either — and the meal we got there made us happy and con- tent. The next day our money reached us and we were all right. But ever since then I have had a warm place in my heart for Butte." His human sympathy has made it possible for for him to get enjoyment out of many novel situations. The Kansas City newspapers have preserved an instance of his geniality, shown at the time of his visit to that city in 1903. As the parade in his honour was passing along Walnut Street a cowboy stepped over the THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 157 rope that was holding back the spectators — he was tall enough to step over it easily — and, taking off his sombrero with a courtly flourish, as the President appeared, he yelled : "Hello, Ted!" The President looked around suddenly, a broad smile spread over his features, and he slowly and distinctly winked his left eye at the man in the street. When the police succeeded in getting the cowboy back behind the rope, where he be- longed and where he was among his friends, he exclaimed enthusiastically: "Did you see him recognise me? Why, me and Ted used to ride the range together in Wyoming. We're old pals. Did you see him wink t'other eye? He knows me all right." Mr. Roosevelt has not yet confessed whether he knew the man, or only knew what would please him. Since he has been President, he has always tried to gratify the desire of the people to see him. On his tours of the country he has 158 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT recognised the propriety of the curiosity of the people to look on a "live President," even though he does smile when they confess that curiosity in Washington. "I had the honour to be the guest of the President during his journey through the Eighth Congressional District of Iowa," said Colonel Hepburn, the representative of that district, in discussing this subject. "The schedule provided for five stops, at which times the President made some remarks to the vast crowds of people who had gathered to see the Chief Executive. We passed through, per- haps, twenty towns where no stops were made, but the President insisted that the train should slow up at every station, and no matter what he happened to be engaged in doing at the time, he instantly ran to the rear platform and bowed, and in some instances waved his hat or handkerchief to the masses of people who had expected to get only a glimpse of a fly- ing train bearing the President of the United States. THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 159 "It was raining at one of the points where a stop was made," Colonel Hepburn continued, "and the President was to take a short drive and inspect the town. The committee on re- ception had provided a covered carriage, but the President insisted that the top should be lowered even though it exposed him to the storm. As the top was dropped he remarked : " 'These thousands of people have assembled this bad day to see their President ; if they can stand to walk in the rain, I guess I can stand it to ride a few minutes in the rain.' "At the town of Diagonal, the President was making a speech. An old crippled soldier hobbled along and tried to find a seat without success. The President stopped and said : " 'I cannot proceed until that old soldier is provided with a place to sit.' "At one point the President looked out of the window of the car and a few rods ahead saw a farmer in his working clothes with bared head, standing alongside the track that ran through his cornfield. Realising that the farmer in- 160 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT tended to show his respect for the President of the United States as he was borne by on the rushing train, Mr. Roosevelt, without stop- ping to excuse himself to the men he was talk- ing with, seized his hat, dashed to the rear platform, swung it in the air and bowed." Mr. Roosevelt's approachableness impresses itself upon all who have anything to do with him, whether it be the members of the Diplo- matic Corps (the representative of the Ger- man Embassy, who accompanied him on one of his tours, was astounded at the heartiness with which he entered into the spirit of a bur- lesque dinner in the dining car which the news- paper men on the train gave in the President's honour) or whether it be his own country- men of whatever station. " 'Mr. Roosevelt is by all odds the most democratic President we have had since the days of Jefferson.' "These words," says Mr. Eggleston in the interesting account of his visit to the Presi- dent referred to in a previous chapter, "were THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 161 spoken to me in Washington the other day by a gentlewoman who has lived long, travelled much, and observed closely, and who, by reason of her high social position, has had the entree of the White House for thirty years or more. "I quoted the utterance to Mr. Roosevelt soon afterward," Mr. Eggleston continues, "when I had the pleasure of passing an hour or two with him in the private, residential part of the Executive Mansion. His answer was quick, as his answers are apt to be when any- thing interests him. : 'I am democratic,' he said, with emphasis on the verb, 'if the word democratic is used in its legitimate sense. But I have no patience with the vulgarly ostentatious avoidance of os- tentation which sometimes calls itself "demo- cratic." I have no sympathy with the thought that in order to be democratic one must put aside respect for the gentle decencies of life and make a boor or a clown of himself. I believe thoroughly in the simplicities and the 162 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT honesties of life and in the fellowship of all honest and sincere men. But it doesn't appeal to me when a man refuses to wear the cus- tomary garb of gentlemen lest aristocratic pretensions be attributed to him.' "You do not think, then," Mr. Eggleston interjected, "that one need go to a public din- ner without cuffs in order to demonstrate his democracy ?" "The President laughed, and his laugh was sufficient answer to my question," says Mr. Eggleston. "But presently he added: " 'It is my endeavour to make of the White House during my term, not a second-rate pal- ace, like that of some insignificant prince, but the home of a self-respecting American citi- zen who has been called for a time to serve his countrymen in executive office. There seems to be a world of difference between democracy and demagogy. The one is based upon an honest and sincere respect for one's fellow-men, the other involves the sacrifice of self-respect in an appeal to vulgarity and prejudice.' THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 163 "As Mr. Roosevelt earnestly said this," com- ments Mr. Eggleston, "I could not avoid re- calling that passage in the novel called 'Democ- racy,' in which it is recorded that a certain Senator of the cuffless sort gravely doubted the prudence of taking a daily bath lest the practice be regarded by his constituents as 'savouring of aristocracy.' " Mr. Eggleston has also recorded the impres- sion which he received of the President's appreciation of the dignity of the great office that he occupies : "He is first of all a gentle- man, with all a gentleman's self-respect. He is, secondly, an American citizen, so strongly imbued with a sense of the dignity of Ameri- can citizenship that he makes his respectful bow to it whenever he meets it. He is, thirdly, the chosen representative of seventy-five mil- lion people, selected from their number by their willing suffrages to occupy the highest office within their gift. He maintains all of dignity that his high office demands of him. He has all the winning and easy courtesy for 164 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT those who approach him that any gentleman shows to the stranger within his gates. And with due respect to those imperative obliga- tions, he has all that any American citizen can have of frank and generous recognition of other citizenship than his own. When he comes out of his sanctum, as I saw him do a little while ago, to greet the miscellaneous throng of persons who daily call, with no other purpose than the idle one of shaking hands, he does so precisely as he might enter his draw- ing-room at Oyster Bay to converse with as- sembled guests. There is no formality or air of state in his demeanour ; but there is equally nothing of assumed familiarity. He does not sit or stand, as former Presidents have done, to have his guests 'presented.' He simply moves about among them, as one does in his parlour, greeting each pleasantly, saying whatever there is to be said of friendliness or courtesy, and if one previously known to him happens to be in the assemblage, grasping his hand with special cordiality and making pleasant THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 165 reference to some previous occasion of meet- ing. In brief, President Roosevelt receives his morning callers in the White House pre- cisely as plain Mr. Theodore Roosevelt has always received his callers in his own home. And he sends them away at last, happy and with the feeling that there has been nothing of arrogance in his reception of them, and especially nothing of condescension. This robustly healthy American citizen who is our chief executive has no sympathy with the inso- lence either of arrogance or of condescen- sion." How true this last statement is was well illus- trated when, as Civil Service Commissioner, he kept President Harrison waiting while he showed an errand boy the shortest route from the Treasury Building to the Capitol. He goes about his business as any other self- respecting citizen, making himself incon- spicuous rather than thrusting himself for- ward. This has been his habit for years. When he was president of the Police Commis- 166 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT sion in New York, he attended the Bourke Cockran meeting in Madison Square Garden in the autumn of 1896. I chanced to sit two rows behind the arena box which had been re- served for him. As he entered the hall, the people began to crane their necks and look at him, and "There's Roosevelt," was heard from many voices as he walked along. Men stopped him to grasp his hand, and he would respond briefly and hasten along, evidently anxious to escape the crowd. When he reached the box he went to the back of it and got behind the gentlemen who were with him, apparently desiring to hide himself from the curious eyes that seemed to follow his every move. In Washington he has also striven to make himself inconspicuous, and has succeeded in walking about the city many times without attracting special attention. For instance, one December Sunday afternoon when Connec- ticut Avenue was full of dignitaries he walked through the street without being recognised. THE DEMOCRATIC MA"N 167 He wore a faded brown coat, which was tightly buttoned about his chest to keep out the biting wind. An old weather-beaten hat was pulled down on his head, the brim half concealing his face. His shoes were heavy and covered with mud. His companion was a short man, fash- ionably clad, with a silk hat on his head. The two men were earnestly talking, and one giving only a casual glance at the couple might have thought that the larger, roughly dressed man was asking the other for a quarter to pay for a night's lodging. The conversation con- tinued till the pair came in sight of the White House, where a little black newsboy caught sight of them. His face lit up with a smile of recognition. "Hello !" he was heard to say to himself. "Marse Teddy !" The boy was about the only person who had discovered the President in the unconven- tional attire that he had put on for a long walk in the country with his Attorney- General. 168 THE M"ANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT Another picture of him in Washington may be worth while preserving. He is fond of the theatre; but he uses it for relaxation and sees the light comedies and comic operas which can be enjoyed, when enjoyed at all, with little mental exertion. When he was present at such a performance in the early winter of 1905 a little Boston terrier belonging to one of the young women in the chorus found its way to the stage, attracted thither by the lights. The dog got in front of the line of dancing and singing young women, looked about, stretched, and yawned. Everybody laughed, including Mr. Roosevelt. The dog heard the President's laugh and strolled over toward the side of the stage, sat down and looked at the man. Mr. Roosevelt smiled back at the dog. In a second or two he gathered himself for a jump and leaped over the side of the box into the President's lap and settled down contentedly. Mr. Roose- velt fondled the animal a moment and then lifted him back to the stage to the accompani- THE DEMOCRATIC MAN 169 ment of wild and enthusiastic applause, and the performance, which had been interrupted by the incident, was resumed ; but the audience for a time thought more of the instructive confidence with which the dog had appealed to the President's interest than of the play on the stage. VIII THE LITERARY MAN Me. Roosevelt early decided to use his pen. He had inherited fortune enough so that it was not necessary for him to work for a mere subsistence, but he was not content to be idle. His energies had to be employed in some way, and the pursuit of literature appealed to him. Later, as his family grew, he confessed to friends that it had now become necessary for him to write if he was to give his children the education which he desired for them. The in- come from his inheritance was not large enough of itself. His first book was a naval history of the War of 1812, which was published when he was twenty-four years old, and had been out of college only two years. The reason the sub- ject attracted him was characteristic. The histories which he had read were one-sided. THE LITERARY MAN 171 They gave too much credit to the American Navy and too little to the British. The facts were not fairly presented. He thought that, in justice to both sides, a more accurate ac- count of the war with a more impartial esti- mate of the military significance of the vic- tories ought to be prepared. He did this work so successfully that the critics of greatest au- thority commended him, declaring that "the impartiality of the author's judgment and the thoroughness with which the evidence is sifted are remarkable and worthy of high praise." When an English publisher prepared a his- tory of the British Navy Mr. Roosevelt was asked to write the history of its exploits in this war. He made himself an authority on the subject at an age when other young men are authorities only on tennis, baseball, polo, golf, or, possibly, bridge whist. His next book grew out of his ranching ex- periences, and was published in 1885, three years after the first. It was called "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman: Sketches of Sport on 172 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the Northern Cattle Plains, together with Per- sonal Experiences of Life on a Cattle Ranch." It was profusely illustrated, and first pub- lished in an edition limited to five hundred copies and sold by subscription for fifteen dol- lars. In honour of the author's ranch town, it was called the "Medora Edition." His literary and historical reputation was sufficiently established by this time for the publishers of a series of biographies of Ameri- can statesmen to ask him to write the lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Gouverneur Morris. These were published in separate volumes, in 1886 and 1887. And in 1887 there also ap- peared with his name on the title-page a vol- ume of "Essays on Practical Politics." An- other volume based on his Western experiences came out the next year, with the title "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail." It is devoted to a description of life on the plains as it was lived in the early eighties of the last century. That life is fast disappearing with the fencing of the ranges and the growing density of pop- THE LITERARY MAN 173 illation. Mr. Roosevelt's book will be increas- ingly interesting, not only as a record of ex- periences of one of the Presidents, but also as an account of conditions that once existed in the West. In 1889 the first two volumes of "Winning of the West" appeared, his historical work of greatest dignity and value. The third volume was published in 1894. It deals with the period from 1784 to 1790, and describes the founding of the trans-Allegheny common- wealths. What happened in the period cov- ered by the volume, Mr. Roosevelt briefly summarises in the preface. "It was during those seven years," he writes, "that the Con- stitution was adopted and actually went into effect ; an event, if possible, even more mo- mentous for the West than for the East. The time was one of vital importance to the whole nation ; alike to the people of the inland frontier and to those of the seaboard. The course of events during those years determined whether we should become a mighty nation or 174 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT a mere snarl of weak and quarrelsome little commonwealths, with a history as bloody and meaningless as that of the Spanish- American states." It should be noted here by the student of Mr. Roosevelt's intellectual and political growth, that for many years he has been occupied with the study of the development and expansion of the United States, from the point of view of the historian, modified by the experience of practical political life. It was not as a mere tyro that he entered upon the management of the executive affairs of the government in ac- cordance with the national policy that had grown up during a century. If fate had in- tended him for the Presidency, he could have had no better training in Americanism, properly so called, than he secured through his studies for this book. The fourth volume of it was published in 1896, and in 1898 he was planning to complete the fifth volume if he should not be elected Governor of New York. THE LITERARY MAN 175 His historical studies have not been confined to the incorporation of the great West into the nation. He has written a "History of New York City," published in 1891, in which he says: "It has been my aim less to collect new facts than to draw from the immense storehouse of facts already collected those which were of real importance in New York history, and to show their true meaning and their relations to one another; to sketch the workings of the town's life, social, commercial, and political, at successive periods, with their sharp transformations and contrasts, and to trace the causes which gradually changed the little Dutch trading hamlet into a huge Ameri- can city." These historical subjects are peculiarly American, involving either the absorption of vast territory into the national domain or the building of a great cit} T from the many and diverse peoples that have sought freedom of opportunity to live their life in their own way on these shores. 176 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT His history of New York was followed in 1893 by "The Wilderness Hunter: an Ac- count of the Big Game of the United States, and Its Chase with Horse, Hound, and Rifle." This is a hunting history, illustrated with pic- tures of the animals killed by Mr. Roosevelt himself, besides much interesting hunting lore. He collaborated with G. B. Grinnell in writing three hunting books for the Boone and Crockett Club, namely, "American Big Game Hunting," "Hunting in Many Lands," and "Trail and Camp Fire." He also collaborated with Henry Cabot Lodge in the preparation of a volume of "Hero Tales from American History." In 1897, ten years after his first volume of political essays, he published another collec- tion under the title "American Ideals ; and Other Essays, Social and Political." The sub- jects of the various chapters show pretty well the range of his interests. Here they are: "True Americanism ;" "The Manly Virtues and Practical Politics;" "The College Grad- THE LITERARY MAN 177 uate and Public Life ;" "Phases of State Leg- islation ;" "Machine Politics in New York City;" "Six Years of Civil Service Reform;" "Administering the New York Police Force ;" "The Vice-Presidency and the Campaign of 1896;" "How Not to Help Our Poorer Brother;" "The Monroe Doctrine;" "Wash- ington's Forgotten Maxims ;" "National Life and Character;" "Social Evolution;" and "The Law of Civilisation and Decay." He told the story of the raising of the regi- ment of Rough Riders and of its career in Cuba and afterward, in a volume published m 1899. As the regiment itself was unique, this history is unrivalled for the frankness with which the story is told, and for the skill of the writer in selecting from a large mass of materials that which would give the proper impression of what was done, and at the same time preserve the human interest in a military campaign. In the following year he published a "Life of Oliver Cromwell," which is deeply interesting, 178 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT for it presents the picture of one man of action through the eyes of another man of action, who is also at the same time a trained writer and student of history. His third vol- ume of essays, "The Strenuous Life," ap- peared in 1900 also. And in 1902, "The Deer Family," another hunting book, was issued, with his name as collaborator with others on the title-page. A volume of his "Addresses and Messages" came from the press in the spring of 1904, but that is the ordinary product of his public life rather than the deliberate work of a literary man. His latest book, "Outdoor Pastimes of an Ameri- can Hunter," appeared in the autumn of 1905. It contains the record of his hunting excursions after he became President, and in- cludes the cougar hunt of 1901, the Yellow- stone trip with John Burroughs in 1903, the Yosemite trip of the same year, the wolf hunt in Oklahoma, and the bear hunt in Colorado in the spring of 1905. A most remarkable illustration of his versatility is found in an THE LITERARY MAN 179 article from his pen on the "Ancient Irish Sagas," which appeared in the Century Magazine for January, 1907. These books on varied subjects, published during a period covering more than twenty years, certainly justify calling him a literary man. Indeed, the profession of literature is the only one which he has, save that of state- craft ; and he was about equally occupied with both till the demands of official life absorbed his attention. In the spring of 1904, when he spoke at a dinner of the Periodical Pub- lishers' Association in Washington, he took a retrospective look at his literary career, as though it were ended, for he said, "In the days of my youth I was a literary man." A pleasant picture of him on this occasion was presented by Mr. Walter Wellman in the Chicago Record-Herald. He wrote: "Probably President Roosevelt never spent a happier two hours than last night, when he was the guest of honour of the Periodical Pub- lishers. The President had agreed to stay at 180 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT the dinner from 9.45 to 11 o'clock, but he liked the show so well he remained till mid- night and then held a reception, greeting every one present. Mr. Roosevelt made a speech to the publishers, the authors and artists and their other guests, and was enthu- siastically applauded. It was not the best speech the President has ever made, but it was good enough, and it pleased the people who heard it. Mr. Roosevelt is not an orator, and makes no pretensions in that direction, but there is something very fascinating about his earnestness, and he captivated the men of the periodical press, as he has captivated many audiences before. Many were pleased at the manner in which Mr. Roosevelt threw himself into the spirit of the occasion. The wit and the humour of the addresses had no more ap- preciative listener than the President of the United States. He expressed his pleasure by characteristic shakes of the head, strenuous gestures, broad smiles, and congratulations waved across the banquet-hall. It was a com- THE LITERARY MAN 181 mon remark among the eminent authors, artists, and publishers assembled that it is a fine thing to have a President who is so human, so warm in his sympathies, so keen and dis- criminating in his understanding of all hu- man endeavour." Mr. Roosevelt is not only a producer of literature, he is an appreciator of it as well. He goes out of his way to make friends with men and women who write books that please him. Many such have been guests at the White House, from Mr. Finley P. Dunne, the author of the "Dooley" papers, to the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, who produces literature of a somewhat different type. Mr. James B. Connolly, author of vigorous sea tales, has been among his guests. Mr. Connolly enlisted in the navy as a yeoman, in 1906, for the pur- pose of glorifying the American seaman in realistic fiction. He took this step largely through the President's influence. Mr. Ed- ward Arlington Robinson's volume of poems, "Children of the Night," pleased him so much 182 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT that he wrote a review of it for the Outlook, and he has taken pains to commend the short stories of Mr. Percival Gibbon. When he was receiving a company of delegates to a convention of hardware jobbers, he quickly recognised among them Colonel J. R. Nut- ting, of Davenport, Iowa, although he had seen him but once before, and that for only a few minutes. "Hello, Colonel, I'm glad to see you," said the President. "How are all my old friends in Davenport, and especially how is Miss French?* Tell her I read all she writes." It is not fiction alone that interests him, for he astonished a company of delegates to the conventions of the American Philological Association and the Archaeological Institute of America in January, 1907, by saying to them : "I have been very much interested recently in reading Victor Berard's work on the Phoeni- cians and the Odyssey ; and this Association, *Octave Thanet. THE LITERARY MAN 183 apart even from the actual work it does, in- directly accomplishes much more by stimulat- ing, encouraging, and producing the kind of scholarship which will here and there produce the work of a Victor Berard in our country." Out of his wide reading and deep thinking there has come an intellectual attitude and a literary style that rests on the foundations of the best that has been said and done. An in- teresting and significant commentary on that style and that state of mind was made by Mr. R. J. Walker, of St. Paul's School, West Ken- sington, in a letter to the London Times com- menting on the President's inaugural address of March 4, 1905. Mr. Walker wrote: "May I crave space to call attention to the extraordi- nary resemblance in spirit between President Roosevelt's inaugural oration and the speeches of Pericles in the second book of Thucydides ? I doubt whether there is a sentence in the English which cannot be paralleled in the Greek, as regards meaning at least, and often as regards form. I set to-day a section 184 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT of the oration for translation into Greek prose, and I asked our head form, Where does this English come from?' The general an- swer was, 'From Jowett's translation of Thucydides !' " IX THE MILITARY MAN Mr. Roosevelt has said that the reason he did not accept the command of the regiment of Rough Riders which was organised in 1898 to engage in the war with Spain, was that he "was entirely inexperienced in military work." Then he explained that he did not know how to get the regiment equipped most rapidly, and he would have lost valuable time learning. But he was not entirely ignorant of military affairs. He enlisted in the Eighth Regiment of the National Guard of the State of New York in 1884 and served four years. Part of the time he was captain of a company. Now, no man can serve four years in the New York militia and command a company in it without knowing something of the theory and practice of arms. Mr. Roosevelt had passed through the 186 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT training school of the citizen soldier, and was a member of the theoretical reserve from which the friends of the National Guard like to think the commanders of companies and regiments of volunteers will be selected, if there should ever be need of raising a large army for national defence. It was the natural and the expected thing that a graduated Na- tional Guard officer should be one of the com- manders of a regiment of volunteers in the Spanish War. In the early days of the Civil War there were brigadier-generals with less military training than he had. Mr. Roose- velt enlisted in the militia because he thought that was one of the duties which he owed to his State. His study of military affairs began early, as when he was twenty-four years old, two years before he enlisted, he wrote his naval history of the War of 1812. It was, therefore, not without a long-standing interest in the affairs of the Navy that he resigned from the presidency of the New York Police Board to THE MILITARY MAN 187 become an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. But it was not so much because of his liking for naval affairs that he accepted the place as because he foresaw that there was to be trouble with Spain over Cuba. He had advo- cated intervention by the United States to put an end to an intolerable situation as well as to drive Spain from this side of the ocean. "Now that my party had come to power," he writes in "The Rough Riders," "I felt it in- cumbent on me, by word and deed, to do all I could to secure the carrying out of the policy in which I so heartily believed, and from the beginning I had determined that if a war came, somehow or other I was going to the front." The Assistant Secretaryship of the Navy presented an opportunity, not only to use his influence, as part of the administration, to bring about intervention in the affairs of Cuba, but to assist in the preparation to make that intervention effective. He talked inter- vention with everybody he could get to listen 188 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT to him, discussed plans of campaign with soldiers and sailors alike, and co-operated with Secretary Long, his superior, in getting the Navy itself into shape for war. He had previously co-operated with Mr. Long in the Republican National Convention of 1884 in an attempt to secure the nomination of George F. Edmunds to the Presidency. The late Senator Cushman K. Davis once said of his work in the Navy Department, "If it had not been for Roosevelt we should not have been able to strike the blow that we did at Manila. It needed just Roosevelt's energy and prompt- ness." He knew that the guns of the Navy would be useless unless the gunners could shoot straight. There had been little target prac- tice in past years, for target practice with big guns is expensive. Congress, however, was persuaded to appropriate eight hundred thou- sand dollars for this purpose. Powder was bought with the money and distributed among the ships. The gunners then fired with real THE MILITARY MAN 189 ammunition at real targets. Within a month he was sent back before the Congressional Committee to ask for five hundred thousand dollars more. "Where is that eight hundred thousand dollars you got a little while ago?" one of the committee-men asked. "Burned," was the laconic reply. The money was spent to some purpose, as the marksmanship of the naval gunners at the battle of Santiago proved. The deliberation with which many of the officials in Washington went about their busi- ness tried his patience. He held a subordinate position and, of course, had to wait on the pleasure of his superiors, even when they were not delayed by the inaction of Congress. On one occasion he had urged a committee of Congressmen to approve certain things which he thought should be done at once. The mem- bers of the committee talked and talked with- out reaching any conclusion. An hour passed and they were still talking, when Mr. Roosevelt 190 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT sprang to his feet with considerable show of impatience, and said: "Gentlemen, if God had referred the ark to a committee on naval affairs like this, it's my opinion that it wouldn't have been built yet." Before war was declared it was reported that the Spanish fleet was about to sail for Cuba, and Mr. Roosevelt urged that in view of all the circumstances, word be sent to Spain that the despatch of the fleet would be regarded as an act of war. He had explained his views to President McKinley, and the President sent for him one day to tell the same things to the Cabinet. What happened was told in 1901, after Mr. Roosevelt had become Presi- dent. As he entered the room where the Cabinet was gathered, President McKinley asked him : "What would you advise as to the action of the United States in connection with Cervera's fleet?" After pressing his lips firmly together for a moment, Mr. Roosevelt spoke: THE MILITARY MAN 191 "With all due deference to you, Mr. Presi- dent, since you ask me for my honest opinion, I will say that my advice is to meet Cervera at the Canaries and sink every ship in the fleet." "But that would be an act of war," the Presi- dent replied. "Certainly it would," admitted Mr. Roose- velt, "but I have noticed in my study of his- tory that it is the nation that gets in the first blow which usually wins, and I believe in get- ting in the first blow." This advice was not taken, for reasons that seemed to the responsible officers to be good and sufficient. The Spanish fleet, with its tor- pedo boats, sailed under command of Admiral Cervera. Many of the older naval officers advocated a policy of caution. They advised that the men in command of our ships should exercise great care and on no account get near enough to the torpedo boats to risk the loss of their own ships. There was great dread of the destructive power of the torpedoes in those 192 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT days. Mr. Roosevelt was discussing this sit- uation one day with a friend. He got so indignant at what he regarded as the stupidity of the policy of dodging the enemy, that he jumped from his chair and paced up and down the room, shooting words from his mouth like bullets from a rapid-fire gun. "Confound it all," he exclaimed, "of course we must take risks. But what is the good of a naval officer who would not run some risk when the necessity arose? Suppose a torpedo boat does destroy one of our ships, you may be sure there will be no more Spanish torpedo boats after that engagement is over. It is nonsense to talk about keeping our ships in port while the Spanish torpedo boats are on the sea. We must go out and find them and destroy them. And that would not be difficult, because I don't believe they are half so danger- ous as they are represented to be." There was a lighter side to all this hard and earnest work in preparation for possible war. Mr. Roosevelt's good digestion and high THE MILITARY MAN 193 spirits still made it possible for him to enjoy life and to take many things less seriously. He liked to play pranks upon his associates. On one occasion he accompanied a squadron that went out for two days' target practice, to shoot away some of the powder that he had persuaded Congress to permit the Navy De- partment to buy. When the squadron was about to return, the officers were invited on board the flag-ship as the guests of Mr. Roosevelt. They talked for some time, as the story is told, and as no creature com- forts appeared they began to look inquiringly at one another. Mr. Roosevelt understood the glances, and, without the flicker of a smile, he said: "Will you step into the cabin, gentlemen, and have some tea?" The officers knew that strong waters were forbidden on board ship, but they also knew that an appetizer by any other name would sit as well on the stomach. So the movement toward the cabin was prompt and unanimous. 194 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT There, in the centre of a great table, rested a punch-bowl of magnificent proportions, filled nearly to the brim with a liquid a shade darker than amber. In its centre floated an island of ice. Sprays of mint extended their slender leaves over its brim, and pieces of lemon and other fruits floated on the surface of the cool and tempting liquid. The old commodore, with the colour of the sun on his face and the dryness of the desert in his throat, turned eagerly toward this oasis. He stirred the ladle lovingly in the bowl while the others gathered about him. He held his glass, filled to the brim, between his eye and the sunlight that came in through the cabin window, and the clatter and clink of glasses sounded cheerfully as each officer filled to the occasion. With an air of contentment and anticipatory joy the commodore brought the glass to his lips. Then as all lifted their glasses to follow his example, a look of aston- ishment passed over his face, giving way to one of pain. THE MILITARY MAN 195 "I'll be blowed if it ain't tea !" he gasped. And the regulations were still intact. These officers and Mr. Roosevelt and every other close observer of the signs of the times knew when the Maine was blown up in Havana harbour that war could not be delayed much longer. And Mr. Roosevelt began to lay his plans to get into it. He might have gone as a staff officer, but he did not care for that kind of duty. He sought to go as a field officer under General Francis V. Greene, but there were no vacancies. It was not until Congress author- ised the organisation of three cavalry regi- ments from among the frontiersmen and cow- boys of the West that he found a way to go. Secretary Alger, of the War Department, offered to make him a colonel of one of them, but, as already intimated, he did not think he had sufficient experience in equipping a regi- ment for the field to take command at once. His friend, Leonard Wood, now major-gen- eral, was made colonel, and he accepted second place. 196 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT After he had decided to resign there were still some matters to be arranged in the Navy Department before it was announced that he was to go. But the newspaper men heard a rumour of his intentions, and one of them went, after midnight, to verify the report at the home of his brother-in-law, Commander Cowles, where he was staying. The man knew Mr. Roosevelt personally, and thought that on the strength of the acquaintance he might be able to get some information. He discovered that however impulsivt the Assistant Secre- tary of the Navy might seem, there were some things he could not be surprised, into saying. The newspaper man said afterward : "I stepped briskly up the steps and rang the bell. The house was very dark, every blind drawn and not a ray anywhere. Again I rang, but no sound. Determined not to be bluffed, I rang the bell once more and soon heard footsteps above. The window-sash went up and Mr. Roosevelt leaned out and wanted to know what I wanted. THE MILITARY MAN 197 " 'Good-evening, Mr. Roosevelt,' said I, 'this is . Is it true that ' " 'Why, Mr. ,' he interrupted, 'I am surprised.' " 'So am I, Mr. Roosevelt, but it is an im- portant matter and I'll explain later. I would like to know if ' " 'Why, Mr. , I am surprised.' " 'I appreciate that fact,' I persisted, 'but it is exceedingly important to know the exact facts. Is it true that ' " 'Why, Mr. ,' broke in the cold, calm voice, 'I am very much surprised,' and down went the sash and back to bed went Mr. Roose- velt. It was a cold dash and it took me some time to recover from the shock ; but Mr. Roosevelt explained later that he had had a particular anxiety not to have the story ap- pear that day." But his purpose soon became generally known, and then there was raised probably the most remarkable regiment that was ever en- listed for any war. There were millionaires in 198 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT it and men who owned nothing; college grad- uates and men whose only schooling had been in the school of life ; men with social graces and experience and men who did not know the difference between a demi tasse and a demi- john; but if they discovered the difference, would prefer the demijohn. But the men were all alike in that they were brave, adventurous spirits. Not only was the regiment itself unique, but the efforts made by Colonel Wood and Lieu- tenant-Colonel Roosevelt to get it equipped and drilled and ordered to the front, and then the expedients to which they resorted to make it possible to obey the order that they had re- ceived, make one of the most remarkable series of incidents in the history of the volunteer soldier. The War Department was ill prepared for the war, and the regiments, which were anx- ious to get their equipment without delay, had to look out for themselves or be neglected. Through the zeal of its two commanding offi- THE MILITARY MAN 199 cers, the Rough Riders got Krag-Jorgensen rifles, so that they might be assigned to duty with the regular army. Through their energy they were in condition to be sent to the front before either of the other volunteer cavalry regiments. But it was only after the most strenuous exertions that they succeeded in getting ordered to the rendezvous in Florida. Mr. Roosevelt sent telegrams day after day, beseeching all the men in authority that he could think of, to get his men into service as soon as possible. Finally, after much exer- tion, the command to go to Florida was ex- tracted from the War Department. So eager were they to get off that when they got to Tampa and received the command to embark on a transport at Port Tampa, nine miles away, Mr. Roosevelt seized a train of empty coal cars, loaded his men into them and forced the engineer to run them down to the pier at which the transport was to be moored. In the meantime, Colonel Wood was getting the transport up to the pier. Mr. Roosevelt 200 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT learned accidentally that two other regiments were ordered to go on the same boat, one of which contained more men than the transport could carry. He ran at full speed back to his train, left a strong guard to take care of the baggage, and marched the rest of the regiment at double quick to the point where the trans- port landed, getting there just in time to scramble aboard before the other regiments arrived. He had set out for the front to see fighting, and he was not going to be left be- hind if alertness could accomplish anything. During all the weeks of active preparation for this embarkation Mr. Roosevelt found time to read various things. He says that "to occupy my spare moments" he read M. Demo- lin's "Superiorite des Anglo-Saxons," in the course of which the author says that the mili- tarism of Latin Europe has a tendency to deaden the power of individual initiative. The success of the Rough Riders in getting to Cuba in the face of great obstacles was proof, in Mr. Roosevelt's opinion, that "militarism" THE MILITARY MAN 201 in the United States had not deadened indi- vidual initiative — in the American volunteer, at any rate. Instead of waiting for specific orders to disem- bark after the transport arrived off Santiago, the pilot of one of the naval vessels there was secured to take the troop ship to within a hundred yards of land; the men were carried off in boats, and the officers' horses were thrown overboard to swim ashore. They had not been on land many hours before the march to the front began. It has been said that the regiment passed the extreme outpost without orders, and consequently got into the fight at Las Guasimas the next morning when no fight was planned. When General Shafter heard the news of the engagement, it was in the form of a report that the regiment had been cut to pieces. But a few hours later he re- ceived a correct report of the engagement and sent a note to Lieutenant-Colonel Roose- velt congratulating him on the brilliant suc- cess of the attack. 202 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT Colonel Wood was promoted to a vacant brigadier-generalship on July 9, 1898, be- cause he was the senior colonel on the field, and the lieutenant-colonel became colonel, and commanded the regiment from a short time after the battle of San Juan Hill till it was mustered out at Montauk Point. The Rough Riders did themselves credit in Cuba, but their part in the campaign which ended with the fall of Santiago was small, as the part of any single regiment was bound to be. The interest which the regiment aroused throughout the country was due more to its romantic composition and history than to its brilliant achievements, though its record is an honourable one. Mr. Roosevelt placed it properly in history when he dedicated his entertaining tale of its career in these words : "On behalf of the Rough Riders I dedicate this book to the officers and men of the five regular regiments which, together with mine, made up the cavalry division at Santiago." It was only a sixth of the cavalry division, THE MILITARY MAN 203 the regulars in which did the most difficult work. The men who fought together, and suffered privations together afterward, through the breaking down of the War Department, are bound together by a freemasonry whose initia- tory ritual was read to the sound of bullets at Las Guasimas, and when two of them meet all other men must wait their pleasure. Refer- ence has been made in a previous chapter to Mr. Roosevelt's presence at a reunion of the regiment, when he was Governor of New York. The men met as old friends who had faced death together, and Mr. Roosevelt has consistently acted as though he felt that every soldier, private or officer, who fought under him was entitled to his special consideration. One of them confessed to him while he was Governor that he had killed a man in self-de- fence, and unless he could hire a good lawyer would probably be convicted. Mr. Roosevelt, willing that the man should have his case fairly presented in court, offered to let him have 204 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT money for counsel fees when it was needed. Months passed and no appeal for money came. Finally the Governor wrote, asking how mat- ters stood. Soon this reply came back, at which he laughed with a hearty appreciation of frontier conditions : "Don't need the money now. We have elected a Republican District Attorney." Senator Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, once discovered another phase of the loyalty of the Rough Riders to one another when he called at the White House to see the President. He was told that Mr. Roosevelt was engaged. "Who's there?" he asked of the doorkeeper. "Somebody who was in the Rough Riders," was the reply. "Oh, well," the Senator remarked, smiling, as he turned away, "what chance has a mere Senator?" On another occasion Senator Bard, of Cali- fornia, took a constituent to see the President. The man was one of the members of the famous regiment. THE MILITARY MAX 205 "Mr. President," the Senator began, "I want to present to you my friend " "Why, hello, Jim!" the President almost shouted. "How are you?" And he grasped the man's hand with his usual firm and hearty grip. Then they talked together for ten minutes or more, Senator Bard apparently forgotten. As the men were leaving, the President called out: "By the way, Jim, come up to dinner to- night, just as you are." Then he added, as if by afterthought, "And be sure to bring Bard with you." Through all of his military career there ap- pears evidence of his well-grounded democracy as well as of his strenuosity. And as com- mander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the nation, he is now in hearty sympathy with all men who are striving to better the service. When his attention was called to the criticisms made by an officer attached to the squadron in the Far East he remarked: 206 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "The only trouble with this man is that he thinks our Navy is a few laps behind the Turk's. Leave him alone. Just so long as we have the service of such a kicker the Turks will never get ahead of us." X THE POLITICAL MAN "I have always believed," said Mr. Roose- velt some years ago, "that every man should join a political organisation and should attend the primaries ; that he should not be content to be merely governed, but should do his part of the 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." On another occasion, when he was explain- ing why he continued to act with his party when he had worked hard to prevent the nomi- nation of James G. Blaine, the Presidential candidate who won in the convention of 1 884, he said : "Whatever good I have accom- 208 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT plished has been through the Republican party." Mr. Roosevelt is a party man, because he believes in using the tools ready to his hand. But he has always striven to make his party an efficient instrument by exerting his influence to lead it to indorse the policies which he favours. On many occasions he has declared that he believes in accepting a partial good rather than bolting his party when the com- plete good cannot be obtained at once. He has no patience with reformers who refuse to work with an old political organisation when that organisation is supporting the things in which the reformers believe. "Let's take what we can get now, and then when we can get more, let's take that," has been his advice. He became an office-holder in the first place because he thought it was his duty, as noted in a previous chapter. The nomination to the New York Assembly came to him when he was twenty-three years old, the year after he left THE POLITICAL MAN 209 college. He was not taken seriously at first by the older men in the State Legislature. They thought that he was a young enthusiast who would not do anything but talk. But they soon found that he was a force to be reckoned with. The second year in Albany found him a candidate for the Speakership of the Assembly, and he received twenty-nine votes out of seventy in the Republican caucus. He was made chairman of the Cities Commit- tee in his third term. And he had risen to such a commanding position in his party that he was made one of the four delegates-at-large from New York to the Republican National Convention in 1884. The State Convention at which the delegates were elected was held in Utica on April 23d. The friends of President Arthur hoped to se- cure the four delegates ; while the friends of James G. Blaine and George F. Edmunds each hoped to capture the delegation. Mr. Roose- velt supported Edmunds, with Senator Joseph R. Hawley as his second choice. On the even- 210 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT ing before the convention met he called on Mr. Warner Miller, one of the Blaine leaders, in company with Congressman James W. Wadsworth, and told Mr. Miller that while he favoured Mr. Edmunds, he was unalterably opposed to the nomination of President Arthur. The Blaine men, however, objected to sending him as a delegate, not only be- cause he opposed Blaine, but because he then had leanings toward free trade. The Arthur delegates attempted to compromise with the Blaine delegates on the election of Henry Ward Beecher and Philip Becker, Arthur men, and Warner Miller and Whitelaw Reid, Blaine men, but they failed. A coalition, however, was effected between the Edmunds and the Arthur delegates, and they succeeded in elect- ing Mr. Roosevelt, Andrew D. White, John I. Gilbert, and Edwin Packard. All but Mr. White were pronounced Edmunds men. As there were not many Edmunds delegates in the convention, there was much talk about the tail wagging the dog. Mr. Roosevelt, who had THE POLITICAL MAN 211 been applauded heartily whenever he spoke, was one of the most popular leaders in the convention. His vote for delegate-at-large was a fair measure of the favour in which he was held. He received 472 votes, whereas Mr. White received 407, Mr. Gilbert 342, and Mr. Packard only %56> It was a notable personal triumph. His own views of that triumph have been set forth in the interesting letter to the Honourable S. N. D. North, which appears in a previous chapter. The comment of the spe- cial correspondent of the New York Tribune who reported the proceedings of the conven- tion is almost as interesting. He wrote: "Mr. Roosevelt was the active man in the so- called Edmunds group, and the most amusing thing in the whole business was the sudden affection shown for Roosevelt by George Bliss, Robert G. McCord, Michael Cregan, John J. O'Brien, and other New York men who have heretofore spoken of him in a most contemptuous manner." He was called to the platform to make a 212 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT speech after the result of the voting was an- nounced, and said: "Gentlemen: I have nothing to say to you further than to thank you heartily for the honour you have conferred upon me in electing me as a delegate-at-large from the great Empire State to Chicago. I shall try to so behave myself as best to subserve the in- terests of the Republican party and to make you feel no regret at the course you have taken in sending me." [Tremendous ap- plause.] When the Edmunds delegates got together in Chicago on the eve of the National Con- vention beginning on June 3d, Mr. Roosevelt made another speech, in the course of which he said that much fault had been found because at the Utica convention the tail had wagged the dog. It was admitted that it was com- mendable of the tail, but it had killed the dog. At the present convention he said the tail pro- posed to wag two dogs. A test of strength came on the election of a THE POLITICAL MAN 213 temporary chairman, when the Edmunds men threw their strength to John R. Lynch, of Mississippi, a negro. Lynch was elected and Mr. Roosevelt then said: "Arthur is a dead candidate as a result of that vote and we have checked Blaine. Mr. Lodge [Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachu- setts] and myself worked all night to accom- plish that result. We feel greatly gratified. It will be a long convention, and either Ed- munds, Hawley, Harrison, or Sherman will be nominated." The next day he admitted that Blaine was "so far ahead that he is dangerous," and when Blaine was finally nominated, he was bitterly disappointed. At first he refused to make any comment on the result, but when urged he said : "There are scores of people in my Assembly District in New York who desired the nomina- tion of Mr. Blaine ; but I regard the nomina- tion of Mr. Blaine as the result of mistaken popular enthusiasm." He was almost immediately approached by 214 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT some of the anti-Blaine leaders who desired him to assist in putting an independent ticket in the field; but he declined to entertain the proposition, and later took the stump for Blaine. It was about this time that Roscoe Conkling spoke of him as "that dentificial young man with more teeth than brains." But other ob- servers held different opinions. One of them was Mr. Andrew D. White, who, before he was sent to Chicago as Mr. Roosevelt's col- league, said of him in his classroom at Cornell University : "Young gentlemen, some of you may 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." Another of these prophetic observers was Baron Speck von Sternburg, now German THE POLITICAL MAN 215 Ambassador in Washington, who first became acquainted with Mr. Roosevelt when the latter was a member of the National Civil Service Commission. The Baron once said to some friends soon after he came back to this coun- try from a leave of absence: "As I return to America as German Ambas- sador I am reminded of the changes that have taken place since I was here nearly twenty years ago as a military attache. Then, your President was a Civil Service Commissioner. I do not pose as a prophet, but when I first met Mr. Roosevelt I was deeply impressed with his powerful personality, his untiring energy, and essential sincerity of purpose. It was this combination which convinced me that some day I should see him at the head of this great nation. When I congratulated him on his ap- pointment as Police Commissioner in New York I added : " 'When I again congratulate you, Mr. Roosevelt, you will be one step nearer the White House.' 216 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "On hearing of his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, I wrote him from Pe- king: " 'Permit me to congratulate you on this second step nearer the Presidency.' "When he was elected Governor of New York I telegraphed him : " 'The next time I offer congratulations it will be to President Roosevelt.' "I felt sure he would be President, because I knew the stuff he was made of. To me, and the same opinion prevails in Europe, your President is the personification of what is good and great in America." Benjamin Harrison, who as President ap- pointed Mr. Roosevelt to the Civil Service Commission, wrote in 1898: * "Careful, pains- taking, and vigorous, Mr. Roosevelt is to-day one of the best examples of Presidential tim- ber in the country. He seems to stand out among his fellow-citizens as an example * Success, November, 1901. THE POLITICAL MAN 217 worthy of their consideration, and although he is too young to rank as a statesman, he has, nevertheless, the qualities that will ultimately make him a statesman. Should Mr. Roosevelt aspire to become President of the United States, I believe that he will ultimately be suc- cessful. First, because he has the courage requisite; and, secondly, the character. His varied life as ranchman, hunter, soldier, and politician has placed him in such close proxim- ity with so many different men that they have had ample opportunity to judge of his quali- ties, and to understand when he says or does a thing." As appears from the letter on his expectation to devote himself to literature, quoted in an- other chapter, he did not share the confidence of his friends in his own future. The men who get on in politics commonly use different methods, and for a time he thought that suc- cess could be won only by adopting their methods. He preferred unofficial station to public life under such conditions. He has 218 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT usually been willing to respond, however, when his party has called. He responded when asked to work for the election of Blaine in 1884 ; and when he was requested to accept the regular Republican nomination for Mayor of New York, to run against Abram S. Hewitt, the Tammany candidate, and Henry George, the candidate of the labour party, he con- sented, and went down to defeat with a smiling face. His next public service was in Washington, to which he was called by President Harrison. "In 1889, when the Civil Service Commission was in need of improvement, I found the neces- sity of having a business man in the commis- sion rather than a politician," said Mr. Har- rison in the article from which an extract has already been made. "Several hundred names were presented, and I laid them aside and sought out Mr. Roosevelt. He seemed to have the combined elements of a politician and a business man — qualities that are much needed in men who aspire to public office. It THE POLITICAL MAN 219 was with reluctance that Mr. Roosevelt took the position; but as soon as he entered the Commission he began to work with so much de- termination and completeness that I felt I had secured the right man. He devoted his energies and determined aggressiveness to the work, with good results. In the six years of his tenure of office, the civil service was ex- tended from controlling twelve thousand until forty thousand public servants were made sub- ject to its provisions." The earnestness with which Mr. Roosevelt worked in those years has been described by Mr. John Fletcher Lacey, who was then, and still is, representing an Iowa district in Congress. A few days after Mr. Lacey took his seat in the Fifty-first Congress he met the late Thomas B. Reed in one of the cloak-rooms of the Capitol, studying a map of the United States. Mr. Lacey good humouredly asked him if he were figuring out the size of his majority as Speaker. Accord- ing to the Iowan, Mr. Reed replied: 220 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "No. A young constituent of mine who has just failed in a civil service examination claims that a competitor passed safely by brib- ing the examiners to give him a list of the questions in advance. I didn't believe my young friend, and have sent him to the head- quarters of the Civil Service Commission to tell his story there. While awaiting his re- turn I have been figuring out on this map that if, say, Columbus, Ohio, represented one hun- dred per cent, in a civil service table of mark- ings, my constituent would come out some- where about Jamaica, Long Island." "I was amused," said Mr. Lacey, "by Reed's quaint way of stating his belief in his con- stituent's inability to pass the examination. While we were discussing the subject of civil service regulations in a general way in walked the young man who had failed and gone to unburden his conviction to the Civil Service Commission that a rival had been successful through connivance with an agent of the Commission." THE POLITICAL MAN 221 "Well, what happened when you told your story?" Reed asked. "Why," faltered the youth, "a very em- phatic fellow in charge there whipped out one hundred dollars in bills, laid them across his knee and exclaimed: 'I'll pay you one hun- dred dollars, young man, if you can prove that a single syllable of what you say of corrup- tion is true.' That is all the satisfaction I got." "And that is all you deserve," Reed added. "Then he turned to me," said Mr. Lacey, "and remarked, 'We've got an American of blood and iron — a coming man — on the Civil Service Commission. I tell you, Lacey, you want to watch that Civil Service Commis- sioner, for he's a New World Bismarck and Cromwell combined. He'll be President some day.' " 'What's his name ?' I asked. " 'Theodore Roosevelt,' replied Reed. "Of course I had heard vaguely of Roosevelt, 222 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT but never having had occasion to meet him I had formed no definite opinion of him. Reed's characterisation aroused in me the greatest curiosity to see Roosevelt. The next day I called and introduced myself, and took the liberty to repeat what the young man had brought back about the one hundred dollar guarantee that no turpitude on the part of the examiner in question existed. " 'I have resolved to purify the civil ser- vice system,' was Mr. Roosevelt's reply, 'and to that end have placed in charge men whom I trust with my whole heart, and I stand ready, therefore, to pledge my fortune and my hon- our to the sacredness with which they respect the trust I repose in them.' " Mr. Roosevelt was willing to back not only the integrity of his subordinates but the fair- ness of his examinations as well. It has been the favourite charge of the opponents of the merit system that the examinations did not test the ability of the candidates for the duties which they aspired to perform. Mr. Roosevelt THE POLITICAL MAN 223 had to meet this charge once before a commit- tee, and he frankly admitted that some of the questions asked were intended only to discover something about the general intelligence of the candidates. "Not long ago," he said, "we asked who Lin- coln was, and the answers that we got were various. We were told that he was a Revo- lutionary general, that he was assassinated by Thomas Jefferson, that he assassinated Aaron Burr, that he commanded a regiment in the French and Indian War, and that he was an Arctic explorer." He insisted, however, that all examinations should be practical, so far as possible. When it was decided to put the government inspec- tors along the Rio Grande in the classified service, it became necessary to prepare ques- tions for the examinations. As these men were to prevent outlaws from running cattle across the border into Mexico, it was important that they should be first-class horsemen, familiar with handling cattle, and that they should also 224, THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT be acquainted with the various brands of cattle on the Texas frontier ranges. In short, men of experience in frontier life were needed. Some subordinates drafted a lot of questions in history, rhetoric, and mathematics for the candidates to answer. Mr. Roosevelt knew something about the West and was aware that while men who could answer these questions might make good inspectors, the men who could be got to serve as inspectors could not answer the questions, and that whether they could or not was immaterial. He there- upon drew up a new examination paper. The only test of scholarship was the require- ment that the candidates should answer the questions in their own language and in their own handwriting. The men were asked, among other things, to "state the experience, if any, you have had as a marksman with a rifle or a pistol ; whether or not you have practised shooting at a target with either weapon, or at game or other mov- ing objects; and also whether you have prac- THE POLITICAL MAN 225 tised shooting on horseback. State the make of the rifle or revolver you use." This was intensely practical and was in- tended to disclose the kind of information needed in guiding the selection of inspectors. A second question was similar to the first: "State fully what experience you have had in horsemanship ; whether or not you can ride unbroken horses ; if not, whether you would be able, unassisted, to rope, bridle, saddle, mount, and ride an ordinary cow pony after it had been turned loose for six months ; also, whether you can ride an ordinary cow pony on the round-up, both in circle riding and in cutting- out work around the herd." Another question was framed so as to test the applicants' knowledge of the different brands of cattle in the cattle country. When Mr. Roosevelt submitted the paper to his col- leagues, he declared that to be a successful government inspector and shoot lawless Mexi- cans who were trying to run the cattle over the border, it was not necessary for a man to 226 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT discuss the nebular hypothesis, nor to have an intimate knowledge of the name and num- ber of inhabitants of the capital of Zanzibar. Because he was a practical civil service re- former and did not "play politics," he was kept in office by President Cleveland, expe- riencing in his own person the benefits of the merit system. After he had been in the com- mission six years, he concluded that his work there was finished. The merit system was so firmly established that no one dared propose to return to the old spoils system of the dis- tribution of the patronage among the success- ful party workers ; and the examinations to test the fitness of the applicants had been made so practical that no capable man could fail to pass them. Then came the opportunity to struggle with the police problem in New York City. He resigned his Civil Service Commissionership and accepted the presidency of the Board of Police Commissioners under Mayor Strong., He applied the merit system to promotions and THE POLITICAL MAN 227 put an end to the old practice of advancing favourites and keeping down good men if they did not have influence with politicians. The effect of this on the force was wonderful. The honest men, and they were largely in the majority, took heart and went about their work with greater confidence in the righteous- ness of things than they had ever had before. The favourites of the old regime, however, attacked the new Commissioner, and talked about the demoralisation among the people arising from the enforcement of the new regu- lations, which required the policemen to treat all citizens alike, without partiality for the liquor-sellers or gamblers. There was de- moralisation, it is true, but it was chiefly those who had been buying privileges to violate the law that were demoralised. When influen- tial citizens, who had heard the protests of the vicious ag-ainst the enforcement of the laws regulating liquor-selling, began to be afraid lest business should suffer, and went to him and suggested that it was not wise to bring 22& THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT about this new order of things, his answer was uniformly the same: "I am placed here to enforce the law as I find it. I shall enforce it. If you don't like the law, repeal it." This was a practical application of General Grant's dictum that the best way to secure the repeal of an improper law is to enforce it. But the people of New York have not yet been able to secure the repeal of the statutes which the new Police Commissioner insisted should be obeyed. New statutes have been passed and new conditions created, but the situation is practically unchanged. In his conversation with Mr. Eggleston in the spring of 1902 the subject was referred to, and Mr. Eggleston told the President that he was the author of the situation which then existed. "How is that?" Mr. Roosevelt asked. "Wh}', it was you who first demonstrated the fact that it is possible for an honest police ad- ministration to compel the police to honest ways," Mr. Eggleston replied. "You thus THE POLITICAL MAN 229 created a popular demand for honest police administration which will not down at any man's behest." Then Mr. Eggleston, at his request, briefly described the conditions, and after some mo- ments' thought Mr. Roosevelt said : "The difficulty seems to be inherent in the conditions. If a reform administration hon- estly endeavours to carry out reform, it makes an end of itself at the end of its term and in- sures the return of Tammany to power. If a reform administration fails or falters in carry- ing out the pledges of reform on which it was elected, it utterly loses the confidence and sup- port of the reform forces, and that again means a triumph for Tammany at the next election." "What, then, is to be done?" asked Mr. Eg- gleston. "Enforce the law and take the conse- quences," he quickly answered. "The police force is composed mainly of good men, who have no love for crookedness. They 230 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT need only know that an honest discharge of duty is required of them in order to insure conduct of that character on their part." As Police Commissioner Mr. Roosevelt not only strove to enforce the law against the powerful liquor-sellers, and against the com- bination of powerful politicians which sup- ported them, but he was equally determined that there should be no violation of the law in the name of liberty during labour strikes. The labouring men are under as great obli- gations to refrain from violence as the saloon- keepers are to refrain from selling liquor during the prohibited hours. He told them so, too, when they struck and there were pros- pects of rioting in the streets. He went before a company of the men and their leaders and said to them : "Gentlemen, I have come to get your point of view and see if we cannot agree to help each other out. But we want to make it clear to ourselves at the start that the greatest dam- THE POLITICAL MAN 231 age any man can do to his cause is to counsel violence." Then, with an emphasis the significance of which there was no mistaking, he continued: "Order must be maintained; and make no mistake, I will maintain it." The labour men had thought at first that they were to meet an ordinary politician who proposed to "conciliate the labour vote," but before he was through with them they dis- covered that his method of conciliation was unusual. They respected him for his stand, however, for the great maj ority of the labour- ing men are honest and fair-minded. Mr. Roosevelt went from the Police Board to the Navy Department and from the Navy De- partment to the volunteer army in Cuba. After his return from Cuba the politicians de- sired to profit by his popularity, both the politicians in his regular party organisation and the independents as well. The latter sought to persuade him to accept a nomination for the Governorship of New York from them 232 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT before the regular organisation had a chance to nominate him. They did not know the man. He had not been in the habit of doing things that way. He did not propose to be the candidate of merely a few people who were unable to work in harmony with a majority of their party. Such a candidacy might be amusing, but it would lead nowhere. With consummate skill he prevented the indepen- dents from complicating the situation, and then accepted the regular Republican nomina- tion when it came to him. And he was elected when it was believed that no other candidate could have saved his party from defeat. He not only prevented the reformers, as they pleased to call themselves, from defeating their own purposes in the campaign for his election, but when he took his seat in the State Capitol in Albany, he prevented the regular politicians from using their accustomed tactics. The head of one of the State departments seemed to think that the department was maintained to further his own political ambitions, and he THE POLITICAL MAN 233 used it for those ends. Mr. Roosevelt did not think government was carried on for such pur- poses and he sent for the man. When the official reached the executive chamber, they say the Governor read him a lecture about the duty of public officials which he will long remember, and ended it by shaking his finger in the man's face and snapping out at him : "Now, if you don't stop playing politics in your office I will pretty soon know the reason why." The man was surprised, to say the least ; but he paid more attention to his public duties thereafter. The political effect of Mr. Roosevelt's actions, if he believed that he was acting for the gen- eral good, did not seem to trouble him much. He seconded the efforts of the Democratic Con- troller of New York City to secure the passage of bills to prevent the waste of the city's funds. The Corporation Counsel had been in the habit of confessing judgment in suits against the city when he thought best, without con- 234, THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT suiting the financial officers or any one else. It was as if a lawyer should confess judgment without first consulting his client. Mr. Roosevelt thought that this was not right. He also thought that there should be some official who should audit bills for sup- plies purchased for the various city depart- ments. Mr. Bird S. Coler, the Controller, as the financial head of the city, sought to have the law so changed that his office might audit the supply bills, and so that the law officer of the city should be compelled to consult him before admitting in court that the city had no defence against any suit brought to collect damages for injuries sustained or pay for goods furnished. When one of the Republican leaders heard that the Governor was working with the Con- troller to secure the passage of the necessary bills, he protested, saying: "Governor, you are building up a powerful rival to you next fall," referring to Mr. Coler's desire for the Democratic nomination THE POLITICAL MAN 235 for the Governorship. Mr. Coler was not nominated till two years later, as it turned out. "Maybe so," replied Mr. Roosevelt, "but he is right and he is going to have those bills if I can get them through the Legislature for him." On another occasion other party leaders pro- tested against his advocacy of the measure providing for the appointment of a commis- sion of expert engineers to consider the best method of enlarging the Erie Canal. "It is suicide to do it," they urged, "for it will lose votes for you among the farmers and in the districts that elected you. It is bad politics." Mr. Roosevelt appreciated the force of the argument, but he did not yield. He simply shook his head and said : "You are right, but this is a case where the few must give way for the benefit of the many. I realise that it seems unjust to the farmers to be taxed for improvements that will help 236 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT bring produce from the West to compete with them, but the whole State must be con- sidered, and that canal proposition is in line with commercial progress. It must go through." When the Legislature hesitated in its sup- port of the measures he favoured, or in sup- port of his desire to secure the appointment of officers who had the confidence of the people, in distinction from professional politicians, he was urged to use the methods which other Governors had found effective, that is, to call the recalcitrant Senators and Assemblymen to the executive chamber and threaten to veto the bills in which they were interested unless they supported him. They knew the power that a Governor could exercise if he used such a weapon. Indeed, they were aware that a Democratic leader who had been Governor once exclaimed in indignation, when he heard of the rebellion of the Legislature against an- other Democratic Governor: "Why doesn't he threaten to veto their bills THE POLITICAL MAN 237 if they don't come to time ? That is what the veto power is for." Mr. Roosevelt refused to be persuaded. "Their bills belong to their constituents and to the public," he said, "and I have no right to delay, much less to defeat, them. As I can- not do this, it is unfair to threaten them. I must win on the merits of the case or not at all. But I will win." When he insisted on the passage of a law taxing the franchises of public utility cor- porations, after classifying them as real estate, the politicians again told him that he was destroying his political future. He in- sisted that he was right and that the bill should be passed. The Legislature agreed to it in the last days of the session, but the bill was in imperfect shape. The Governor at once called the Legislature together again in spe- cial session and persuaded it to amend the measure in accordance with his wishes. This was in the spring of 1900, when the de- mand for his nomination for the Vice-Presi- dency was just beginning. XI THE POLITICAL MAN {concluded) The New York leaders, or some of them, were certain that Mr. Roosevelt could not be elected to the Governorship again if he were renomi- nated. They said that the large franchise-en- joying corporations from which they were accustomed to receive large campaign con- tributions would not give a cent if he were the candidate. This was the attitude of the politicians of his own State when the demand for his nomina- tion to the Vice-Presidency began to be heard in the West. These politicians were willing and anxious to get the complications of his candidacy out of the State campaign. ^ Mr. Roosevelt himself did not wish to go to Washington, but was anxious for another term as Governor to complete the work which he had begun. The Vice-Presidency had no attrac- THE POLITICAL MAN 239 tions for him. In April, 1900, he wrote from Albany to a friend : "Here I am occupied in trying not to be made Vice-Presidential candi- date. I prefer to try for the Governorship again ; whether I will be beaten or not I can- not tell ; I suppose I should certainly be beaten if it were not a Presidential year ; but this year there is a good chance of carrying the Gover- norship, too ; whether it is more than an even chance I should be afraid to say." In conversation with his acquaintances he made similar remarks about his unwillingness to become Vice-President. To one such he said: "I -don't want to sit up there in the Senate chamber for four years and say, 'All in favour of the motion signify it by saying "Aye," all opposed, "No," the motion is carried or lost,' as the case may be ; 'The Senator from such and such a State has the floor ;' and things like that. Besides, I'd have to keep quiet up there on the platform when that man [nam- ing a conspicuous anti-imperialist Senator] 240 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT got up in his place and talked his confounded treason, when I should feel like going down on the floor and knocking his blamed head off!" He was not the candidate of the delegates from New York to the National Convention. They were inclined to support Timothy L. Woodruff, the Lieutenant-Governor of the State, rather than Theodore Roosevelt, the Governor. When asked a few years later by Mr. James B. Morrow what was the reason of his failure to secure the nomination, Mr. Woodruff replied : "Theodore Roosevelt's immense popularity in the West forced his candidacy on the dele- gates, notwithstanding his wish and determina- tion to stay in New York and run for the Governorship again. Rack from Cuba but a short time, he was a striking and romantic per- sonality. I don't say I could have been nomi- nated, although seventy-two delegates from New York met in Philadelphia and indorsed my candidacy. It is true, however, that New York's demand for a place on the national THE POLITICAL MAN 241 ticket is usually respected. I was in Wash- ington several months before the convention met. Mr. Hanna [the chairman of the Re- publican National Committee] sent for me. When I got to his room he sat down and put his knees against mine. " 'Timothy,' he said, 'I hear that you will be a candidate for Vice-President.' "I told him my friends had suggested it, but that my own mind was open on the subject. " 'But you are too young,' he argued. " 'So far as that goes,' I replied, 'I am three months and twenty-three days older than Theodore Roosevelt, and my son is a junior at Yale.' " 'Well,' he answered, winking his right eye, 'you look too young.' " The demand for Mr. Roosevelt, as Mr. Woodruff said, was so strong that he could not resist it. Many of his friends, even so late as the day of his nomination by the Phila- delphia convention, advised him to refuse to allow his name to be presented. They told him 243 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT that if he accepted he would be shelved for four years and his political career would be ended. Indeed, they believed that a plot had been laid by his enemies to bury him in the Vice-Presidency, and three or four years later some of these political enemies confessed that this had been their purpose. He was inclined to believe that the advice of his friends was good; but he finally yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon him and, much against his will, allowed himself to be nominated. Then he made what the newspapers call a "whirlwind" canvass of the country, and was elected. He went to Washington and took the oath of office in the Senate chamber, and assumed the duties of presiding officer of the smaller branch of Congress. On his first day in office there occurred an amusing illustration of his habit of doing what he thinks is expected of him, even in an unfamiliar situation. President McKinley and the Senators and other distinguished persons left the Senate chamber for the East THE POLITICAL MAN 243 front of the Capitol, where the oath was to be administered to the President and where he was to make his inaugural address. No Sena- tor had thought to move an adjournment. Mr. Roosevelt, accordingly, concluded that he must not desert his post, and he knew that it was not consistent with the dignity of the Senate for him to declare it adjourned, on his own initiative. For a long time he remained alone on the Senate rostrum. Not another living creature was in the room. He was put away on a shelf and left there, indeed. Then Senator Heitfeld, of Idaho, went into the chamber on his way to the Democratic cloak- room to get his rain-coat, which he had left behind. He took in the situation at once, and with great solemnity addressed the Chair. What happened might have appeared in the Congressional Record something like this : Mr. Heitfeld. — Mr. President. The Vice-President. — The Senator from Idaho. Mr. Heitfeld. — I move that the Senate do now adjourn till 12 o'clock noon to-morrow. 244 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT The Vice-President (looking vastly re- lieved). — The Senator from Idaho moves that the Senate do now adjourn until 12 o'clock noon to-morrow. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and the Senate stands ad- journed until the hour named. Mr. Roosevelt emphasised this announcement with a hearty thump of the gavel and rushed down from the rostrum and thanked the Sena- tor for coming to his rescue. When he be- came President, Senator Heitfeld was one of his first callers, and Mr. Roosevelt asked, as he grasped his hand : "Do you remember when you and I were the whole Senate? I want to thank you again for what you did that day. If it hadn't been that you forgot your rain-coat and had to return for it there is no telling how long I should have had to preside over an empty Senate." Another instance of the effect of the cere- monious side of office upon him will go as well here as anywhere. It was on the evening of the first diplomatic reception after he be- came President. He was standing in his place, THE POLITICAL MAN 245 flanked by the suitable supporters, and the brilliant line of guests was passing before him. There were ambassadors and ministers pleni- potentiary, attaches, naval and military, sec- retaries of legation, gorgeous uniforms, and all the trappings of an elaborate State func- tion. In the line, after the official guests, was a lady, an intimate friend of the President. She expected that he would take especial notice of her ; but he only bowed formally over her hand as he did over the hands of the others. Later in the evening Mr. Roosevelt ran across her in the reception-room and greeted her with great friendliness. "Why didn't you come in time for the recep- tion?" he asked. "I did," she replied, "and you didn't even recognise me." "Impossible!" exclaimed the President. Then he whispered, "To tell the truth, Mrs. , I was so fearful I would not do the right thing I could not think of anybody but my- self!" 246 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT To return to the political side of his career. He had begun to adjust himself to four years of life in Washington as presiding officer of the Senate. As already noted, he considered reading law that he might have a lucrative profession when his term expired, a profes- sion whose returns were more certain than those of literature. Then came the assassination of President McKinley. There are few more trying positions that a man can occupy than that into which an American Vice-President is forced by the sud- den death of the President. As Vice-President he has been elected to an office with little power. Its influence over legislation is so slight that it is difficult to discover it, and its demands on the time of its occupant are usually limited to the hours when he is in the chair. To be suddenly lifted from this inconspicu- ous place into the most powerful executive office in the world, at the head of one of the greatest nations, is enough to try the stuff in THE POLITICAL MAN 247 any man. They say that when Vice-President Arthur heard of the assault upon President Garfield he spoke not a word. He sat down and stared into vacancy for fifteen minutes, and when he rose he had the manner of a man who was staggering under a great burden that had just been put upon his shoulders. The first effect of the news of the assault upon President McKinley was to overpower Mr. Roosevelt with grief for the injury to a friend. "He must live. He must live," was his thought and his word. He received every favourable report with delight, as it indicated the fulfilment of his wishes, and when it was announced that the danger was over, he went back from Buffalo to the Adirondacks to resume his interrupted vacation. When the President died, and he was summoned to Buffalo again, he had it out with himself in his ride alone across the State, and was ready to announce that as the country had elected William McKinley to the Presi- 248 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT dency, it desired the policies of McKinley to be pursued, and he would respect that desire. So he asked the McKinley Cabinet to remain with him to assist him in making his adminis- tration as near as possible as the dead Presi- dent would have made it. Such respect for the popular will in such cir- cumstances is rare, indeed, and when the final estimate of Mr. Roosevelt's career is written this revelation of the man's loyalty to the ideals of popular government will receive due weight. Neither will the other significant fact be lost sight of that on his first Sunday in Wash- ton as President he went quietly to the little Reformed Church which he had been accus- tomed to attend. Here he joined in the prayers offered, and sang with the congrega- tion, and nodded approvingly as the preacher expressed sentiments with which he agreed. He entered upon his new duties with char- acteristic vigour. While trying to carry out the McKinley policies, he had to do so in the THE POLITICAL MAN 249 Roosevelt way. That way is different from the usual manner of Presidents, as appeared when he began to meet people in the White House. A man who was present has described how he received the people who went to see him one day in 1901, when he had been President about two months. To read what this man said is almost as good as being there in person. Every phase of humanity was gathered in the waiting-room, when the President bounded into the room unannounced, and seized the hand of the first person he saw. "Glad to see you," he exclaimed as he grasped the hand of the visitor. There is an emphasis on the "} r ou" which startles the visitor with its ring of candour. But scarcely has he recovered from his astonishment suf- ficiently to begin his speech, before the Presi- dent has darted half-way across the circle, leaving outstretched hands tingling with the rush of blood caused by the firm Presidential grasp, and startled ears trying to realise that 250 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT into them has been hurled the assurance that he was glad to see them. When the President was not "Glad to see you" he was "Delighted to see you," our in- formant assures us. Statesmen, office-seekers, giggling brides, tuft-hunters, notoriety-seek- ers, stately ladies, capitalists, labourers, Dem- ocrats, Republicans, Populists, all get the same greeting, the same nervous but firm hand- shake, the same glitter of the eye. And then darts away this bundle of nerves and steel. To the visiting delegations who appeared with a spokesman and with the motive of sug- gesting something of value either to the nation or to themselves, these early methods of the President were perhaps displayed to the best advantage. A party of men from Montana were present on the day in question, and they desired to impress on the President the neces- sity and the value of their irrigation plans. "We would like to have a word with you about irrigation, Mr. President," the spokes- man began. He was immediately cut short by THE POLITICAL MAN 251 the President saying in a tone that was heard all over the room and out in the hallway : "Yes, oh yes. You favour irrigation, do you? Well, so do I. I have urged it in my message. Here, Cortelyou, get me a printed copy of my message so I can read to these gentlemen what I am going to say to Congress on the subject of irrigation." The printed copy was produced at once and the President read so everybody within earshot could hear what he intended to ask Congress to do on the irrigation question. A tall man, moving about with a dignified stride, next caught the President's eye, as the Montana delegation backed away. What the man of mystery and dignity said could not be heard, but what the President said could be. "Yes, yes, I know you and I am delighted to see you," said Mr. Roosevelt, "but you must put your application in writing. Yes. Put it in writing and send it to me with your indorse- ments and I'll see what can be done." The man leaned forward and whispered 252 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT again, this time his face crimson with blushes of embarrassment. "Oh, I know all about that. Yes, certainly I do. And I have no doubt you would fill the bill. But I do not know whether or not there is a vacancy. Don't you know that it is im- possible for me to keep all these things in my head? Write out your application. Write it out, and then send it to me with your indorse- ments. Come to see me again, soon. Good- bye." "Ah, there's Mr. White!" exclaimed the President as he espied a scholarly-looking man with short grey beard sitting modestly and patiently back in a corner away from the jostling crowd. "Go into my office, Mr. White. I shall be there in two or three minutes." Mr. White, who is a New York editor, did as he was directed. "Glad to see you," "Delighted to see you," "Glad to see you," "Delighted," then rang out in greeting as the President whirled around through the room. The people grabbed at his THE POLITICAL MAN 253 hand as it was extended, or rather, shot out at them. "Hello, Senator Proctor, how are you? I want to see you in my office directly. Please wait a little while until I am through with Mr. White, then come in. You know I am depend- ing on you as one of my main props." The rugged Vermont statesman said he would wait, and on the President dashed to an- other bunch of visitors. In three or four min- utes he had squeezed twenty or more hands, and the second crowd of the day was disposed of. With the next crowd there came strid- ing in a handsome rosy-cheeked lad, gaily dressed in a military uniform that was decorated with all the distinguishing colours of the various arms of the Army and insignia of the various grades of the Navy. Into a large upholstered chair this youth plumped his roly-poly form near the door leading to the President's office. The crowd thickened so fast that the doorkeeper refused to let any more people in till the congestion in the room 254 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT was relieved. Again the President rushed into the room, and bumped into the youth in the chair. "Ah, so this is Master , is it?" Mr. Roose- velt inquired as he seized the right hand of the lad. "Well, I received your telegram from Baltimore last night telling me that you would call on me to-day. I am delighted to see you, sir — delighted to see you." "Mr. President," the boy began, in a deter- mined effort to deliver his carefully prepared speech, "I am travelling " "Yes, yes," interrupted the President. "I know you are, and I am glad to see you. Mr. Cortelyou will look after you." As the President was surrounded by the eddy- ing crowd the brave little boy, twelve years old, continued his speech thus : "I am travelling salesman for a typewriter. My father was a miner in Pennsylvania, and when he died a few months ago he left my mother a large family of children, but no prop- erty. I am making the living for the family, THE POLITICAL MAN 255 and I have brought you as a Thanksgiving present one of my typewriters. Accept it, Mr. President, and make my mother's heart glad. All our family think you are the greatest man that was ever President of the United States." There was a kind, gentle, fatherly tone in the President's voice as he held both the hands of this courageous American fighting his own way, and spoke some encouraging words. "God bless you," said the President a little while later, as he encountered the lad in an- other part of the room, and a merry-f aced old lady who was waiting her turn to greet the President wiped the tears from her eyes that came unbidden as she heard the benediction. It was now noon, and the reception-room had been filled and emptied five times. For an hour and a half longer the crowd continued to pour in. A pompous man accompanied by a party of women grabbed the President's hand and began to say, "Mr. President, we could not leave Washington without calling to pay our respects. I sat on the stand when you spoke in 256 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT my town in Colorado last year, and I told the ladies you would remember me." "Certainly, certainly," assented Mr. Roose- velt, and before the women finished their speeches of congratulation he landed in an opposite corner of the room, where a man wished to impress on him the desirability of "speaking out in your message in no uncertain tone on the currency question." "I believe my message will please you on that point," Mr. Roosevelt assured the man. "Here, I'll read you what I have written on that topic." And the President, in his usual way, read that part of his message, to the great delight of his listener, who signified his agreement by vigorous nods of his head. This was at the beginning of his adminis- tration. It was pretty generally admitted then that he had not the composure and dig- nity which characterises the manner of older men who have risen to high place more gradu- ally. But as the months passed he acquired THE POLITICAL MAN 257 greater poise, he spoke less loudly in greeting his callers, and showed more appreciation of the sensibilities of those asking favours. The superficial evidences of nervousness disap- peared. His great responsibilities sobered him and he began to impress his callers as a man of firm will and steady mental poise. Al- though there has been a change in his manner he still deals frankly and insists that others shall be frank with him, just as in the begin- ning. This insistence on frankness has brought con- fusion to more than one man who has neg- lected to tell him the whole truth. On one oc- casion he rescinded the appointment of a United States Marshal because the man had misled him as to his record. The man had the reputation of being a drunkard and broiler, and Senator Hoar opposed him. When the Senator protested the President told him that the man had been one of the bravest soldiers in his regiment, and that he had reformed. Later Senator Hoar learned that the man had 258 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT served a term in prison for horse-stealing, and went to the White House to make further protest. "He didn't tell me that," said the President. "I'll telegraph him about it." When the reply came it was that the im- prisonment happened fifteen years before and the man said he thought it had been for- gotten. Then the President sent word to him: "If you had told me that in the first place it would have been all right ; but you lied to me and that settles it." In the preparation of his first message to Congress, sections of which we have seen him reading to his callers, he sought the assistance and advice of the men who were familiar with the subjects he intended to discuss. "Before he finished it," remarked one Sena- tor, "he consulted every one in whose judg- ment he had confidence. He even did me the honour to summon me here from my home in the West for consultation. When I arrived THE POLITICAL MAN 259 I found him so busy he was compelled to ask me to dictate to a stenographer my views on certain questions of pressing importance, and send them to him in that shape." This has been his practice, to take no im- portant action without previous consultation with the people best informed on the matter involved. Before he took the unprecedented course of ordering an investigation into the grievances of the striking coal-miners in 1903, he had many conferences with people repre- senting both sides of the controversy. His final determination to recognise the Panama revolutionists in the autumn of the same year was not reached till he had taken the advice of the men who understood the situation on the Isthmus. But when he did act he took all the responsibility himself, and he was naturally pleased when his course was approved by those with whom he talked. Mr. William C. Adamson, of Georgia, was one of the callers at the White House on the 260 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT day after the republic of Panama was recog- nised by the United States. "Congressman," said the President, shaking his hand, "I am always glad to see you, but especially so at this time." "Mr. President," replied the Congressman, "I am glad to meet you and see that you are well and buoyant. I called thinking I had business, but find that it is not ready to present to you, so I determined to wait, and in the language of Br'er Rab- bit, 'pass the time o' day wid you,' before leaving." "Speaking of Br'er Rabbit," said the Presi- dent, "that Jack rabbit on the Isthmus jumped one time too many for his good." "I imagine the surprise and consternation of that rabbit," Mr. Adamson rejoined, "when, after jumping for a race down the Isthmus, he found himself confronted by a President who was not too bow-legged to head him in the lane." The President enjoyed this metaphorical THE POLITICAL MAN 261 compliment so much that he repeated it to a number of his callers. After he has taken the advice of various people, it seems to be generally agreed that he uses his own judgment. Elihu Root, then Secretary of War, called attention to the dominating will of the President in the spring of 1903 at a dinner in his honour. Mr. Root was talking about the Manchurian ques- tion and the possible effect of Russian control of the territory on the course of the United States in maintaining its rights in the East. "We must never forget, gentlemen," said he, "that the War Department is only an emer- gency bureau, and that the controlling port- folio in the present administration is held by the Secretary of Peace, Theodore Roose- velt." It was only a few weeks later that Mr. Roose- velt at a public dinner in Charlottesville, Virginia, set forth his own views of the proper attitude of the United States in its foreign relations. 262 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT "I want the United States to conduct itself in foreign affairs," said he, "as you of Vir- ginia believe a private gentleman should con^ duct himself among his fellows. I ask that we handle ourselves with a view never to wrong the weak and never to submit to injury from the strong. "Another thing : A gentleman does not boast, bluster, bully ; he does not insult others. I wish our country always to behave with con- sideration for others ; never to speak in a man- ner that is insulting or might wound the sus- ceptibilities of any foreign nation ; never to threaten, never to boast, but when we feel that our interest and our honour demand that as a nation we take a certain position, to take that position and then make it good. "Speaking to the younger gentlemen pres- ent, I wish to state that I myself was once young, and in those days I lived in the cow country in the West, and we had a proverb running, 'Don't draw unless you mean to shoot.' It was a middling good proverb, and THE POLITICAL MAN 263 it applies just as much in international as in private affairs. "I do not wish us ever as a nation to take a position from which we have to retreat. Do not let us assume any position unless we are prepared to say that we have got to keep it. As a nation we must hereafter play a big part in the world. It is not open to us to decide whether the part we play, we of the United States, shall be great or small. That has been decided for us by the course of events. A small nation can' honourably play a small part ; a great nation, no. A great nation must play a great part. All it can decide is whether it will play that great part well or ill. I know you too well, my fellow-country- men, to have any doubt as to what your de- cision will be." We have the testimony of his Attorney-Gen- eral, as well as that of his Secretary of War, that the policies of his administration are the policies of Theodore Roosevelt, adopted of course after consultation with his advisers and 264 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT cordially supported and furthered by those associated with him in their execution. It was in explanation of his retirement from the Cabinet to accept the senatorship from Penn- sylvania that Attorney-General Knox said in the summer of 1904: "I called up President Roosevelt over the long-distance telephone and laid the situa- tion before him, asking his advice. The Presi- dent, after listening to me, said that as Penn- sylvania is such an overwhelmingly Repub- lican State, and as this appointment might open to me a long term of public service and at the same time it would tend to promote har- mony among the factions of the party in the State, he thought it was my duty to accept the appointment." "But don't 3 r ou believe that your leaving the Cabinet at this time will seriously interfere with President Roosevelt's plans for curbing the trusts?" Mr. Knox was asked. "I do not," was the reply. "My leaving the Cabinet can have no effect upon the continu- THE POLITICAL MAN 265 ance of the anti-trust policy of the adminis- tration." Mr. Roosevelt's attitude toward his nomina- tion for the Presidency and his remarks on that subject were as unconventional as many of his other acts. In May, 1903, when the party in Ohio was divided on the question of indorsing him, and Senator Hanna was urging that the indorsement could as well be given the next year, Mr. Roosevelt's secretary issued this statement : "In speaking of the sudden political devel- opments in Ohio the President this afternoon said: 'I have not asked any man for his sup- port. I have had nothing whatever to do with raising the issue of my indorsement. Sooner or later it was bound to arise, and inasmuch as it has now arisen, of course those who favour my administration and my nomination will indorse, and those who do not, oppose.' ' He has not been ashamed of his ambitions, neither has he hesitated to express a high opin- ion of the dignity of public service. The last 266 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT sentences from an address delivered to the students of the University of California bear on this subject. He was talking about the service that Leonard Wood, William H. Taft, the graduates of the Naval and Military academies, and others had done. "Taft and Wood and their fellows," said he, "are spending, or have spent, the best years of their prime in doing a work which means to them a pecuniary loss at the best, a bare livelihood while they are doing it, and are do- ing it gladly because they realise the truth that the highest privilege that can be given to any man is the privilege of serving his country, his fellow- Americans." When his party nominated him for the Presi- dency in the summer of 1904 all precedents were broken. No previous President who had entered the high office through the Vice-Presi- dency after the death of the President was ever before nominated to succeed himself. In- deed, Mr. Roosevelt's first participation in a national convention was marked by his ear- THE POLITICAL MAX 261 nest efforts to prevent such a President from receiving the nomination. But when he be- came a candidate, no one was named in oppo- sition to him in the convention, and he was the unanimous choice of the delegates. He took no public part in the campaign for his election, till toward its close, when charges affecting his personal honour were made. Then he issued a long statement, in the course of which he declared that the charges that he or his campaign committee were blackmailing corporations and were promising "to take care of" the corporations which contributed to the fund to secure his election were "unquali- fiedly and atrociously false," and concluded: "If elected I shall go into the Presidency unhampered by any pledge, promise, or under- standing of any kind, sort, or description, save my promise, made openly to the American people, that so far as in my power lies I shall see to it that every man has a square deal, no less and no more." Several weeks before election a prominent 268 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT Republican leader who believed that he would win implored him not to commit himself against the acceptance of a third term until the arguments in its favour could be presented. Mr. Roosevelt, turning to Attorney-General Moody, who was present, remarked: "I cannot with propriety make any public statement now, before I am elected for a second term, but at the very earliest moment I shall smash that idea with all the energy I can command." Secretary Moody indorsed this plan, and Mr. Roosevelt did not wait longer than was necessary to "smash the idea" that he was a candidate for nomination in 1908, for at half- past ten o'clock on the night of the election, when the result was no longer in doubt, he issued this statement: "I am deeply sensible of the honour done me by the American people in thus expressing their confidence in what I have done and have tried to do. I appreciate to the full the solemn responsibility this confidence imposes upon me, THE POLITICAL MAN 269 and I shall do all that in my power lies not to forfeit it. On the 4th of March next I shall have served three and a half years, and this three and a half years constitute my first term. The wise custom which limits the Presi- dent to two terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate for, or accept, another nomi- nation." He received the largest popular majority ever given to any candidate, and even carried Missouri, which had been Democratic for more than thirty years. He was pleased, as well he might be, though he was not surprised. They say that he was one of the calmest per- sons in the White House on the evening of the election while the returns were coming in. A little more than two weeks after the elec- tion he visited the Louisiana Purchase Exposi- tion in St. Louis, making several brief speeches on the way. A large crowd gathered to greet him as he passed through Indian- apolis. He thanked them for their presence 270 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT and said he appreciated it deeply. Then an enthusiastic man in the crowd, desiring to attract attention to the large Roosevelt ma- jority in Ohio, called out: "What is the matter with Ohio?" "Not a thing," said the President, "and I want to tell you that there were a lot of other good ones." Then with a beaming smile he leaned over the rail on the car platform and inquired, "What is the matter with Missouri?" And the crowd yelled its appreciation of the situation. When he reached St. Louis a din- ner in his honour was given by the officers of the fair, at which he said: "I was lately reading a speech of Lincoln after his re-election. I cannot quote it verba- tim, but he says, 'As long as I have been in this office I have never intentionally planted a thorn in any man's bosom. I am gratified that my countrymen have seen fit to continue me in office, but it does not satisfy me that any one has suffered by the result.' I feel that I should approach my duties in that spirit. A man THE POLITICAL MAN 271 should have no sense of elation in view of the infinite responsibility and of the weight of duty he owes to his fellow-citizens. He should realise that whether there is a difference before election, the President is President of all the people, of every section, socially and indus- trially — no West, no North, or East, or South — and he is bound 'with malice toward none and charity to all' to strive to conduct him- self toward his duties as they arise so that the result may be for the good of the common country." In spite of Mr. Roosevelt's announced deter- mination not to accept another nomination for the Presidency, many men with various motives have declared themselves in favour of what they call a third term for him. But his atti* tude remains unchanged. In the spring of 1906 he was present at a dinner at which one half the guests were men whose availability for the Presidency had been discussed by the political leaders. He said to them : "I shall not be a candidate for the Presidency 272 THE MANY-SIDED ROOSEVELT again, but I'll be delighted to accept a place in the Cabinet of any of you." Mr. W. A. Conant, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who was a delegate to the first Re- publican National Convention, wrote to him in June, 1906, that he hoped to vote for him in 1908. Mr. Roosevelt's secretary replied: "The President thanks you for your letter of the 17th instant. He cordially appreciates your kind expressions concerning himself. He says, however, that you will have to vote for some other Republican next time." 7 * V » *«* -fi y '*, iQ-d N V* *.^ 6" ^ t ' 9 % *°«°° A V ^ J- ^ * «? V, oVJIaf* av ^ % A^ o^V- ' » , -i • r o V '^rf r a S fc i_ii_>nrM-i I KJr UUINOnCOO 013 981 410 1 #