Class JLqji^_ 
 Book lLs 
 
 £ 
 
 Copyright N?. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER 
 TO PRESIDENT 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER 
 TO PRESIDENT 
 
 BY 
 
 DR. MAX KULLNICK 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK von REITHDORF, Ph. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES, MONMOUTH (iLL.) COLLEGE 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 1911 
 
En 
 
 Copyright 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 1911 
 
 Published April, J 911 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 
 
 \«: 
 
 . 
 
 3. i^all printing <5nnt|ianB 
 (Clnragn 
 
 CI. A 286632 
 
o 
 
 15 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT IS rare, if not an altogether unheard of thing, 
 to find a foreign scholar giving his attention to 
 an American statesman, much less to a living Ameri- 
 can statesman. It is no small compliment, therefore, 
 to the American nation as well as a high tribute to 
 Theodore Roosevelt, that an eminent German has 
 seen fit to write a short biography of the greatest 
 living exponent of what is best in the American 
 people. 
 
 The book is in a measure unique : it is unique not 
 only because it gives the biography of a man who is 
 yet, as far as we can tell, in the beginning of his 
 service to his country, a man who as a private citizen 
 has found it in his power to exert a greater influence 
 upon the life of the people and the course of national 
 affairs than the political leaders themselves, and who 
 has absorbed the attention of the world the last few 
 years as no other has done since the days of Napoleon 
 the First ; but the book is also unique because it is not 
 an over-zealous tribute from the pen of a fellow- 
 countryman, but a spontaneous recognition of the 
 heroic qualities of Mr. Roosevelt by an unbiassed 
 scholar of that nation of scholars, Germany. 
 
 [v] 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 With few exceptions, notably Chapter X, which has 
 been purposely condensed, the book is given as it 
 came from the pen of the distinguished German. It 
 has been the aim of the editor in every case to pre- 
 serve the sense of the original, though he is not vain 
 enough to pretend that the translation is without 
 error. He believes, however, that the details of the 
 life of the man and the general tone of the book are, 
 in all essentials, faithfully preserved. 
 
 F. V. R. 
 
 Monmouth, Illinois, 
 January, 1911. 
 
 [vi] 
 
AUTHORS INTRODUCTION 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT has succeeded in gain- 
 ing the confidence, yea, even the love, of his fel- 
 low citizens in an unprecedented way. The educated 
 people declare him every inch a man, and the unedu- 
 cated look upon him as a being almost superhuman. 
 He is believed to know everything and to be able to do 
 everything. Whenever difficulties arise in any part of 
 the country, all eyes are turned instinctively to Mr. 
 Roosevelt as the one who is able and willing to help 
 them out of the trouble, be it of a public or a private 
 nature. 
 
 Though we keep aloof from any exaggeration, we 
 must acknowledge that in Roosevelt an important 
 and striking personality is presented. He is regarded 
 as the personification of the real American character. 
 Just as he, in boyhood, tried to imitate the great men 
 of his country, such as Washington and Lincoln, he 
 himself has become to-day the hero of every American 
 youth. 
 
 It is true that our young men do not have to go to 
 foreign lands for men after whom to shape their 
 lives ; our own country has many men as worthy of 
 imitation as any that the world has produced. Never- 
 theless it would be a mistake to let pass unnoticed 
 such a fascinating and altogether noble personality 
 
 [vii] 
 
AUTHOB'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 as Mr. Roosevelt, simply because he is a citizen of a 
 foreign country. A man who has by his own will 
 power overcome an inherent bodily weakness, a man 
 who faithfully and courageously stands for what is 
 right and fights for what is good, a man whose highest 
 aim is to advance the cause of morality and right liv- 
 ing everywhere, such a man deserves to be placed 
 before the younger generations as a model of true 
 manhood. 
 
 But this is not the only purpose of writing this 
 book. As but little of Roosevelt's past life is known 
 in Germany, it is hoped that it will be welcomed by 
 many a reader who desires to know more of the 
 details of the life of the man who has stood so promi- 
 nently in the foreground of the world's history in 
 recent years. 
 
 I have chosen the title, "From Rough Rider to 
 President," because it was the popularity gained in 
 the Cuban war that finally placed Mr. Roosevelt in 
 the White House. 
 
 My sources have been, above all, his own works, and 
 in addition the writings and reports of those in close 
 touch with him. For help in gathering the material 
 for this book, I am especially indebted to Mr. Herbert 
 Putnam of the Congressional Library at Washington 
 and also to the former private secretary of the presi- 
 dent, Mr. William Loeb, Jr., and to these gentlemen I 
 
 hereby express my thanks. 
 
 Max Kullnick. 
 
 [ viii ] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Ancestry 11 
 
 II At the University 38 
 
 III In the Stream of Politics ... 52 
 
 IV In the Wild West 77 
 
 V Roosevelt, the Reformer ... 99 
 
 VI Roosevelt as Police Commissioner of 
 
 New York 115 
 
 VII In the Navy Department . . . 138 
 VIII Roosevelt in the Spanish-American- 
 War . 156 
 
 IX Roosevelt as Governor of New York and 
 
 Vice-President of the United States 193 
 
 X Mr. Roosevelt's Political Philosophy 219 
 
 XI Practical Politics . . . .236 
 
 XII Personality and Private Life . . 269 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ANCESTRY 
 
 SOON after Peter Stuyvesant, the knight with the 
 silver leg, had become director-general of the 
 Dutch colony in North America, he was followed by a 
 crowd of men who differed distinctly from the earlier 
 inhabitants of New England. They were not impelled 
 by a longing for adventure to settle in New Amsterdam, 
 nor did they turn their backs upon the Old World 
 because ' ' the native soil had become too hot for them 
 to tread upon," nor did they wish to indulge in 
 America in practices considered criminal at home. On 
 the contrary, they were respectable, well-to-do men. 
 Many of them belonged to the old Dutch nobility and 
 took with them to the New World their native pride 
 in the family coat of arms. They entrusted them- 
 selves to the lightly built sailing-ships and emigrated 
 with their belongings to America in the hope that they 
 might enhance more effectively the commercial inter- 
 ests of Holland. 
 
 [11] 
 
FEOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The number of furs and skins taken from New 
 Amsterdam to Europe was incredibly large, for the 
 forests, which began at the back steps of the last 
 houses of the village and extended as far as any one 
 had ever dared to penetrate them, teemed with game 
 of every kind. On the numerous rivers, countless 
 beavers built their artistic dams. The red masters of 
 the land, whose principal occupation was hunting, 
 brought to the whites, with whom they were generally 
 friendly, mountains of the most precious furs to 
 exchange for valueless trifles, and above all for the 
 1 ' fire water ' ' of the foreign traders. No wonder then 
 that the Dutch merchants, flattered by the prospects 
 of rich gain, settled in miserable New Amsterdam, 
 which did not become a flourishing city till the reign 
 of Peter Stuyvesant. 
 
 The arrival of the Dutch colonists had a distinct 
 influence on the settlement at New Amsterdam. The 
 population at this time was a mixture of men from 
 everywhere: there were, besides the Dutch, the Eng- 
 lish and the Irish, the Germans and the French 
 Huguenots, to say nothing of the Indians who lolled 
 in the streets and between the houses. Nor was 
 Africa without representation in New Amsterdam ; 
 and more and more frequently ships from the Gold 
 Coast transplanted negroes to American soil. Eight- 
 een different languages and dialects were spoken 
 upon the streets. The moral ideals of the people 
 were, perhaps, even more various. Alongside the 
 
 [12] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 well-educated European with his high ethical stand- 
 ards were living all kinds of depraved men who had 
 fled the prisons of the Old World. Side by side with 
 the hard-working tillers of the soil were bestial red 
 men, indolent and inclined to theft and murder. Under 
 these conditions, the thrifty Dutchmen soon became 
 the ruling class, and continued to exert their influence, 
 when, in 1664, the English took possession of New 
 Amsterdam and gave it the name of New York in 
 honor of the Duke of York, later James II. 
 
 One of the men who settled in New Amsterdam 
 during the reign of Peter Stuyvesant was Claes Mar- 
 tenszoon van Rosenvelt, the forefather of a long line 
 of merchants, many of whom have rendered excellent 
 services to their country. The Roosevelts have occu- 
 pied seats in the city council of New York at various 
 times. In some respects, the most able of them all 
 was Johannes Roosevelt, who was a member of the 
 council from 1748 to 1767, and increased the wealth and 
 the honor of the family. Although their fortune has 
 never been such that it could be compared with that 
 of the dollar-kings of the America of to-day, it was 
 large enough to secure for the Roosevelts a comfort- 
 able, care-free life, since the family has always been 
 guided by principles of economy. One Nicholas Roose- 
 velt was, in 1786, a member of the Senate and at the 
 same time president of the Bank of New York ; another 
 Roosevelt gained fame as an engineer by building the 
 first steamboat that ever floated on the Ohio and the 
 
 [ 13 I 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Mississippi. The grandfather of the ex-president was 
 elected by his fellow-citizens a member of Congress, 
 and his father, Theodore, was one of the most influen- 
 tial citizens of New York. This Theodore Roosevelt 
 was a lawyer and a judge at one time. But his pro- 
 fessional duties alone did not satisfy the cravings of 
 his strong, industrious mind, and he devoted a large 
 part of his time to the care of the poor and helpless. 
 He interested himself in the freed slaves, investigated 
 the distress of the homeless, and tried to make it 
 possible for criminals who had atoned for their crimes 
 in prison to become again respected and useful 
 members of society. His philanthropy stamped him 
 a real father of the children of New York ; he had his 
 own opinions as to education and advocated them with 
 great determination. Above all, he demanded for the 
 children fresh air and exercise in the open; they 
 should wander at will in the fields and woods and 
 enjoy their play in order that they might learn to love 
 and to value nature, and at the same time to develop 
 to the fullest their physical powers, which, in the 
 poisoned atmosphere of the crowded city, were in 
 danger of permanent injury. The father of the 
 ex-president was himself a great lover of nature, and 
 an ardent admirer of fine horses and dogs — it was his 
 pride and joy that no one in New York was better 
 able to drive a carriage than he. Through the estab- 
 lishment of numerous homes for the newsboys of New 
 York, he became the benefactor of that great host of 
 
 [141 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 boys upon whom the burden of self-support had too 
 early fallen. A man in whose breast there beat a 
 heart so warm for the distress of the children of the 
 slums would naturally have a tender love for his own 
 children. Mr. Roosevelt was married to Martha 
 Bulloch, the daughter of General Bulloch, a Georgian 
 who repeatedly distinguished himself on the Confed- 
 erate side during the Civil War. Mr. Roosevelt him- 
 self championed the cause of the North. While one 
 Bulloch was building the pirate ship, the Alabama, 
 and another was aiming the last shot fired from it as 
 it sank down under the guns of the Unionists, Mr. 
 Roosevelt was in New York, busy with equipping 
 regiments, sending them to the front, and seeing to 
 it that the soldiers in the field and their families at 
 home were cared for. Though the husband and wife 
 by the bonds of nature were drawn to opposing par- 
 ties, their difference in sympathies was never allowed 
 to disturb in the least their personal relations. The 
 truly happy home-life of his parents has often been 
 set up by ex-President Roosevelt as a symbol of the 
 unification of the North and the South. Just as he 
 feels himself neither a man of the North nor a man 
 of the South, but simply an American, so must the 
 barriers which once separated the country fall before 
 the common interests of the North and the South. 
 Four children, two boys and two girls, were wel- 
 comed by-and-by into the old patrician home of the 
 Roosevelts in New York. Though the younger son, 
 
 [15] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Elliott, was a strong, healthy boy, the older, Theodore, 
 born October 27, 1858, was not so happily endowed. 
 On account of his frail body, he was the object of 
 special care and caused continual anxiety to his par- 
 ents. The first years of his life were spent largely at 
 the family country seat at Sagamore Hill near Oyster 
 Bay, Long Island. But in spite of all that his parents, 
 aided by the pure sea air and the aromatic breezes of 
 the woods, could do for him, he still suffered acutely 
 and remained stunted in growth. 
 
 His physical helplessness created in him a certain 
 bashfulness, which was apparent in his intercourse 
 with other children. When bigger boys made fun of 
 him, he did not know what to do, and usually sought 
 refuge with his stronger brother, Elliott, who early 
 became his protector. His mind, however, developed 
 far more quickly. When very small he was able to set 
 the whole household at odds by his questions, for, if 
 anything excited his attention, he bombarded each 
 member of the family in turn, till he had secured an 
 answer which satisfied him. When he was scarcely 
 six years old, he would frequently compel his mother 
 to sit by him to listen to what he had to say concern- 
 ing problems that were in his mind, or to the stories 
 with which he entertained his brother and sisters by 
 the hour: stories wherein animals talked and the 
 heroes were all Samsons or Herculeses. 
 
 The first years of his life were care-free, and his 
 days full of boyish sports, in which his father occa- 
 
 [16] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 sionally took part. Those were the real holidays when 
 the father and children mingled together on the basis 
 of sweet comradeship. Under the leadership of the 
 father, they hunted, they bathed, they sailed, they beat 
 together the untrodden paths of the silent woods, and, 
 when time was too short for more extended trips, 
 they strolled together upon their own lawn. 
 
 The impressions of this early period of his life have 
 always remained with Mr. Roosevelt. They awakened 
 in him a love for nature and all that is and lives 
 therein ; they taught him the value of play and manly 
 sports ; and above everything else they gave him a 
 high ideal of a happy family life. 
 
 Gradually the time approached when the parents 
 had to think of placing the children in a school. Mr. 
 Roosevelt was sensible enough to send them to the 
 public school. He realized that, among children at 
 least, the difference between rich and poor should not 
 be apparent, but that all classes should be educated in 
 the principles of equality, should play and be joyful 
 together, and should in noble combat gain the standing 
 in the class-room, which, on account of ability and 
 hard work, was rightfully theirs. Little Theodore is 
 said to have progressed slowly at first. His physical 
 weakness did not permit him to take part in the play 
 of the children, for, though he possessed the courage 
 to accept challenges, or even to play the role of the 
 aggressor, he lacked the necessary strength to match 
 his opponents. 
 
 [17] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 And yet the i ' fight for existence ' ' began for him in 
 the truest sense of the word on the very day he first 
 entered school. The other children teased him about 
 his sailor suit and tauntingly dubbed him a fop. As he 
 could not endure that, he was frequently engaged in 
 fights, which often ended so disastrously for him that 
 his brother Elliott had to come to his rescue. His 
 father praised him when he had shown himself coura- 
 geous, and so instilled in him the value of firmness in 
 the right that later in his advice to American boys in 
 " St. Nicholas " he said: " The coward who receives 
 a blow without returning it is a contemptible creature ; 
 but yet he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who 
 on account of the mocking of his companions, who are 
 themselves in the wrong, does not dare to stand for 
 that which he considers right." Such were the prin- 
 ciples which he held even when a boy, and he has 
 always remained true to them, no matter how trying 
 the circumstances. As a boy he was full of life and 
 always ready for all sorts of wild pranks. Had not 
 Providence selected him for something better, no 
 doubt he would have met violent death when, as a boy, 
 to the astonishment of all the neighbors, he once prac- 
 tised gymnastics on the ledge of a third-story window. 
 As his health did not improve,, his father thought it 
 advisable to let him spend the greater part of the year 
 at Sagamore Hill, where, under the care of a private 
 teacher, he could be almost always in the open. For a 
 short time he attended the Cutter private school in 
 
 [18] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 New York, which then was one of the best-known 
 schools. 
 
 As has been said before, the father of Theodore 
 Roosevelt was an energetic, industrious man. His 
 wealth would have allured a less noble and determined 
 character from any kind of work, but the elder Roose- 
 velt's whole conception of the meaning of life was 
 such as to preclude any thought of that nature. Again 
 and again he called the attention of his children to the 
 fact that there is no place on earth for lazy and idle 
 people ; that no one has the moral right to spend his 
 days doing nothing, even if he need not work ; but that 
 every man is in duty bound to perform some honest 
 task with his whole mind and strength. Such doc- 
 trines made a deep and lasting impression on the mind 
 of young Theodore. 
 
 Early in life young Roosevelt manifested some of 
 those traits of character which are well known in 
 Roosevelt the man. As a boy he entertained a great 
 liking for history and all things connected with it. 
 The ' ' Journeys of Livingstone through the Dark Con- 
 tinent " was one of the first books that he truly 
 devoured. He had little use for mathematics with its 
 fixed formula? and dry numbers ; but his sense of duty 
 held him to the intricacies of the science till he became 
 reasonably proficient, which furnished further proof 
 of his wonderful will-power, the master key of his 
 successful life. 
 
 It has been said that Roosevelt was born with a 
 
 [19] 
 
FKOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 golden spoon in his mouth, and that he is a Sunday 
 child. If we consider, however, that intellectually he 
 was not at all above the hoys of his age and that physi- 
 cally he was below them, we shall hardly believe the 
 statement. His wealth did not raise him above his 
 contemporaries, but he has become what he is to-day, 
 the pride and the hope of a mighty people, the hero 
 and the shining example of every American boy, on 
 account of his honesty, his industry and the strength 
 of his indomitable will. 
 
 From his reading in youth, he got the heroes whom 
 he wished to imitate. The heroic figures of the north- 
 ern sea-kings, who ploughed the sea like fields and till 
 death remained true to their love and their hatred, 
 who with a grim smile looked death in the face and 
 gave their life without flinching for their avenging 
 deity, impressed him deeply. He found a similar 
 spirit in the men who pushed past the mountain bar- 
 riers of the Alleghanies, brushed aside the resisting 
 Indians of the plains, and made the prairies blossom 
 as the rose. The books of Captain Mayne Reid, who 
 had himself been a merchant and a negro-overseer, a 
 teacher and an actor, a hunter and a sharp-shooter 
 during the Indian wars, together with the stories of 
 Irving and Cooper, formed his favorite reading. And 
 in the woods of Sagamore Hill, he fought out the bat- 
 tles of his heroes. High on horseback with gun in 
 hand, he saw himself in strife with the giants of his 
 imaginary world. But to be that conqueror of whom 
 
 [20] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 he dreamed, he must be strong and vigorous, and he 
 was still weak and pale. 
 
 He was intensely conscious of his own bodily 
 infirmities and strove in every way in his power to 
 overcome them. He rowed and swam ; he took exer- 
 cise in walking and made frequent excursions through 
 the woods and into the mountains. These journeys 
 brought him still closer to the nature about him. 
 Almost as byplay, he learned the names of the vari- 
 ous trees and flowers of his neighborhood, and soon 
 he was able to distinguish the birds by their songs. 
 None of his playmates knew as much as he about the 
 birds: their feathers, their songs, their nesting and 
 their mode of living. He also became somewhat 
 skilled in the art of the taxidermist, and made collec- 
 tions, which were later considered valuable enough to 
 give to the National Museum. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1873, Theodore Roose- 
 velt, senior, went to the World's Exposition at Vienna 
 as a commissioner of the United States. As it was 
 thought that the trip might bring to the fourteen-year- 
 old boy the long looked for health, the whole family 
 accompanied the father to Europe. For many 
 months, the little sufferer enjoyed the fresh air of the 
 Highlands of Algeria. A short trip took him to Egypt 
 and to Palestine. No doubt the pyramids and other 
 silent witnesses of the greatness and the splendor of 
 a people long dead left a deep impression on the 
 receptive mind of the young man, as he drifted down 
 
 [21] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the Nile through the ruins of vanished empires ; but 
 more than the past and its deeds, the living nature 
 about appealed to him. With a gun on his shoulder, 
 he strolled over the land of the Pharaohs, indus- 
 triously collecting trophies of the chase. 
 
 As his asthmatic troubles had at last let go of him 
 and his lungs had become strong under the influence 
 of the climate, his parents gave their consent to his 
 long-expressed wish to visit Germany. Partly on 
 account of Dresden's splendid situation and partly on 
 account of the advantages, which, according to English 
 and American opinions, it offered for the education of 
 children, it was selected as Theodore's stopping place. 
 On the recommendation of the American consul, 
 Theodore, as well as his brother Elliott and his sister 
 Corinne, was placed under the care of Dr. Minkwitz, 
 an alderman and a member of the Reichstag. As Dr. 
 Minkwitz had to spend a large part of his time in 
 Berlin on official duty, his wife had the burden of 
 responsibility for the care of the children, and his 
 daughter, Miss Anna Minkwitz, acted as teacher. 
 
 The children, who were all beginners in German, 
 studied Otto's "Method for Young English People 
 Who Want to Learn German." Miss Minkwitz read 
 with them short stories, and occasionally a poem, but 
 above all she tried to help them by constant practice 
 in speaking. Though Theodore was not exactly a 
 splendid pupil, he showed an extraordinary talent for 
 acquiring languages and wonderful adaptability to 
 
 [22] 
 
FROM BOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 German conditions. He had been in Dresden only a 
 short time when he gave a surprising proof of his 
 knowledge of the language. The brother of Miss Mink- 
 witz, who was a student at Leipzig, told one day in 
 the course of his conversation a student joke at which 
 all present laughed, and most of all Theodore Roose- 
 velt. Miss Minkwitz was naturally astonished at his 
 actions and asked him why he laughed. He then 
 repeated the story in English and showed beyond 
 doubt that he had grasped its point truly. How 
 observant he was of what went on around him, the 
 servant girl once found out to her sorrow. She had 
 an admirer named Karl, of whom her employers had 
 no knowledge, although she had been in their service 
 several years. One can easily conjecture the surprise 
 of the girl, and every one else, when Theodore greeted 
 her one morning with, " Emily, ich bin Karl, ich Hebe 
 dich." 
 
 As his asthmatic troubles, which came back upon 
 him time and again, made conversation with him diffi- 
 cult, he had only a few friends. He found consolation 
 for his misfortune, however, in books, over which he 
 could forget himself and all about him. Miss Mink- 
 witz could not have given him greater joy than she 
 did by presenting him with a copy of the ' ' Nibelun- 
 genlied." In it he came again in contact with the 
 same characters with whom he had become familiar in 
 English books. How deep was the impression made 
 upon him by reading this German poem can be 
 
 [23] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 learned from the pages of his own greatest work, ' ' The 
 Winning of the West," in which he has quoted in 
 middle-high German sentence after sentence from the 
 " Nibelungenlied. ' ' Diller's " History of the German 
 People " also attracted his attention, but of German 
 poems he kept in memory only one : ' ' Above every- 
 thing, one thing, my child, be faithful and true." 
 
 Under the guidance of the painter and author, Weg- 
 ener, he learned to draw. That Roosevelt later in life 
 in the wilderness and at his farm on the Little Mis- 
 souri was able to make such careful observations of 
 the life and the habits of the animals is due in no small 
 degree to this friendly old man, who on their frequent 
 rambles had called his attention to the beauties of 
 nature and had sharpened his eyes for all that goes 
 on in the great out-of-doors. Brehm's " Life of Ani- 
 mals " became to him a source of truest joy, for he 
 had often dreamed of being a professor of natural 
 history some day. 
 
 This preference for things of the animal world 
 seems, by the way, to be hereditary with the Roose- 
 velts. The children of the president have also sur- 
 rounded themselves with a whole menagerie of 
 quadrupeds, as he tells us in his " Outdoor Pastimes 
 of an American Hunter." Kangaroo rats and flying 
 squirrels sleep in their pockets, go to school with them, 
 and at times appear at table. 
 
 One day at Dresden, Theodore made up his mind 
 that he must have a mouse or a mole. As Miss Mink- 
 
 [24] 
 
PROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 witz was unable to tell him where such things could 
 be got, he set out on his own accord and soon found a 
 store where white mice could be bought. He pur- 
 chased a dead mole and a dead marmot and set out 
 for home, swinging them triumphantly in his hands. 
 He skinned the little animals at once and walked 
 boldly into the kitchen and asked to boil them in Miss 
 Minkwitz's pan. Miss Minkwitz did not approve the 
 plan, however, and once again young Roosevelt was 
 thrown upon his own resources, which, as before, were 
 equal to the occasion. He built a hearth of brick and 
 soon accomplished on the outside what he had been for- 
 bidden to do in the kitchen, i. e., boil the flesh from 
 the bones in order to put them together as a skeleton. 
 His zeal for collecting was apparent in other ways, 
 for instance, peculiar coins. One day in the family 
 circle, some one spoke of the withdrawal from circula- 
 tion of a certain Hanoverian-Brunswick coin, stamped 
 with the figure of a jumping horse. That afternoon 
 as Miss Minkwitz was walking with her charge 
 through the streets, she was horrified beyond measure 
 to see him reach into the money chest of an apple- 
 vendor. The owner of the money chest very naturally 
 supposed that the little rascal was wanting to steal, 
 and the passers-by were coming to her rescue, when 
 Theodore, not the least shaken in composure, brought 
 forth his own purse and by motion of his hand urged 
 the woman to help herself every time he took a coin 
 from her box. Had he not then as a boy showed that 
 
 [25] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 cool-headedness which so distinguished him in later 
 life, the future president might have carried to Amer- 
 ica a not very agreeable reminiscence of Germany. 
 
 Though the boy was daily sitting industriously at 
 his books and was absorbed deeply in the German 
 classics, he did not neglect walking through the fields 
 and woods, a habit that had become dear to him at 
 Sagamore Hill. He soon felt himself at home in the 
 neighborhood of Dresden, and wandered through 
 Saxon Switzerland in every direction. 
 
 After the Roosevelt children had been for several 
 months in the home of Dr. Minkwitz, their mother 
 came to take them on a journey through Switzerland. 
 In the company of their teacher, they visited Augs- 
 burg, Lindau, the Genfer Lake, Samaden, and the 
 Engadine, and in this way became acquainted with a 
 large territory of the German race. It was on this 
 trip that young Theodore again showed the bent of 
 his mind in a characteristic manner. At Samaden, 
 the luggage had all been placed in the wagon, the occu- 
 pants had taken their seats and were ready to start, 
 when an attendant stepped up to the wagon with an 
 armful of Theodore's clothes, which he had thrown 
 out of his trunk as trifles, to make room for some 
 stones which he had collected. Mrs. Roosevelt ordered 
 the stones to be taken out and the clothes packed in 
 the trunk. After which, Theodore jumped out and 
 put as many of the stones as he could carry into his 
 pockets. Unfortunately it was only a small part of 
 
 [26] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the treasure. Although he went away with an aching 
 heart, he restrained his grief and let no one know how 
 serious a thing the matter was to him. 
 
 After finishing the tour of Switzerland, the children 
 remained some time longer in Dresden, in order to 
 recover from fatigue and to digest the fresli impres- 
 sions which the sight of the Alps had awakened in 
 them. During this time Theodore suffered more than 
 usual and was a constant care to his attendants. But 
 in spite of racking pain, he was always in good humor, 
 and gratefully acknowledged every little act of kind- 
 ness bestowed upon him. If his frank and joyful 
 disposition, his loving heart and bright intellect had 
 not already made him the darling of the Minkwitz 
 family, he surely would have won all by the patience 
 with which he bore his misfortune. Though lie was 
 full of boyish pranks and often disturbed the quiet 
 dignity of the Minkwitz home, he was always a favor- 
 ite with the family. He knew the feeling they had for 
 him and tried in every way to requite his kind friends 
 for the love they gave him. He was studiously careful 
 to do nothing that might distress them. For instance, 
 when his mother visited them in Dresden, Elliott and 
 Corinne remained for dinner with her at the hotel; 
 but Theodore punctually appeared at the house of his 
 foster parents and, out of regard for them, refused the 
 seat at the table d'hote. This delicacy of feeling, 
 which he often manifested as a boy, later became with 
 him second nature. 
 
 [27] 
 
FROM BOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Bad humor and peevishness, which we are accus- 
 tomed to find in sick people, children and adults alike, 
 were foreign to him. He was always full of fancy 
 notions and showed even as a boy, the gift of real 
 American humor, with which Mark Twain has made 
 us familiar. An incident which happened at Dresden 
 may serve as an illustration. Miss Minkwitz had gone 
 with the children to the dentist. Theodore showed his 
 teeth first, which the dentist found in excellent condi- 
 tion. Neither did he discover anything wrong with 
 Elliott's ; but he said that Corinne had a bad milk tooth 
 which should be taken out at once, and asked her if 
 he must do it. She declined, saying that she would 
 pull it herself. After the dentist had advised her to 
 get rid of it right away, Miss Minkwitz asked how 
 much she owed him. " Fifteen dollars," quietly 
 replied the doctor. Thunder-struck at the amount, 
 she paid the bill and started home with the children. 
 
 On the stairs, Theodore whispered: 
 
 " Do you know, Miss Minkwitz, how much the money 
 was worth ? " 
 
 * ' No ! " she replied in disgust. 
 
 ' ' I Tl tell you : it was worth the face you made 
 when you heard how much it was. I should be willing 
 to give twice as much to see you make that face again. ' ' 
 
 After the children had been in Germany about six 
 months, Miss Minkwitz, in October, 1873, took them to 
 England to meet their parents and to say good-bye to 
 them before they sailed for America. The family was 
 
 [28] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 soon again at Sagamore Hill, and life for young 
 Theodore moved once more in its accustomed channel. 
 
 Though the journey to Europe had widened con- 
 siderably the perspective of Theodore and had made 
 a deep and lasting impression on his mind, it had not 
 the matured consequences which his parents had hoped 
 for. Again he took up his studies to prepare himself 
 for the university, and developed more and more into 
 a veritable book-worm. With great zeal he plunged 
 into the study of history. He soon knew the positions 
 of the armies in every important battle that had ever 
 been fought, knew the names of the leaders and the 
 numerical strength of their respective divisions: in 
 short, he was master of all the details of history no 
 less than of the cardinal principles involved. One of 
 his friends recently said that, if all the records of the 
 Peloponnesian War were destroyed, Roosevelt could 
 reproduce the entire campaign from memory. 
 
 Gradually as he read, Ms national pride began to 
 assert itself, when he saw that the deeds of young 
 America measured up well with those of Europe. Just 
 as formerly he had swallowed the tales of Reid and 
 Cooper, he now drank in all the historical records he 
 could lay his hands upon. He read deeply into the 
 lives of the great men of his own country. Washing- 
 ton, Lincoln, Grant, and other men of thought and 
 action had a profound influence in shaping his conduct. 
 They became the standard by which he measured his 
 own work and moulded his ideals. 
 
 [29] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 But again and again he was forced to face the fact 
 that, on account of his physical weakness, he could not 
 hope to render services equally great to his country. 
 He said to himself that he would necessarily have to 
 become strong if he were ever to be a man of their 
 calibre, and he set himself to work for health with 
 obstinate determination. He took up again his wan- 
 derings through the quiet woods, which had formerly 
 given him so much pleasure. When a boy, he had 
 thought chiefly of the singing birds, but now he was 
 attracted by the hunter's prey. With congenial 
 friends he followed for days the trail of fleeing stags 
 or climbed mountain peaks in search of wild sheep and 
 goats. Night after night they slept under the bright 
 stars or in a light tent of sail-cloth. Though it was 
 hard for him at times, he ran long races with his 
 friends, climbed the highest mountain tops to watch 
 the sunrise, bathed in the clear, cold waters of moun- 
 tain brooks and, as opportunity was afforded him, 
 swam and rowed. He learned to use the gun with 
 growing skill. In his " Outdoor Pastimes of an 
 American Hunter, " * he tells of his first experience of 
 the pleasures of the chase : 
 
 " Two or three of us, all boys of fifteen or sixteen, had 
 been enjoying what was practically our first experience in 
 camping out, having gone out with two guides, Hank Martin 
 
 * ' ' Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, ' ' by Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt. Copyright England and America, Charles 
 Scribner's Sons. 
 
 [30] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 and Mose Sawyer, from Paul Smith's on Lake St. Regis. 
 My brother and cousin were fond of fishing and I was not, 
 so I was deputed to try to bring in a deer. I had a double- 
 barreled 12-bore gun, French pinfire, with which I had 
 industriously collected specimens on a trip to Egypt and 
 Palestine and on Long Island ; except for three or four 
 enthralling but not oversuccessful days after woodcock and 
 quail, I had done no game shooting. As to every healthy boy 
 with a taste for out-door life, the Northern forests were to 
 me a veritable land of enchantment. We were encamped by 
 a stream among the tall pines, and I had enjoyed everything ; 
 poling and paddling the boat, tramping through the woods, 
 the cries of chickaree and chipmunk, of jay, woodpecker, 
 chickadee, nuthatch, and cross-bill, which broke the forest's 
 stillness ; and, above all, the great reaches of sombre woodland 
 themselves. The heart-shaped footprints which showed where 
 the deer had come down to drink and feed on the marshy 
 edges of the water made my veins thrill ; and the nights 
 around the flickering camp-fire seemed filled with romance. 
 
 " My first experiment in jacking was a failure. The jack, 
 a bark lantern, was placed upon a stick in the bow of the 
 boat, and I sat in a cramped huddle behind it, while Mose 
 Sawyer plied the paddle with noiseless strength and skill in 
 the stern. I proved unable to respond even to the very 
 small demand made upon me, for when we actually did come 
 upon a deer I failed to see it, until it ran, when I missed 
 it; and on the way back capped my misfortune by shooting 
 a large owl which perched on a log projecting into the water, 
 looking at the lantern with two glaring eyes. 
 
 " All next day I was miserably conscious of the smothered 
 disfavor of my associates, and when night fell was told I 
 would have another chance to redeem myself. This time 
 we started across a carry, the guide carrying the light boat, 
 and launched it in a quiet little pond about a mile off. Dusk 
 was just turning into darkness when we reached the edge of 
 the little lake, which was perhaps a mile long by three-quarters 
 
 [31] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 of a mile across, with indented shores. We did not push off 
 for half an hour or so, until it was entirely dark; and then 
 for a couple of hours we saw no deer. Nevertheless, I 
 thoroughly enjoyed the ghostly, mysterious, absolutely silent 
 night ride over the water. Not the faintest splash betrayed 
 the work of the paddler. The boat glided stealthily alongshore, 
 the glare of the lantern bringing out for one moment every 
 detail of the forest growth on the banks, which the next 
 second vanished into absolute blackness. Several times we saw 
 muskrats swimming across the lane of light cut by the lantern 
 through the darkness, and two or three times their sudden 
 plunging and splashing caused my heart to leap. Once when 
 we crossed the lake we came upon a loon floating buoyantly 
 right out in the middle of it. It stayed there until we were 
 within ten yards, so that I could see the minute outlines of 
 the feathers and every movement of the eye. Then it swam 
 off, but made no cry. At last, while crossing the mouth of 
 a bay we heard a splashing sound among the lilies inshore, 
 which even my untrained ears recognized as different from 
 any of the other noises we had yet heard, and a jarring 
 motion of the paddle showed that the paddler wished me to be 
 on the alert. Without any warning, the course of the boat was 
 suddenly changed, and I was aware that we were moving 
 stern foremost. Then we swung around, and I could soon 
 make out that we were going down the little bay. The 
 forest-covered banks narrowed; then the marsh at the end 
 was lighted up, and on its hither edge, knee-deep among the 
 water-lilies, appeared the figure of a yearling buck still in 
 the red. It stood motionless, gazing at the light with a 
 curiosity wholly unmixed with alarm, and at the shot wheeled 
 and fell at the water 's edge. We made up our mind to return 
 to camp that night, as it was before midnight. I carried the 
 buck and the torch, and the guide the boat, and the mile 
 walk over the dim trail, occasionally pitching forward across 
 a stump or root, was a thing to be remembered. It was my 
 first deer, and I was very glad to get it; but although only 
 
 [3?] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 a boy, I had sense enough to realize that it was not an 
 experience worth repeating." 
 
 At last the result of his determined struggle for 
 health showed itself : his muscles grew firmer, and his 
 power of endurance increased; his whole frame took 
 on a more rigid attitude, and the attacks of his asth- 
 matic troubles became less and less frequent, till 
 gradually they disappeared altogether. But his 
 weakness of eyes remained and forced him to wear 
 spectacles constantly. Though, even as a boy he was 
 not lacking in courage, he was compelled on account of 
 his frail body to receive more blows than he was able 
 to give, but now things were completely changed. It 
 is true that he was and remained an entirely concilia- 
 tory and good-natured comrade; but when he was 
 teased or provoked he no longer waited till his oppo- 
 nent fell upon him, but himself assumed the aggressive 
 without hesitation. He acted upon the theory that he 
 who deals the first blow always has the advantage. 
 Though he may not be as strong as his opponent, his 
 courageous attack, and the fact that he has dealt the 
 first blow, gives him a kind of moral superiority. 
 He has, at least, a chance to win, which seems from the 
 beginning impossible when he confines himself to 
 the defensive toward his stronger enemy. In later life 
 whenever Roosevelt faced difficulties and dangers, he 
 always tried to anticipate his opponents in the attack, 
 and he has often won where, with a less bold method, 
 defeat would have been certain. 
 
 [33] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 If one had tried to foretell what the future had in 
 store for Theodore Roosevelt in the days when he was 
 in school, surely one would not have guessed, unless 
 endowed with the gift of prophecy, that he would be 
 the man to guide the destiny of the United States and 
 to cause the eyes of the whole world to be turned 
 repeatedly toward him. Nevertheless, as has hap- 
 pened with other great men, people come forward who 
 claim to have predicted the success of Theodore 
 Roosevelt. It is reported that, while the Roosevelts 
 were at Dresden, Mrs. Roosevelt expressed some 
 anxiety to Miss Minkwitz as to what would become of 
 her sickly boy; to which Miss Minkwitz replied: " Be 
 not concerned as to that; he will surely be either a 
 great professor, or perhaps even president of the 
 United States." This " prophecy " is about equal to 
 that which a teacher gave to the mother of a boy who 
 had failed to make his grades in school : ' ' Calm your- 
 self, madam ; if he works hard, he can yet make good, 
 and perhaps become a cabinet minister some day." 
 If such an extraordinary case should really occur some 
 day, the teacher, who merely wished to console, might 
 consider himself a prophet with the same right as Miss 
 Minkwitz. Not only was he always ill, but he did not 
 display unusual talent in any line of work. If one had 
 been desirous at all of foretelling his future, the best 
 that one could have said for him would have been that 
 he would likely lead the life of a well-to-do citizen if he 
 would take care of himself and carefully avoid exces- 
 
 [34] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 sive exertions of all kinds. That things have turned 
 out differently was beyond all calculations, and is to 
 be attributed to the will-power of the man, which has 
 enabled him to overcome all obstacles victoriously. 
 
 Another prophecy which was made eleven years 
 later (1884) can be understood easier. Theodore had 
 then won his spurs, although he was only twenty-six 
 years old. He had developed into a strong man and 
 was a member of the New York legislature. When the 
 National Convention met at Chicago, some one 
 expressed surprise at the age of Roosevelt; to whom 
 George William Curtis replied : 
 
 " You '11 know more, sir, later; a deal more, or I am 
 much in error. Young ? Why, he is just out of school 
 almost, yet he is a force to be reckoned with in New 
 York. Later the Nation will be criticising or praising 
 him. While respectful to the gray hairs and experi- 
 ence of his elders, none of them can move him an iota 
 from convictions as to men and measures once formed 
 and rooted. He has integrity, courage, fair scholar- 
 ship, a love for public life, a comfortable amount of 
 money, honorable descent, the good word of the honest. 
 He will not truckle nor cringe, he seems to court oppo- 
 sition to the point of being somewhat pugnacious. His 
 political life will probably be a turbulent one, but he 
 will be a figure, not a figurehead, in future develop- 
 ment — or, if not, it will be because he gives up politics 
 altogether. ' ' 
 
 Roosevelt himself in those earlier times did not 
 
 [35] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 think that he should ever rise as high as he did. It 
 had been his ideal as a boy to become a teacher, of 
 course a teacher of natural history. As he walked 
 through the woods and fields, he studied carefully 
 animal and plant life with the zeal of a young natural- 
 ist ; but, as time went on, the enthusiasm of his youth 
 passed away and his dreams of a career as a scientist 
 gave place to others of a different nature. A few 
 years ago, one of his friends, Julian Ralph, asked him 
 what as a boy he had wished to be. To which Mr. 
 Roosevelt replied: "I do not remember that I 
 dreamed or made plans at all. I simply obeyed the 
 command, ' What your hands find to do, do it with all 
 your strength,' so I took upon myself everything as 
 it came, just as it came. Later on I have stuck to Lin- 
 coln's motto, ' Do the best, or at least the best 
 possible.' " 
 
 Helped by the advice and the example of an experi- 
 enced father, Roosevelt at an early age became con- 
 vinced that nothing is to be gained by dreaming, by 
 the building of air castles. He forced himself to do 
 thoroughly everything that he undertook, though it 
 was hard for him at times. When he worked, he put 
 his whole soul into what he was doing, and when he 
 played, he played with the same energy and deter- 
 mination. In this way, he was always able to accom- 
 plish what he set himself to do. No doubt there were 
 others as intelligent as he, others who could grasp 
 things as quickly or more quickly than he, and others 
 
 [36] 
 
FBOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 stronger and more skilful, but his intrepid courage 
 and the tenacity with which he tried again and again 
 anything at which he had once failed, secured for him 
 recognition as a leader. He exercised body and mind 
 in equal degree, and, when he entered the university 
 at the age of eighteen, he bore the reputation of a 
 thorough, conscientious student, and an able and fear- 
 less boxer and wrestler. 
 
 A little episode, harmless in itself, which occurred 
 during his school years, should not remain unmen- 
 tioned, because it was continued later on. Like many 
 a German Primaner (a student of the German Gym- 
 nasium, a school equal to our high school and college) 
 Theodore Roosevelt had his school-love. The girl was 
 Edith Carow, who attended the same school with him. 
 Her father was a merchant, her mother the daughter 
 of General Tyler of Connecticut. For years the 
 children had studied and played together, and when 
 any other boy tried to tease her, Theodore was always 
 her knight and protector, if we are to accept the testi- 
 mony of his own brother, Elliott. The friendship was 
 temporarily interrupted when Roosevelt went to the 
 university and Miss Carow to another school. But in 
 after years when the storms of life bore heavily on the 
 young man, he found in Edith Carow, his school-love, 
 his companion for life. 
 
 [»] 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AT THE UNTVEKSITY 
 
 THE same year that the centenary of American 
 Independence was celebrated, Theodore Roose- 
 velt, tall and pale, entered Harvard University. He 
 rented rather modest quarters, consisting of a large 
 front room and a small back room in which he slept. 
 On the walls, he hung his gun and hunting outfit. The 
 heads of deer, stuffed birds, and other trophies of the 
 chase betrayed the hunter and lover of nature. Living 
 animals of various descriptions also found a home 
 with him. A large turtle of beautiful species, which a 
 friend had given him, at one time upset the whole 
 household by escaping from her cage and taking 
 refuge, during the night, in the bath-room. 
 
 On account of his open, frank nature, Mr. Roose- 
 velt soon became a favorite with his classmates, 
 though at first he was laughed at for his Puritanic 
 honesty and sincerity. He seemed to his companions 
 too stiff, old-fashioned, and strait-laced. But later 
 when they learned that he was deadly in earnest in all 
 that he said and did, and was never afraid to call a 
 spade a spade, a feeling of respect for the new student 
 took hold of his companions. Though they often 
 
 [38] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 looked upon him as eccentric, they gradually learned 
 to love him and to entrust themselves to his leader- 
 ship. 
 
 He had his own opinion of the social ethics of the 
 university. That certain things had always been 
 done, was for him no proof that they should be done. 
 He did not approach a subject in a thoughtless, acqui- 
 escent way, but took the liberty to think and to 
 examine into it for himself. When a thing seemed 
 good to him, he expressed his satisfaction with it, 
 otherwise he dismissed it from his mind. Once his 
 classmates were beside themselves when he coolly 
 brought his bride into a club where a woman had 
 never been before. He saw no reason why the women 
 should stay away, and his companions, after much 
 discussion, came to the same conclusion. 
 
 He tested, also, in the same manner the teachings 
 of his professors, and often argued with them for 
 hours, for he could not rest contented till they had 
 proved to him that he was in the wrong or they had 
 acknowledged their own mistake. His habit of view- 
 ing everything with a critical eye and of inflexibly 
 sticking to what he believed to be right — which some 
 called stubbornness — did not help in the least to 
 remove from him the stigma of a queer fellow. But 
 he seemed indifferent to the opinions of others. The 
 free life of his boyhood had given him a high measure 
 of self-esteem. He knew that he could depend upon 
 himself and was never afraid to stand alone. He at 
 
 [39] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 times even broke the conventional in dress, and toward 
 the close of his college course wore a short beard — 
 which, by the way, is said to have improved his appear- 
 ance. Quite often his classmates mocked him on 
 account of his enthusiasm, which easily broke out in 
 his study of Elizabethan poetry. Although the Har- 
 vard men of the ordinary type considered him ' ' more 
 or less crazy " by reason of these peculiarities, his 
 thorough and extensive knowledge and his command- 
 ing independence won their admiration. 
 
 The intellectual qualifications which Mr. Roosevelt 
 carried with him to Cambridge were the very best ; a 
 high sense of duty, a keen enjoyment of work, a hearty 
 detestation of inactivity and laziness, and above all, 
 the ability to direct his whole mind to anything that 
 he had in hand and to forget everything else in the 
 performance of the given task, a gift which he still 
 possesses to a remarkable degree. When he read a 
 book, he did not exactly read, but he lived through it. 
 A story is told of him at Harvard which illustrates 
 this. One day he went into a friend's room on a visit. 
 Hardly had they greeted each other when Theodore 
 noticed a book on the table which was new to him. He 
 opened it and began to read. In vain his friend tried 
 to start a conversation in the hope of learning what 
 his strange visitor was after. Roosevelt heard noth- 
 ing more; his thoughts were in the book. Suddenly 
 he arose, looked at his watch and to his chagrin found 
 that he had no more time. He seized his hat, said 
 
 [40 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 good-bye and hastened away. His friend called after 
 him but to no avail. 
 
 His great power of concentration was very helpful 
 to him in the discussion of controverted questions. 
 Under the heat of debate, people get away at times 
 involuntarily from the point at issue, and dispute 
 about things which have nothing to do with the orig- 
 inal proposition and upon which they were in the 
 beginning agreed. Such a course of argument was 
 impossible with Roosevelt. He did not digress, he 
 took no side-leaps, and would not tolerate it in others. 
 Once at a certain meeting, some one made a long- 
 winded report of which he was very proud and which 
 pleased all the others very much, but Mr. Roosevelt 
 arose suddenly and began: "Mr. Chairman: I have 
 listened attentively, but as far as I can see, the things 
 winch Mr. X has talked about have no more to do with 
 the matter in question than the man in the moon. It 
 is — " He did not proceed further, for a tumult arose, 
 and the chairman never learned what ' ' it " was. 
 
 The aims of an American university do not coincide 
 with those of the German university. The German 
 university is satisfied if it crams into the minds of the 
 young men the greatest amount possible of the dry 
 bones of human wisdom ; but the American university 
 is not content till it has entered the inner sanctum of 
 the student's soul, dictated his ideals and moulded 
 his character. The German student feels that he has 
 done his duty to his alma mater when he has regis- 
 
 [41] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 tered regularly, has heard the lectures through the 
 prescribed number of years, and he rests with an easy 
 conscience when he has received his certificate. In 
 other words, no restraint is exercised over him ; he is 
 at liberty to work or not to work, to listen or not to 
 listen while the professor delivers his lecture. He 
 may even read something foreign to the lecture being 
 given or occupy himself in the study of some pet the- 
 ory of his own. When the clock points to the hour 
 for the lecture to close, he goes home and the univer- 
 sity does not care how he spends his time. The aca- 
 demic freedom allowed permits the student to drink 
 as little or as much as he wishes at the fountains of 
 human knowledge. The German university declines 
 to regulate the academic life of the young men, and 
 she does not in the least think of holding herself re- 
 sponsible for the development of their character. A 
 student may stuff himself with all kinds of knowledge, 
 and grow into a man who has not the least under- 
 standing of the world about him; he may be totally 
 incapable of meeting the emergencies of life, and may 
 leave the university without ever having really coined 
 an independent thought. 
 
 Not so in the American university. The university 
 or college does not, as in Germany, serve the profes- 
 sional schools. The university in America is the 
 place where young men and young women go to get a 
 general education. The university education pre- 
 cedes that of the professional schools, such as law, 
 
 [421 
 
FEOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 medicine, engineering, ministry. Even at such a 
 large university as Harvard, which enrolls five thou- 
 sand students and employs five hundred and fifty in- 
 structors, the young people come in much closer contact 
 with each other and with the teachers than with us. 
 Habitual cutting of classes is rare, for every one who 
 wishes to be promoted to a higher class must submit 
 to a thorough examination in all his studies. The 
 course of every class lasts one year, and he who has 
 passed successfully the examination of the fourth class 
 receives the degree Bachelor of Arts. Though the stu- 
 dents may choose freely within the prescribed courses, 
 they are still more confined in their election than their 
 German cousins. 
 
 The American universities are not only the temples 
 of knowledge but they are also the recognized nurs- 
 eries of all kinds of manly sports. They ask of their 
 graduates not only a certain amount of learning, but 
 also physical skill, fearless and pleasant bearing in 
 social intercourse. And since the universities give the 
 opportunity for acquiring these things, we may safely 
 conclude that the American university solves a more 
 complex and comprehensive problem than the univer- 
 sities of Germany. Every Harvard man who wants 
 to make progress must economize his time. One half 
 — surely by far the greater — belongs to serious 
 work, the other to play and social enjoyment, which 
 enables the university to turn out symmetrical men as 
 well as scholars. 
 
 [43] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The class to which Theodore Roosevelt belonged 
 numbered about one hundred and seventy. In class 
 standing he always had a place among the first 
 twenty. History, in the most general sense of the 
 term, was what attracted him, the history of animals 
 as well as of men. He even thought at the time of de- 
 voting himself to natural history ; but gradually in the 
 course of his four years he felt his interest shift some- 
 what. The deeds of men became to him of greater 
 importance as time went on, and absorbed to a 
 degree his interest in natural history. Through the 
 reading of the " Federalist," a book on the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States by Hamilton, Madison, and 
 Jay, and the writings and deeds of Washington and 
 other great statesmen, he was introduced to the politi- 
 cal problems of his country. Though, while in school, 
 he never lost entirely his love for things of natural sci- 
 ence, and even wrote a thesis in his senior year upon a 
 subject of natural history, his boyhood dream of de- 
 voting his life to biological science definitely vanished. 
 " Plutarch's Lives " became his favorite book, a copy 
 of which he carried in his pocket and from which he 
 read at odd moments. No doubt he read and reread 
 the same thing for the thousandth time, but he said 
 himself that he could never learn too much from those 
 great biographies. 
 
 During his school days, he was always faithful to 
 his every duty, however small. His classmates often 
 wondered at his endurance and zeal. That a task was 
 
 [441 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 disagreeable did not deter him in the least from un- 
 dertaking it, and what he undertook he successfully 
 carried through to the finish. He must have been 
 very industrious while at the university, for it was 
 there that he laid the foundation for the broad and com- 
 prehensive knowledge which is his to-day. He speaks, 
 or at least understands, almost all the European lan- 
 guages; the history, past and current, of Europe is 
 familiar to him in detail ; he is conversant with Ameri- 
 can affairs, especially with those of the United States. 
 On natural history he is regarded as an expert, and 
 sometimes as an authority; and the scientific way in 
 which he has written of his hunting trips has given to 
 them uncommon attraction and value. It seems that 
 every book which fell into his hands had such a fasci- 
 nation for him that he got from it without seeming 
 effort everything of real worth. 
 
 Although he worked very hard in order to satisfy 
 his thirst for knowledge, he enjoyed keenly rest and 
 recreation. The idyllic little city of Cambridge is 
 separated from Boston only by the Charles River, 
 which is spanned by numerous bridges, so that the stu- 
 dents of Harvard can easily partake of the social life 
 of the metropolis of New England. Mr. Roosevelt, 
 on account of his enthusiastic, impetuous nature and 
 his good-humored indifference to the prejudices and 
 old-fashioned customs of the quaint old place, was a 
 welcome guest at the distinguished homes of Boston. 
 
 Over his classmates, Mr. Roosevelt exercised a great 
 
 [45] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 influence. On his advice, the jumping of a tight rope 
 was revived, although the sport had been in disuse for 
 years, for he called attention to the fact that by it the 
 thigh muscles were strengthened in a high degree. 
 On the playground, the boys were accustomed to wear 
 red stockings, but Mr. Roosevelt had bought a pair 
 with red and white stripes. When he appeared upon 
 the field in them, there was a general shaking of the 
 head — but he wore the socks just the same. In his 
 opinion, the color of the stockings was of no conse- 
 quence whatever, but the strength and activity of the 
 legs within them was the all-important thing. 
 
 Into all the sports at Cambridge, he entered enthu- 
 siastically. He played polo and rowed; wrestled and 
 boxed ; sailed and hunted ; and almost every afternoon 
 drove in a high-wheeled cart which he had bought for 
 his own use. He was especially fond of boxing, and 
 met all comers small and large. When he was sorely 
 punished by his adversary and when blood flowed 
 freely and when his spectacles were knocked off, he 
 still did not think of quitting. Stubbornly he would 
 keep at it till both contestants were worn out or the 
 match was declared off by those on the side-line. In 
 such contests he was really at disadvantage, for he had 
 to wear large, heavy glasses, which were easily knocked 
 off, to say nothing of the breaking of the glasses and of 
 his possible injury for life. He liked the excitement 
 of the contest and did not once give a passing thought 
 to the danger connected with it. 
 
 [46] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 With a frank and chivalrous spirit, he always took 
 it for granted that every one wished to observe the 
 rules of the game. A story is told to this effect. Soon 
 after Roosevelt entered school, an adversary, with 
 whom he was to try a match, struck him a body blow 
 before the sign had been given to begin the fight, even 
 before Roosevelt got his gloves on. A protest went up 
 from the on-lookers, but Theodore only smiled in his 
 grim way and said, ' ' I believe that you are mistaken ; 
 that is n't the custom with us. " Then he himself gave 
 the sign for the opening of the fight, by bowing and 
 shaking hands with his opponent. In the next moment 
 his right hand crashed upon the chin of his adversary, 
 his left hand followed it up, and in a few minutes the 
 fight was over; and Roosevelt was the undisputed 
 victor. 
 
 In this instance, he beat an adversary who had the 
 reputation of an able boxer; but he was not always 
 so successful. He really did not indulge in the sport 
 for the sport's sake, but he entered it as a means of 
 developing his own strength. He was not considered 
 one of the best fighters of his class, which was the 
 champion of the arena, but all knew that he was an 
 opponent who was not to be despised. He was not 
 averse to strenuous exercise, though he never carried 
 it to the point of exhaustion. In this way, he was able 
 to get all the enjoyment from the sport without any of 
 the attendant evils. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt had many other demands upon his 
 
 [47] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 time while at the university. Americans expect that 
 an educated man shall be able to express himself, if 
 not fluently, at least with intelligence and some degree 
 of power. It is for this reason that a student is sup- 
 posed to spend a great deal more time than is de- 
 manded by us in direct effort to acquire the art of 
 public speaking. The numerous literary and debating 
 societies and clubs offer abundant practice in oral ex- 
 pression. And every student of the university is a 
 member of at least one such organization and fre- 
 quently is connected with a half-dozen. Eoosevelt 
 had his share of these courses of the unwritten curric- 
 ulum and did his part in them conscientiously. Though 
 he was not considered a good speaker, he spoke when- 
 ever the occasion demanded and spoke flat-footed to 
 the point. 
 
 To club life, he owed his first promptings to literary 
 activities. In the last year at Harvard, he was asso- 
 ciate editor of a university paper, The Advocate. 
 The extent of his editorial work cannot be stated with 
 exactness, but the article from which the following 
 sentence is taken is surely from his pen : ' ' What is 
 most necessary is that every one should see the im- 
 portance of doing a definite amount of honest and seri- 
 ous work every evening." 
 
 Since he found time on Sundays, in spite of his va- 
 rious activities, which he could not spend profitably, 
 he tried to get to teach a class of children in a Sunday- 
 school. The Roosevelt family had always belonged 
 
 [48] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 to the Dutch Reformed Church, and Mr. Roosevelt, 
 who had died the year his son went to Cambridge, had 
 seen to it that his children attended church regularly. 
 Sometimes the sermons seemed long and tiresome, but 
 nevertheless they did not dare to act against their 
 father's wishes. 
 
 There was no Dutch Reformed church in Cambridge 
 at the time, but numerous others of various faiths. 
 The most of his friends belonged to the Episcopal 
 Church, and without further ado, Roosevelt set to work 
 as a Sabbath-school teacher. Frankly and seriously 
 he talked with the boys and girls and showed them how 
 a man should live, till an unforeseen event brought 
 his work to a close. 
 
 One day a boy appeared in the class with a black 
 eye. Mr. Roosevelt drew from him the particulars 
 that he had endured a severe thrashing. It appeared 
 that another boy had teased the boy's sister, that he 
 had gone to her rescue in a heroic fashion, but that his 
 opponent was too much for him and he came out of the 
 scrap badly worsted. Mr. Roosevelt praised the boy 
 for his bravery and nobility and gave him a dollar. 
 Though this action seemed to the children to be one 
 of the highest justice, the church officials did not look 
 upon it in that way. They did not believe in praising 
 a boy who had been fighting; they would have pre- 
 ferred to punish him themselves. They were not ex- 
 actly in accord with the healthy Christianity which 
 Roosevelt was teaching, and seized as a pretext to oust 
 
 [49] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 him that he was a member of another church. As 
 Roosevelt was not acquainted with the creed of the 
 church, he frequently had done things that offended 
 those with whom he was laboring. When he was asked 
 if he had any objections to the rules of the church, he 
 very truthfully replied that he was willing to do any- 
 thing that was demanded of him. But the gentlemen 
 could not get over the fact that he was a member of 
 the Dutch Reformed Church, and had praised a boy for 
 fighting ; and, with rather formal expressions of regret 
 on the part of both, Mr. Roosevelt severed his connec- 
 tion with the Sunday-school and church. He went 
 over to a near-by Congregational church and contin- 
 ued his teaching till he left the university. 
 
 The classmates of Mr. Roosevelt held him in high 
 esteem. One has expressed the opinion of all of them 
 as follows : i * He has always been sincere ; never did 
 he try to deceive himself or others, but he made it a 
 rule to speak openly what he thought." They ad- 
 mired and honored him for his sterling worth and 
 his energetic manner of doing things. They remem- 
 ber with pleasure how he jumped from a second-story 
 window in his night-gown in order to care for a horse 
 which had become restless in its stall and had quieted 
 the horse before his companions had reached the scene. 
 They knew that falsehood, cowardice, and low instincts 
 were entirely foreign to his nature, but that he was 
 capable of an enthusiasm which they frequently at- 
 tributed to a lack of self-control. When he accepted 
 
 [50] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the plan of a friend to go to Greenland for the purpose 
 of studying the animals there, or when he, in all seri- 
 ousness, considered making the trip to India to hunt 
 tigers with his brother Elliott, his friends thought him 
 eccentric, although his preparations were made after 
 calm reflection. His brother, who really made the 
 trip, he has termed in his works, " a mighty hunter 
 and truest friend." 
 
 After finishing his studies, Mr. Roosevelt married, 
 Oct. 27, 1880, Alice, the daughter of George Cabot 
 and Caroline Lee of Boston. On his wedding trip, he 
 visited once more Germany and Switzerland, ascended 
 the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn, and was elected a 
 member of the London Alps Club on account of his 
 fearless mountain climbing. But he soon tired of the 
 sport and returned to New York. 
 
 [511 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN THE STREAM OF POLITICS 
 
 WHEN Mr. Roosevelt again set foot on American 
 soil, he seemed more and more to drive toward 
 the port in which so many educated and rich people 
 anchor: the port of comfortable life, devoted to per- 
 sonal inclinations. He travelled, hunted deer and 
 bear whenever an opportunity was given, and came to 
 know pretty thoroughly the " Wild West." Nor did 
 he at all avoid the allurements of the refined, social 
 world. 
 
 But an inner desire drove him constantly to an ac- 
 tive life. While he was still a student at Harvard, he 
 was greatly attracted to James's " Naval History of 
 Great Britain," especially the chapters dealing with 
 the relation of England to the United States. It 
 seemed strange to him at the time that James should 
 have allowed certain errors to creep into his book on 
 the subject of the War of 1812, and that he should not 
 maintain at all times the judicial attitude of an un- 
 biassed historian. The more closely he examined into 
 the history of the times the more convinced he became 
 that America had not received a square deal in 
 James's account, that James was " a bitter and not 
 
 [52] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 over-conscientious author." On the other hand, he 
 found in Cooper's " History of the United States 
 Navy " the same shortcomings, with the exception 
 that Cooper praised the Americans at the expense of 
 the English. As the historical events of that period 
 seemed to him to be worthy of a thorough, impartial 
 investigation, he set himself to the task. During the 
 two years following his graduation, he worked at his 
 " Naval War of 1812 "; the book appeared in 1882, 
 and can be found to-day in the library of every Ameri- 
 can warship. 
 
 After his return from his wedding tour in Europe, 
 Mr. Roosevelt had frequent conversations with his 
 uncle, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, who had accumu- 
 lated quite a little wealth and who had devoted himself 
 entirely to politics. He repeatedly urged Theodore 
 to study law, he urged it as a duty which a young man 
 owes to his country. At last, while they were on a 
 hunting trip, his uncle succeeded in convincing him that 
 he ought to enter the law. He therefore entered a 
 law school and plunged with his old-time zeal into the 
 science of law and politics. 
 
 Though thus far he had followed his uncle's advice, 
 he had not the slightest inclination to make his uncle 's 
 political views his own. Robert Barnwell Roosevelt 
 was an ardent Democrat, and tried to draw his nephew 
 into that camp. Theodore's father and forefathers, 
 as far as he could learn, had been stanch supporters 
 of the Republican party, and he refused point blank to 
 
 [53] 
 
FKOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 cast his fortunes with the Democrats. In the year 
 1881, he took part in his first political meeting. Up to 
 this time he had gone around in an aimless sort of 
 fashion, occupied with his historical writings, general 
 study, and hunting; that night, at that Republican 
 meeting, he found his life work. Many a one would 
 have been disgusted with the unattractiveness of such a 
 party convention ; but Roosevelt saw in the mixed com- 
 pany there assembled, the foundation of free govern- 
 ment, a mighty power, which, if properly directed, 
 could be made productive of much good. For a young- 
 man of Roosevelt's high moral sense and courageous 
 nature, it must have been very fascinating to imagine 
 how, through his own efforts in behalf of the masses, 
 the demagogues could be overthrown and victory 
 brought to the people. Greater and greater became his 
 interest in practical politics as the days went by and he 
 saw more clearly the manifold evils which had crept 
 into the administration of the affairs of state. 
 
 In this connection, it is interesting to recall the sen- 
 timents to which he later gave voice : * 
 
 " We have in this country an equality of rights. It is the 
 plain duty of every man to see that his rights are respected. 
 That weak good-nature which acquiesces in wrong-doing, 
 whether from laziness, timidity, or indifference, is a very 
 unwholesome quality. It should be second nature with every 
 man to insist that he he given full justice. But if there is 
 
 * From " American Ideals," by Theodore Roosevelt. Copy- 
 right G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 
 
 [541 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 an equality of rights, there is an equality of duties. It is 
 proper to demand more from the man with exceptional 
 advantages than from the man without them. A heavy moral 
 obligation rests upon the man of means and upon the man 
 of education to do their full duty by their country. On no 
 class does this obligation rest more heavily than upon the 
 men with a collegiate education, the men who are graduates 
 of our universities. Their education gives them no right to 
 feel the least superiority over any of their fellow-citizens; 
 but it certainly ought to make them feel that they should 
 stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the whole 
 public by doing their duty as Americans in the body politic. 
 This obligation very possibly rests even more heavily upon 
 the men of means; but of this it is not necessary now to 
 speak. The men of mere wealth never can have and never 
 should have the capacity for doing good work that is possessed 
 by the men of exceptional mental training; but that they 
 may become both a laughing-stock and a menace to the 
 community is made unpleasantly apparent by that portion 
 of the New York business and social world which is most in 
 evidence in the newspapers. 
 
 " To the great body of men who have had exceptional 
 advantages in the way of educational facilities we have a 
 right, then, to look for good service to the State. The service 
 may be rendered in many different ways. In a reasonable 
 number of cases, the man may himself rise to high political 
 position. That men actually do so rise is shown by the 
 number of graduates of Harvard, Yale, and our other 
 universities who are now taking a prominent part in public 
 life. These cases must necessarily, however, form but a 
 small part of the whole. The enormous majority of our 
 educated men have to make their own living, and are obliged 
 to take up careers in which they must work heart and soul 
 to succeed. Nevertheless, the man of business and the man 
 of science, the doctor of divinity and the doctor of law, the 
 architect, the engineer, and the writer, all alike owe a 
 
 [55] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDEE TO PRESIDENT 
 
 positive duty to the community, the neglect of which they 
 cannot excuse on any plea of their private affairs. They are 
 bound to follow understandingly the course of public events ; 
 they are bound to try to estimate and form judgment upon 
 public men; and they are bound to act intelligently and 
 effectively in support of the principles which they deem to 
 be right and for the best interests of the country. 
 
 ' ' The most important thing for this class of educated men 
 to realize is that they do not really form a class at all. I have 
 used the word in default of another, but I have merely used 
 it roughly to group together people who have had unusual 
 opportunities of a certain kind. A large number of the 
 people to whom these opportunities are offered fail to take 
 advantage of them, and a very much larger number of those 
 to whom they have not been offered succeed none the less in 
 making them for themselves. An educated man must not go 
 into politics as such ; he must go in simply as an American ; 
 and when he is once in, he will speedily realize that he must 
 work very hard indeed, or he will be upset by some other 
 American, with no education at all, but with much natural 
 capacity. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 " The first great lesson which the college graduate should 
 learn is the lesson of work rather than of criticism. Criticism 
 is necessary and useful ; it is often indispensable ; but it can 
 never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute 
 for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate 
 usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in 
 the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says 
 how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing 
 the stress and the danger. 
 
 • ••*••• 
 
 " Again, there is a certain tendency in college life, a 
 tendency encouraged by some of the very papers referred 
 to, to make educated men shrink from contact with the 
 rough people who do the world's work, and associate only 
 with one another and with those who think as they do. This 
 
 [56] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 is a most dangerous tendency. It is very agreeable to 
 deceive one's self into the belief that one is performing the 
 whole duty of man by sitting at home in ease, doing nothing 
 wrong, and confining one's participation in politics to con- 
 versations and meetings with men who have had the same 
 training and look at things in the same way. It is always 
 a temptation to do this, because those who do nothing else 
 often speak as if in some way they deserved credit for their 
 attitude, and as if they stood above their brethren who plough 
 the rough fields. Moreover, many people whose political 
 work is done more or less after this fashion are very noble, 
 and very sincere in their aims and aspirations, and are 
 striving for what is best and most decent in public life. 
 
 " Nevertheless, this is a snare round which it behooves 
 every young man to walk carefully. Let him beware of 
 associating only with the people of his own caste and of his 
 own little ways of political thought. Let him learn that he 
 must deal with the mass of men ; that he must go out and 
 stand shoulder to shoulder with his friends of every rank, 
 and face to face with his foes of every rank, and must bear 
 himself well in the hurly-burly. He must not be frightened 
 by the many unpleasant features of the contest, and he must 
 not expect to have it all his own way, or to accomplish too 
 much. He will meet with checks and will make many mis- 
 takes; but if he perseveres, he will achieve a measure of 
 success and will do a measure of good such as is never possible 
 to the refined, cultivated, intellectual men who shrink aside 
 from the actual fray." 
 
 Many things worked together to force Mr. Eoosevelt 
 into a political career. Above all he longed for a defi- 
 nite, active employment, for a steady profession which 
 would take up his whole time. He wished at the same 
 time to render some service to his fellow citizens, and 
 he saw in politics an opportunity for doing that. His 
 
 [57] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 young wife and his uncle did all in their power to 
 increase his interest in politics, but it was a personal 
 consideration that finally drove him into action. A 
 short time ago in reply to a question of a friend, he 
 said : " I entered politics because I wished to belong 
 to the governing class, not to the governed. ' ' His mind 
 was already in the proper condition when his friends 
 asked him if he did not want to become a candidate for 
 the legislature from the district of Murray Hill. The 
 suggestion was all that was necessary and the fight was 
 on at once in the Eoosevelt fashion. 
 
 The political institutions of the United States are in 
 many respects similar to those of Germany. Just as 
 Germany has her Eeichstag and her Bundesrat, the 
 United States have a House of Representatives (386 
 members) and a Senate (90 members) which together 
 they call Congress. The Prussian House of Repre- 
 sentatives and House of Lords correspond respectively 
 to the House of Representatives and the Senate of the 
 forty-five States. The representatives of the State 
 legislatures are elected by the people for a term of two 
 years, sometimes for only one. It will be seen that 
 the Senate differs from the Prussian House of Lords in 
 that the members are also chosen by the people. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was, therefore, a candidate for the 
 lower house of the General Assembly of New York. 
 The district was in safe control of the Republican 
 party, the leaders of which, not the voters, decided 
 who should represent the district at Albany, the seat of 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 the State government. They always chose men agree- 
 able to themselves, men who would dance as they whis- 
 tled. A man of the Roosevelt type, a man who had a 
 mind of his own and who did not go to headquarters 
 for his orders as to what he should do, did not suit them 
 at all. Mr. Roosevelt had to fight from the first that 
 powerful combination of office-seekers and easy-berth 
 men who had fattened on the spoils of politics for years 
 and were not inclined to step aside for a young upstart. 
 But Roosevelt was not in the least dismayed by the 
 opposition, but threw himself into the campaign with 
 all the zeal of his fighting nature. 
 
 The people wanted a man who favored clean streets, 
 and Roosevelt promised not only clean streets but clean 
 politics as well. Even " Boss " Hess was compelled 
 to acknowledge that Roosevelt was in the race as a 
 candidate of the Republican party, and undertook the 
 task of introducing him to the voters of the district. 
 
 But this fatherly good-will was not of long duration. 
 In the first saloon which they entered, they were 
 received very cordially by the owner, who believed, and 
 gave expression to his belief, that Mr. Roosevelt would 
 favor low liquor license; but Roosevelt happened to 
 think a high license desirable, and so expressed him- 
 self in no mistakable terms to the owner. "Boss ,T 
 Hess did not understand that way of losing votes ; and, 
 being convinced that Roosevelt would be defeated at 
 the polls, he bade him good-bye and went home. 
 
 It soon became apparent, however, that Hess and his 
 
 [59] 
 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 friends were mistaken. Mr. Roosevelt 's plan met with 
 general approval among the better class of people. 
 His simple and yet enthusiastic speeches impressed 
 men who otherwise cared little for politics, and when 
 the election day came, there was presented in Murray 
 Hill the rare spectacle of millionaires buying the votes 
 of their coachmen and servants, and staid professors 
 distributing ballots. People who had never spoken 
 to each other before suddenly became neighbors and 
 worked jointly for Eoosevelt. And although, contrary 
 to custom, he did not "treat" any one but trusted 
 solely to the justness of his cause, Mr. Roosevelt, a 
 young man of twenty-three years, was elected by a 
 large majority. 
 
 Among the hundred and twenty-eight members of 
 the House of Representatives, Mr. Roosevelt occu- 
 pied from the first an important position. All pro- 
 fessions and callings were represented there, from the 
 lawyer, the merchant, and the farmer, down to the 
 saloon-keeper, the prize-fighter, and the day-laborer. 
 Though politics united them all, there was between 
 Mr. Roosevelt and all these men a vast difference. Al- 
 most every one of them had taken upon himself some 
 kind of obligation in order to secure his election; he 
 had to represent the interests of those who had sent 
 him to the legislature; that is, not the voters but the 
 boss and the little group to which he owed his seat in 
 the General Assembly. If he acted contrary to the 
 orders of these men, who often cared nothing for the 
 
 [60] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 welfare of the State at large nor even for the people 
 of the district, he was at once notified that he had no 
 chance of reelection. If he owed his election to the 
 support of the railroad men, he must see that laws 
 were enacted favorable to the great transportation 
 companies. If he had run on a liquor platform, he 
 must always work for the interests of the breweries, 
 the needs of the State to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 Such trickery in legislation is made easy by the 
 committee system, which is very popular in America. 
 Every bill which comes before the house is sent to a 
 committee after the first reading. If the bill is objec- 
 tionable to any member, he makes a fight against it 
 before the committee, which is not usually very care- 
 ful to consider the merits of a proposed law, as their 
 deliberations are secret. A large majority of the bills 
 introduced die in the committee room, and many of 
 them are introduced merely to satisfy the pledge of 
 some member without any serious intent of making it 
 a law. All laws designed to curb the power of corpora- 
 tions usually go that way. A clique can defeat objec- 
 tionable legislation by a free use of money in the 
 committee. 
 
 A member who has no particular interest in a bill 
 is usually careful not to favor it, especially if any of 
 his colleagues wish to have the motion buried. He 
 rather takes calmly the bribe, which is given him more 
 or less openly, and rests assured of similar support if 
 his own interests are at stake. On the other hand, if 
 
 [61] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 a bill is to pass, it is reported back favorably to the 
 house from the committee, and usually passes without 
 a hitch, as a way has already been prepared for it. 
 And so things go at Washington as well as at Albany, 
 and in every one of the forty-five State legislatures. 
 Everybody, or at least almost everybody, looks after 
 the interest of his own favorites and forgets the wel- 
 fare of the masses of the people. 
 
 But herein lay the difference between Mr. Eoosevelt 
 and the other members of that body at Albany. He 
 belonged to the Republican party, but not to its bosses. 
 He had been elected against the wishes of the czars 
 of Murray Hill ; he owed his seat in the General 
 Assembly of New York to no man nor combination of 
 men. Not only did he go to Albany free from the 
 taint of special interests, but he also showed himself 
 inaccessible to corruption. He was not at all sur- 
 prised at the depravity of the law-makers of the State, 
 for he had learned before that corruption was ram- 
 pant at the State capital ; but he set himself bravely 
 against it and did all in his power to bring about a 
 change. 
 
 Then, as now, he was optimistic. He believed that 
 right and justice must in the end triumph, though they 
 might be suppressed for a time. He was sensible 
 enough, however, not to begin by pillorying the guilty 
 ones and trying to bring them to justice himself, nor 
 (lid he sit still and let things go on as they had done 
 in the past ; but he tried to correct the evils by frankly 
 
 [62 1 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 and honestly advocating such laws as he believed 
 would be beneficial to the entire State. 
 
 He was naturally, therefore, brought into conflict 
 with his colleagues who were working in the old easy 
 way, and before a week had passed, he had won gen- 
 eral recognition. His fellow-members very quickly 
 learned that Theodore Roosevelt did not know special 
 interests and that he could not be made to know them 
 by any form of bribe. It was no longer possible to 
 table a motion in his committee at the dictation of 
 some man higher up, for he defended it with incredible 
 stubbornness and frequently brought the majority of 
 the committee to his side. And bills that had been sent 
 to the committee for decent burial often appeared 
 again in the house full of life and vigor. Though his 
 colleagues often wished him to the devil and sincerely 
 longed for their old freedom to play the game of poli- 
 tics, his bold sense of honor made him feared and 
 respected. "When he flatly declared that the men who 
 take bribes are thieves, many whose consciences 
 pricked them sorely cheered him for fear of a public 
 scandal. 
 
 Nor could laws that served private interests and 
 were detrimental to the commonwealth pass so 
 smoothly in the house as before. Mr. Roosevelt exam- 
 ined carefully every bill that was brought up and he 
 often brought consternation into the hearts of those 
 with special interests by his insistence upon a thor- 
 ough examination of all questions. Although he was 
 
 [63] 
 
FHOM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 not regarded as a strong speaker, he spoke clearly 
 and distinctly and left no doubt in the minds of those 
 present as to what he meant. Since he was always in 
 fighting trim and was ready with a reply to all ques- 
 tions, he was a dreaded opponent, and often succeeded 
 in the house, as in the committee, in defeating pet 
 measures of the men who were working for great cor- 
 porations. One case in particular should be mentioned, 
 as it created a great sensation at the time. A railroad 
 had become so corrupt that the people demanded that 
 something be done. A district attorney and a judge 
 of the supreme court were implicated in the matter. 
 The people were highly incensed, but the members of 
 the legislature were for setting the petition aside ; and 
 had it not been for Mr. Roosevelt the motion would 
 have been buried in accordance with the time-honored 
 custom. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt had studied the question thoroughly. 
 He wondered how bribery could obtain with judicial 
 officials. The unquestionable integrity of judges was 
 to him the pillar of society. He, therefore, asked the 
 older representatives of his party what was to be done 
 about the matter, and to his astonishment they replied 
 that nothing could be done. They were for letting a 
 judge at whom the people pointed the finger of scorn 
 continue his dishonest practices unpunished. 
 
 This was too much for Mr. Roosevelt, and he intro- 
 duced a resolution himself. His colleagues were 
 indignant, but he did not hesitate. They appealed to 
 
 [64] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 him to give up such a foolish thing; they said that he 
 could do no good and that it would all react upon him. 
 He would himself be the one to suffer. It was in this 
 way that men who had grown gray in legislative work, 
 and whom experience should have made wise, met the 
 advances of the young reformer. If we examine the 
 matter closely, we shall doubtless reach the conclusion 
 that these men favored rather than opposed the cor- 
 ruption against which Roosevelt was fighting in the 
 General Assembly of New York. 
 
 But Mr. Eoosevelt had no fears, or at least he 
 showed none. He once said that in a case in which he 
 was doubtful what he should do, he would follow the 
 motto : ' ' Forward ! ' ' He acted accordingly in this 
 instance. A newspaper gave the following account : 
 
 " It was April 6, 1882, that young Roosevelt arose and moved 
 that Judge Westbrook be impeached. As to mere moral courage, 
 this, no doubt, is the greatest deed in Roosevelt's life. He 
 should have expected failure. Even his youth, his idealism, and 
 lack of experience with public affairs could not have blinded 
 him to the inevitable consequences. But he drew his sword and 
 ran to his ruin — alone and at the very beginning of his career, 
 not heeding the warnings of his nearest friends and the simple 
 rules of political sagacity. 
 
 " That speech, the decisive deed in Roosevelt's life, is notable 
 not on account of its splendor of form but on account of the 
 fearless honesty of the sentiments expressed. Regardless of their 
 millions, he called thieves thieves. In scathing terms, he 
 arraigned the judge and the district attorney for their part in 
 the nefarious transaction. With righteous indignation, he told 
 the whole truth as his unwilling eyes saw it. And when he had 
 
 [65] 
 
FBOM ROUGH RIDEE TO PRESIDENT 
 
 finished, the leader of the Republican party, whose hair had 
 grown gray with experience, rose and moved that the motion 
 be laid on the table. He added thai he wished to give young 
 Roosevelt time to reflect upon the wisdom of his action. 'I 
 have seen,' said he, 'many honorable gentlemen go down on 
 account of irresponsible accusations brought forth in the legisla- 
 ture/ The house at once gave Mr. Roosevelt time for reflection 
 by promptly voting down his motion. Mockery, laughter, noisy 
 cheerfulness — apparently everything — were over except the 
 consequences to the haughty youth who had dared to condemn in 
 public a great railroad company. 
 
 " It was a most discouraging defeat. Almost all of the mem- 
 bers who voted with him were Democrats; perhaps half of his 
 supporters were with him only because their votes were not 
 needed against him. In the evening he was again told to be 
 reasonable, 'to consider his future, to stop hurting his party/ 
 He bit his lips and defied the leaders of the party. 
 
 " On the following day, he raised again his insignificant voice 
 against the smiling, insolent corruption. Day after day he 
 remained in the hall and interviewed representatives of the press. 
 Here and there a newspaper stood up for him, and soon represen- 
 tatives from all parts of the State began to receive letters from 
 their constituents. Within a week Roosevelt's name was known 
 from Buffalo to Montauk Point, and everywhere the people, ap- 
 plauded him. On the eighth day, a vote was once more taken 
 upon his motion to prefer charges; and as the representatives 
 saw the eyes of the whole State turned upon them, they did not 
 dare to defend longer a judge who was afraid to demand an 
 investigation. The opposition broke down ; Roosevelt won by a 
 vote of 104 to 6." 
 
 Though in certain respects the good results were not 
 proportionate to the efforts put forth, yet Eoosevelt 
 achieved a great moral victory. If the men did escape 
 punishment on account of the committee's white- 
 
 [661 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 washing the matter, he had at least aroused public 
 indignation against open corruption and had com- 
 pelled his colleagues to recognize the existence of evil. 
 That he did not increase his own popularity with his 
 colleagues and with the great corporations is evident. 
 They feared him because they saw that he would use 
 all the power of his resourceful nature to bring about 
 what he considered right and for the interest of the 
 State. 
 
 It was hinted in political headquarters that he could 
 not be reelected on account of the stand he had taken, 
 but again the wise-acres were mistaken. Mr. Roose- 
 velt had turned the eyes of his constituents upon him- 
 self, and they heartily approved his course. He was 
 reelected in 1882 and again in 1883. He was received 
 at Albany with open arms by his colleagues, because 
 he had become a man with a name, but they had to sub- 
 mit to being watched closely by their junior associate. 
 
 Be it said, however, to the credit of the assembly 
 that not all the representatives were corrupt. Quite 
 a number of them were men of honor, but they lacked 
 the courage to stand for what they knew to be right in 
 the face of the taunts and laughter of the crowd. The 
 more clearly they saw that Mr. Roosevelt fought for 
 the welfare of the country without any thought of 
 himself the more firmly they stood by him, for they 
 were not long in perceiving that he was a leader who 
 could be trusted. 
 
 By the help of these men, Mr. Roosevelt succeeded 
 
 [67] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 in forcing through the legislature several laws which 
 meant progress in morality and efficiency in govern- 
 mental affairs. One in particular is worthy of notice 
 here. It provided that henceforth official positions 
 should not be given out as rewards for political serv- 
 ices but should be conferred according to merit with- 
 out regard to party affiliation. Another law ordered 
 an inquiry into existing offices to ascertain whether 
 there were more offices than the needs of the State 
 demanded; and it was found that millions of dollars 
 were being paid out to men who were rendering no 
 service for it at all. Still another law proposed by 
 him took from the aldermen all executive power and 
 placed it in the hands of the mayor. This law proved 
 of momentous importance to Mr. Eoosevelt himself 
 later. 
 
 The fierceness of the fight which Mr. Eoosevelt made 
 in the legislature can best be understood by calling to 
 mind the character of the representatives. The mem- 
 bers from the country districts were generally honest 
 but uneducated, and frequently played into the hands 
 of their worst enemy. Those from the cities were 
 more intelligent but also more corrupt; their moral 
 standard was low, their ideals purely mercenary. To 
 them Mr. Eoosevelt was a fool. They could not under- 
 stand why he did not fill his pockets as they were 
 doing and let things move on in the old easy way. But 
 if he would have his " foolish notions," they deter- 
 mined that he should not interfere with their business. 
 
 [68] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 As they could not oppose Mm openly, they finally 
 resorted to the cowardly method of rakes. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt has the happy faculty of being able 
 to separate the politician from the private man in his 
 own person. Even if he had fought a man all day on 
 the floor of the house, he could meet him in the even- 
 ing with a smile and a jesting remark. He often took 
 part, although he was not a drinker, at social func- 
 tions of his colleagues. One evening, after a particu- 
 larly hard day against corruption, he was in the circle 
 of his co-laborers. At ten o'clock, he arose to go 
 home. At the door he was met, as if on purpose, by 
 some young fellows who had had too much of the good 
 things of the hour, and among them was a well-known 
 rowdy named Collins. As Roosevelt went out, he re- 
 ceived a violent shove ; and he perceived at once that 
 he was waylaid. 
 
 The next moment Collins stepped up to him and 
 demanded in the most impudent manner, " Why do 
 you push me ? ' ' He was on the point of striking Mr. 
 Roosevelt, but unfortunately his accomplices had for- 
 gotten to tell him that Roosevelt was a skilled boxer at 
 the university and was at home in a fist fight. Roose- 
 velt took a position so that he had his opponent and 
 his colleagues of the legislature in front of him, and 
 made ready for the combat. In a half minute Collins 
 was beaten, and the fellows who came to his assistance 
 were picking themselves up from the floor, wondering 
 if they had not tackled the wrong man. He then 
 
 [69] 
 
FBOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PRESIDENT 
 
 turned laughingly to the members of the legislature 
 and told them that he well understood the part they 
 had in the affair and thanked them for affording him 
 so much pleasure. The self-restraint shown by Mr. 
 Eoosevelt at this time won him additional friends. 
 
 Though the constant opposition and endless dis- 
 appointment in the legislature was enough to em- 
 bitter almost any one, Mr. Roosevelt was proof against 
 it all, and maintained his old-time buoyant spirit. Just 
 as the attorney rejoices when he succeeds in disen- 
 tangling the web of crime and intrigue, so Mr. Roose- 
 velt delighted to tear to pieces the nets of human 
 malice and sin. 
 
 At one time when a thoroughly sensible bill came 
 before the committee to which Mr. Roosevelt belonged, 
 the majority of the members were for holding up the 
 measure until they were paid to let it pass. Mr. 
 Roosevelt favored the motion and insisted that not 
 a penny should be paid for its passage. It appeared 
 that three of the members were under the influence of 
 other statesmen as unprincipled as themselves; one 
 was the tool of a politician in a far-away city; and 
 the fifth was a Democrat who had sold himself to a 
 Republican official, and the sixth worked for the presi- 
 dent of a street car company. Roosevelt communicated 
 with the official and the president of the street car 
 company ; and in a very few days, two of the members 
 of the committee had a sudden and a radical change of 
 views on the subject of the bill under consideration. 
 
 [70 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Many of the representatives were men of limited 
 education, and they would frequently talk the silliest 
 twaddle with the most serious air. Some of their mis- 
 takes are really amusing. A story is told to this effect : 
 A representative from the back country heard the 
 word shibboleth used but did not know its meaning. 
 He took it to be the more polite form of shillalah, 
 which is well known to all. In a speech upon the floor 
 of the house, he very calmly used the word as follows : 
 ' ' The mistake of the young man lies in his using the 
 word 'parsimony as a shibboleth with which to beat 
 the laboring men. " 
 
 In 1882 serious differences arose in the ranks of the 
 Democratic party and a break in the party seemed 
 imminent. After a long and fruitless attempt to re- 
 store peace, one wing of the party sent to the other a 
 proposition, which bore the ominous title Ultimatum. 
 The word looked like Latin ; it was extraordinary and 
 therefore suspicious and apparently contained an of- 
 fence. Now the men to whom the document was 
 addressed knew very little English and less Latin. 
 One of the men, however, had picked up somewhere 
 the words, Ipse dixit. That sounded perfectly splendid, 
 and the reply that went back bore the strange title, 
 An Ipse dixit to your Ultimatum. 
 
 The back-woods people, as well as the less educated 
 inhabitants outside of the large cities, are in the habit 
 of calling everything that is not American Dutch. 
 One of the representatives favored a tax upon works 
 
 [71] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 of art, and expressed his regrets that American art 
 was considered inferior to Dutch paintings from Italy. 
 The boldness of his geographical knowledge astounded 
 everybody. 
 
 Among the representatives with flexible consciences 
 certain forms of expression had grown up. All meas- 
 ures in which they were interested were called ' ' vital 
 bills "; those, however, that did not bring them any 
 money were designated as " local bills." Once Mr. 
 Eoosevelt came into the hall just as a vote was being 
 taken. He asked his neighbor on the right what bill 
 was before the house. ' ' Oh, it is only a local bill — an 
 amendment to the constitution." 
 
 The chairman of the committee on which Mr. Roose- 
 velt served was a conceited, good-natured colonel 
 somewhat addicted to drink. Mr. Roosevelt has de- 
 scribed in his own dramatic style many amusing char- 
 acteristics of the man. In that committee, which 
 consisted almost exclusively of disagreeable men, a 
 bill was once under discussion, which provided that 
 laborers on public bridges should receive three dol- 
 lars per day. The workingmen were naturally inter- 
 ested in the bill and asked to appear before the 
 committee, and their request was granted. 
 
 On the day appointed for the hearing, the colonel 
 appeared in a condition of such terrible dignity that 
 it was clear to those who knew him that he had been 
 engaged in a drinking bout till a late hour. He seated 
 himself at the upper end of the table, facing the mem- 
 
 [7.2] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 bers of the delegation, who would have done honor to 
 the rogues' gallery. The first speaker was a profes- 
 sional politician, a shrewd fellow with black mustache. 
 He had never done any work in his life; but he was 
 blessed with a superabundance of self-confidence, and 
 began with an ingratiating smile : 
 
 " Humble as I am " 
 
 But he got no further, for he was startled out of his 
 composure by the violent raps of the chairman. 
 
 Chairman (with great dignity) : " What did you 
 say that you are, sir ? " 
 
 Politician (quite dumfounded) : "I — I said I am 
 humble, sir." 
 
 Chairman (reproachfully) : " Are you an American 
 citizen?" 
 
 Politician: " Yes ! " 
 
 Chairman (impressively) : " Then you are equal to 
 every man in this State. Then you are equal to every 
 man on this committee. Don't let me hear you again 
 call yourself humble. Continue." 
 
 Thus warned, the man took up his story once more, 
 and got along pretty well till he let these words slip 
 out : ' ' But the poor fellow has no friends, ' ' which 
 again raised the colonel's ire. In rage he fixed his 
 eyes upon the offender and asked slowly : l ' What did 
 you say just now, sir 1 " 
 
 Politician (in despair) : " I said that the poor fellow 
 has no friends." 
 
 Chairman : ' ' You lie, sir. I am a friend of the man, 
 
 [73] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 and so are my colleagues. Speak the truth, sir. [Sud- 
 denly changing from the exhorting to the commanding 
 tone.] Sit down quickly or get out." 
 
 The next man called was a big fellow of different 
 type. He tried to answer questions put to him in a 
 natural tone, but when he spoke of the injustices un- 
 der which the laboring men were placed, he roared 
 like a bull. The colonel moved restlessly in his chair, 
 and darted angry glances at the speaker. The first 
 part of his story, however, had a rather soothing effect 
 and the colonel fell asleep. But as the man warmed 
 to his subject, he spoke quite vehemently. The colonel 
 awoke with a start, looked around him, saw the speaker 
 and remembered that he had seen him before, but evi- 
 dently forgot that he had been asleep and, therefore, 
 thought that he had seen the man on a previous day. 
 
 1 'I have seen you before," he thundered. 
 
 "You have not," the man replied. 
 
 " Don't tell me a lie," snapped the colonel. " You 
 have spoken to this committee on another day." 
 
 " I did not — " began the man. 
 
 But the colonel interrupted him. " Sit down, sir ! 
 The dignity of the chair must be upheld. No one shall 
 speak twice to this committee. The meeting is 
 adjourned." With this he left the room with a majes- 
 tic step, while the other members of the committee 
 and the delegation of working men looked at each 
 other dumfounded. 
 
 The men among whom Mr. Eoosevelt gained his first 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 knowledge of political life and with whom he worked 
 for three years were on the whole genial. His experi- 
 ence in the legislature was of great value to him. He 
 became acquainted with men in public life and learned 
 by what motives the great mass of them are actuated. 
 He also gained a higher respect for his own ability, 
 and won himself a name by his resolute, energetic 
 fight for the people against organized corruption. 
 Even at that time, the people of New York considered 
 him a man to whom the words of Lord Beaconsfield 
 might be applied: " He had letters for posterity in his 
 pockets. " 
 
 A proof of the confidence which the citizens of New 
 York had in the young Roosevelt of twenty-six years 
 is found in the fact that he was sent, without instruc- 
 tions, to the Republican National Convention at Chi- 
 cago in 1884. A candidate for the presidency was to 
 be nominated. James G. Blaine seemed to have the 
 best chances of being the choice of the party ; but there 
 was among the people a strong sentiment against him, 
 for it was understood that he was opposed to certain 
 reforms which the people were crying for. The 
 " spoils system " had produced so much corruption 
 in politics that there was a demand for the merit sys- 
 tem. It was the wish of many people that the man 
 to be selected as standard-bearer of the Republi- 
 can party should declare himself in favor of civil 
 service reform. Mr. Roosevelt advocated such a 
 course with great fervor. But if he did not vote for 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the choice of the majority of his party, he might be 
 regarded as unfaithful to the principles for which the 
 Republican party stood. Long before, he had said, 
 " I do not count attachment to the party among the 
 ten commandments." He, therefore, sought among 
 the Republican statesmen one whose views on the 
 spoils system were in harmony with his own, and pro- 
 posed the name of Senator Edmunds. Blaine, how- 
 ever, was nominated. 
 
 But fate plays strange tricks. The Democrats nom- 
 inated Grover Cleveland of New York, a friend of Mr. 
 Roosevelt and an advocate of the merit system, who 
 was elected at the polls in November. 
 
 The year 1884 was a sorrowful one for Mr. Roose- 
 velt. While the various political fights, in which he 
 was very active, were still raging, his young wife died, 
 and he was left alone with a baby girl, Alice. The 
 same week death claimed his mother. The blow fell 
 heavily upon his already weakened health. He gave 
 up further political activity, and retired to private 
 life. He longed to get away from the places that were 
 so full of memories of happier days. His old-time 
 passion for nature returned to him. He wished to be 
 alone with nature and nature's God. He tried to find 
 peace in changed occupation. He bought a farm, Elk- 
 horn and Chimney Butte, near the border village of 
 Medora, North Dakota, on the Little Missouri. It was 
 his intention to engage in breeding cattle in a region 
 where the foot of man had seldom trod. 
 
 [76 1 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN THE WILD WEST 
 
 THE reason why Mr. Roosevelt became a breeder 
 of cattle upon the Western prairies was not, as 
 has often been said, to better his financial condition. 
 It is quite certain that he did very little business and 
 even lost money in what he did do. He became a 
 ranchman for no other reason than to recover from 
 the shock occasioned by the deaths of his wife and 
 mother. Incidental to that was a longing for adven- 
 ture, which he had inherited from his father, and a 
 desire to know at first hand the Far West. Though he 
 built, in the style of the frontier, a log house on the 
 Little Missouri, he did not sever his connection with 
 the busy world in which he had formerly lived. He 
 had a small but well-selected library, and the postman 
 from Medora brought him every two weeks letters, 
 newspapers, and books. Often he received as visitors 
 people with whom he had been associated in New 
 York. He was thus able to keep in close touch with 
 what was going on in the country, and especially in 
 his native State and city. As he could not read all the 
 time, he felt the need of some occupation that would 
 demand his entire attention. In those wild regions, 
 far from railroads and other accompaniments of civili- 
 
 [77] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 zation, there are few callings to select from, and, from 
 necessity, Mr. Roosevelt turned to the raising of 
 cattle. 
 
 Cattle breeding in those days was a simple process. 
 The pasture was the wild prairies which the ranchmen 
 held in common. They knew their cattle by the brand 
 which they burned into the yearling calves. The cat- 
 tle were practically without restraint and went where 
 they would in search of food. Summer and Winter 
 they fought against hunger, beasts of prey, and the 
 rigor of the Western blizzard. The supervision of 
 the herds was in the hands of the cowboys, who cared 
 for them in the rough manner of the plains. If an ani- 
 mal fell into a morass, they dragged him out by the 
 horns by means of a lasso tied to the saddle. They 
 killed or chased away, when they found them, the bears 
 and cougars that looked to the herds for a food supply. 
 The busy seasons for the cowboys were in the Spring 
 and the Fall when the general round-ups took place. 
 All the cattle were driven in at that time in the Spring 
 for the purpose of counting and branding and in the 
 Autumn to select those that were ready for the mar- 
 ket. The round-ups lasted for weeks and were trying 
 on men and horses. Mr. Roosevelt thoroughly enjoyed 
 the excitement and hard work of the period, and rode 
 side by side as a friend and equal with the native 
 rangers. In his ' ' The Wilderness Hunter, ' ' * Mr. 
 
 * ' ' The Wilderness Hunter, ' ' by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 
 
 [78] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Roosevelt presents the following description of the 
 round-up : 
 
 " Before noon the circle riders began to appear on the plain, 
 coming out of the ravines, and scrambling down the steep hills, 
 singly or in twos and threes. They herded before them bunches 
 of cattle of varying size ; these were driven together and left in 
 charge of a couple of cow-punchers. The other men rode to the 
 wagon to get a hasty dinner — lithe, sinewy fellows with weather- 
 roughened faces and fearless eyes; their broad felt hats flapped 
 as they galloped, and their spurs and bridle chains jingled. 
 They rode well, with long stirrups, sitting straight in the deep 
 stock saddles, and their wiry ponies showed no signs of fatigue 
 from the long morning's ride. 
 
 "The horse-wrangler soon drove the saddle band to the wa- 
 gons, where it was caught in a quickly improvised rope-corral. 
 The men roped fresh horses, fitted for the cutting work round 
 the herd, with its attendant furious galloping and flash-like 
 turning and twisting. In a few minutes all were in the saddle 
 again and riding towards the cattle. 
 
 " Then began that scene of excitement and turmoil, and seem- 
 ing confusion, but real method and orderliness, so familiar to all 
 who have engaged in stock-growing on the great plains. The 
 riders gathered in a wide ring round the herd of uneasy cattle, 
 and a couple of men rode into their midst to cut out the beef 
 steers and the cows that were followed by unbranded calves. 
 As soon as the animal was picked out, the cowboys began to drive 
 it slowly towards the outside of the herd, and when it was near 
 the edge, he suddenly raced it into the open. The beast would 
 then start at full speed and try to double back among its fellows, 
 while the trained cow-pony followed like a shadow, heading it 
 off at every turn. The riders round that part of the herd opened 
 out and the chosen animal was speedily hurried off to some spot 
 a few hundred yards distant, where it was left under charge of 
 another cowboy. The latter at first had his hands full in pre- 
 venting his charge from rejoining the herd, for cattle dread 
 
 [79] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 nothing so much as being separated from their comrades. How- 
 ever, as soon as two or three others were driven out, enough to 
 form a little bunch, it became a much easier matter to hold the 
 ' cut' as it is called. The cows and calves were put in one 
 place, the beeves in another; the latter were afterwards run into 
 the day-herd. 
 
 " Meanwhile from time to time some clean-limbed young 
 steer or heifer, able to run like an antelope and double like a 
 jack-rabbit, tried to break out of the herd that was being worked, 
 when the nearest cowboy hurried in pursuit at top speed and 
 brought it back after a headlong, break-neck race, in which no 
 heed was paid to brush, fallen timber, prairie-dog holes or cut 
 banks. The dust rose in little whirling clouds, and through it 
 dashed bolting cattle and galloping cowboys hither and thither, 
 while the air was filled with the shouts and laughter of men and 
 the bellowing of the herd. 
 
 " As soon as the herd was worked, it was turned loose, while 
 the cows and calves were driven over to a large corral where the 
 branding was done. A fire was speedily kindled, and in it were 
 laid the branding irons of the different outfits represented on the 
 round-up. Then two of the best ropers rode into the corral 
 and began to rope the calves, round the hind leg by preference, 
 but sometimes round the head. The other men dismounted to 
 'wrestle' and to brand them. Once roped, the calf, bawling 
 and struggling, was swiftly dragged near the fire, where one or 
 two of the calf-wrestlers grappled with and threw the kicking, 
 plunging little beast, and held it while it was branded. If the 
 calf was large, the wrestlers had hard work; and one or two 
 young maverick bulls — that is, unbranded yearling bulls, whi^h 
 had been passed by in the round-ups of the preceding year — 
 fought viciously, bellowing and charging, and driving some of 
 the men up the sides of the corral, to the boisterous delight of 
 the others." 
 
 The cowboys, with whom Roosevelt was thrown con- 
 tinually, are a peculiar type of men. They belong, one 
 
 [80] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 might say, to the past, for with the growing popula- 
 tion of the West and the breaking up of the land into 
 small farms, the cowboys disappear. The immense 
 ranges of the seventies and eighties shrink more and 
 more each year, and the conditions that made the 
 cowboys are rapidly passing away. They were bold, 
 fearless, almost wild fellows, whose home was in the 
 saddle. Their horses and their revolvers were their 
 constant companions. For weeks or even months, from 
 morning till night, they rode over wild, uninhabited 
 stretches of country. There was no talk of an eight- 
 hour work-day with them. They were glad if they 
 could get their feet upon the ground after sixteen 
 hours of riding that would have taxed the strength of 
 a knight of old. 
 
 As they had to deal with animals, they easily became 
 rough and coarse in thought and speech. The jokes 
 and the games with which they broke the tedium of 
 the evening hour were of the crudest type. They were 
 without refinement that comes from contact with 
 women of high moral standards. They lived among 
 men, strong, healthy men who knew not the name of 
 fear and who looked upon a coward with contempt as 
 the legitimate butt of all their jokes. When weary 
 from the strain of long days of toil, they occasionally 
 took a holiday, on which they went to the nearest town 
 and indulged in drinking and other forms of intem- 
 perance. It was seldom that they returned home till 
 the last penny was speni. Under the power of liquor, 
 
 [81] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 their better nature was suppressed ; they became quar- 
 relsome, and on the plains quarrels usually ended in a 
 fight in which revolvers played a leading part. A 
 favorite sport when they " were taking in a town " 
 was to single out some man and make him dance by 
 shooting at his feet; and, of course, when they tried 
 the trick on a man who was not given to dancing in 
 that way trouble ensued. If things had not been excit- 
 ing enough for them in town, they frequently aroused 
 the countryside by shooting into the houses as they 
 passed on their way home. 
 
 That they were committing crimes never once dis- 
 turbed their minds. When they thought of the law at 
 all, it was of an inconvenient thing made to be broken. 
 They rather gloried in being called " tough " and 
 delighted in running counter to the conventionalities of 
 civilized life. They wished to be as free as their own 
 broad prairies and chafed even under the mild restraint 
 that a frontier town would put upon them. They were 
 not at all conscience-smitten when they killed an 
 adversary in a fight. They considered that he had 
 played the game and lost, and that was all there was to 
 it. When one of their number became a member of a 
 robber gang, they were not surprised, but set about to 
 capture him with all the zeal with which they under- 
 took any other exciting task, though they well knew 
 that some one would be killed in the attempt. They 
 toyed with death daily till they lost all fear of it. 
 
 But even these rough cowboys of the plains had a 
 
 [82] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 certain code of morals, which it was death to violate. 
 They never forgave, for instance, the treachery of a 
 friend nor the cowardly act of any one. They scorned 
 to take advantage of any man, and he who was guilty 
 of such a thing was hunted to death with the same dire 
 vengeance which never failed to pursue the horse- 
 thief. The cowboys had in their veins something of 
 the blood of the old Northmen, and in many respects 
 are like the backwoodsmen who opened the great West 
 to civilization. Death was always skulking near them 
 ready to pounce upon them at any moment. He was in 
 the driving snows of Winter through which they had 
 to push their way, in the turbulent rivers which they 
 had to cross, on the fierce broncos and fiercer bulls with 
 which they had to deal. The woods through which 
 they had to pass were the ancient home of the grizzly 
 bear, which resented the encroachments of man upon 
 his estate. The Indians were not always friendly, and 
 on account of tempests and treacherous streams, sav- 
 age beast and still more savage men, the cowboys car- 
 ried their lives in their hands. The stern environment 
 in which they were placed taught them the heroic vir- 
 tue of self-reliance in a high degree. They felt them- 
 selves masters of their destiny, and they were. 
 
 Such rough, yet strong and true companions were 
 naturally attractive to Mr. Roosevelt. He knew fear 
 no more than they and entered with zest into their 
 bold, hazardous adventures, of which neck-breaking 
 riding formed no small part. For that reason, they 
 
 [83 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 treated him with the rude, though genuine, courtesy 
 of the plains. He shared with them as far as possible 
 their joys and their sorrows, and many among them 
 became his true friends. They felt honored when he 
 appeared at their dinners, opened the cowball at 
 Medora and danced with their wives. 
 
 Only once during the years which he spent in the 
 "West was he shot at with malicious intent, and then 
 not by a cowboy but by a scoundrel of the lowest caste. 
 While on an excursion, Mr. Eoosevelt had to stay 
 over night at a hotel, the first floor of which was given 
 over entirely to a bar-room; and every one, whether 
 drunk or sober, had to sit in that room. Mr. Roosevelt 
 sat down in a corner and read a newspaper. After a 
 while, a fellow approached him with two revolvers in 
 his hands and demanded that Eoosevelt treat the 
 crowd. He had already frightened the other guests 
 by his threats, and did not like the indifference with 
 which the man with spectacles, or " specs," as he said, 
 regarded what went on around him. In order to make 
 his demand more impressive, he let his revolver talk. 
 Eoosevelt pretended to yield to the inevitable and 
 arose; but the next moment he hurled the fellow 
 against the wall, and the next, to the floor, while both 
 revolvers were discharged harmlessly into the air. 
 When the fellow came to himself again, he saw the man 
 with the " four eyes " kneeling over him. Eoosevelt 
 punched him in the face till he pleaded for mercy and 
 gave up his weapons. The onlookers, sheep breeders 
 
 [84] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 in the main and farmers, glad to be rid of such a fel- 
 low, nodded approvingly and said, " It serves him 
 right." And Roosevelt went to bed without further 
 trouble. 
 
 After that incident was noised abroad, as it soon 
 was, no one felt like needlessly provoking him to a 
 quarrel. The hard, rough life to which he was con- 
 tinually exposed had made him, frail from intellectual 
 work, into a healthy, broad-shouldered man, capable 
 of holding his own with the best of them. The Wild 
 West gave to the semi-invalid the strength and robust- 
 ness which the president possesses to-day. 
 
 The extensive woods and broad prairies offered 
 further and splendid opportunity to Mr. Roosevelt to 
 indulge in the favorite sport of his younger years. 
 He hunted deer of many varieties, among them the 
 prongbuck, that like the African antelope dots the 
 prairies; and the moose, similar to the elk of the old 
 German woods. For days he climbed the steep cliffs 
 and crossed dizzy abysses on the trail of mountain 
 sheep and white goat; he fought many a hard battle 
 with the black bear and with his far more dangerous 
 brother, the grizzly ; unexpectedly he fell upon the cou- 
 gar, that secret robber that knows how to escape the 
 eyes of the hunter so that one sees him only by chance. 
 Often he strolled through the deep, dark woods with- 
 out companion and did not return to his farm for 
 days; he feared no danger, heeded no hardship, and 
 rested not till he had killed the game that he sought. 
 
 [85] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 How narrow his escapes at times, his description of 
 hunting the grizzly will show : * 
 
 " However, I got enmeshed in the tangle of winding valleys 
 at the foot of the steep mountains, and as dusk was coming on, I 
 halted and camped in a little open spot by the side of a small, 
 noisy brook with crystal water. The place was carpeted with 
 soft, wet, green moss, dotted red with the kinnikinnic berries, 
 and at its edge, under the trees where the ground was dry, I 
 threw down the buffalo bed on a mat of sweet-smelling pine 
 needles. Making camp took but a moment. I opened the 
 pack, tossed the bedding on a smooth spot, knee-haltered the 
 little mare, dragged up a few dry logs, and then strolled off, 
 rifle on shoulder, through the frosty gloaming to see if I 
 could pick up a grouse for supper. 
 
 ' ' For a half mile I walked quickly and silently over the pine 
 needles, across a succession of slight ridges separated by narrow, 
 shallow valleys. The forest here was composed of lodge-pole 
 pines, which on the ridges grew close together, with tall slender 
 trunks, while in the valley the growth was more open. Though 
 the sun was behind the mountain, there was yet plenty of light 
 by which to shoot, but it was fading rapidly. 
 
 ' ' At last, as I was thinking of turning towards camp, I stole 
 up to the crest of one of the ridges, and looked over into the 
 valley some sixty yards off. Immediately I caught the loom of 
 some large, dark object ; and another glance showed me a big 
 grizzly walking slowly off with his head down. He was quarter- 
 ing to me and I fired into his flank, the bullet as I afterwards 
 found ranging forward and piercing one lung. At the shot he 
 uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy 
 gallop, while I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off. 
 After going a few hundred feet, he reached a laurel thicket 
 some thirty yards broad, and two or three times as long, which 
 
 * From ' ' The Wilderness Hunter, ' ' by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright G. P. Putnam 's Sons, New York and London. 
 
 [86] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 he did not leave. I ran up to the edge and there halted, not 
 liking to venture into the mass of twisted, close-growing stems 
 and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, I heard him utter a 
 peculiar, savage kind of whine from the heart of the brush. 
 Accordingly, I began to skirt the edge, standing on tiptoe and 
 gazing earnestly to see if I could not catch a glimpse of his 
 hide. When I was at the narrowest part of the thicket, he 
 suddenly left it directly opposite, and then wheeled and stood 
 broadside to me on the hillside, a little above. He turned his 
 head stiffly towards me ; scarlet strings of froth hung from his 
 lips ; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom. 
 
 " I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet 
 shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a big 
 nick. Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh roar of 
 fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his mouth, 
 so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs ; and then he charged 
 straight at me, crashing and bounding through the laurel bushes, 
 so that it was hard to aim. I waited until he came to a fallen 
 tree, raking him as he topped it with a ball which entered his 
 chest and went through the cavity of his body, but he neither 
 swerved nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I 
 had struck him. He came steadily on, and in another second 
 was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my bullet 
 went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and 
 going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled 
 trigger ; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw 
 was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush 
 of his charge carried him past. As he struck, he lurched 
 forward, leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle 
 hit the ground; but he recovered himself and made two or 
 three jumps onwards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of 
 cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding only four, all 
 of which I had fired. Then he tried to pull up, but as he did 
 so, his muscles seemed suddenly to give way, his head drooped, 
 and he rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of my 
 first three bullets had inflicted a mortal wound." 
 
 [87] 
 
FBOM KOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 But Mr. Roosevelt bore the hardships of frontier 
 life not only without complaining but even with pleas- 
 ure. Heat and cold, hunger and thirst, the loneliness 
 of plains and the roughness of camp life did not mar 
 his buoyant spirit. He retained his love for nature 
 and boyish interest in the chase, though in hunting he 
 was often at disadvantage, for at times, after he had 
 run hard and long, at the critical moment his eye- 
 glasses became dim, so that his prey escaped him. 
 
 The weather itself is a factor to be reckoned with on 
 the plains. The cold at times is something fearful, 
 and the men who worked or hunted in those regions 
 faced most difficult conditions. Mr. Roosevelt himself 
 returned home one moonlight night when the mercury 
 shrank to twenty-six degrees below zero. When he 
 reached his cabin, both knees and one hand were 
 frozen. In the worst weather, he frequently slept out- 
 side in a light tent, for his work was such that he had 
 to spend the night where darkness found him. 
 
 Once in the middle of "Winter, he was on his way, in 
 the company of a friend, to Yellowstone Park. In the 
 evening, they selected a place for the camp, tied the 
 horses and prepared their supper. 
 
 In " The Wilderness Hunter " * Mr. Roosevelt says : 
 
 " The wind had gone down, and snow was falling .thick in 
 large, soft flakes; we were evidently at the beginning of a 
 
 * ' ' The Wilderness Hunter, ' ' by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 
 
 [88] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 heavy snowstorm. All night we slept soundly in our snug 
 tent. When we arose at dawn there was a foot and a half 
 of snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling as fast as 
 ever. There is no more tedious work than striking camp in 
 bad weather ; and it was over two hours from the time we rose 
 to the time we started. It is sheer misery to untangle picket- 
 lines and to pack animals when the ropes are frozen ; and 
 by the time we had loaded the two shivering, wincing pack- 
 ponies, and had bridled and saddled our own riding-animals, 
 our hands and feet were numb and stiff with cold, though 
 we were really hampered by our warm clothing. My horse 
 was a wild, nervous roan, and as I swung carelessly into the 
 saddle, he suddenly began to buck before I got my right leg 
 over, and threw me off. My thumb was put out of joint. I 
 pulled it in again, and speedily caught my horse in the dead 
 timber. Then I treated him as what the cowboys call a 
 ' mean horse,' and mounted him carefully, so as not to let 
 him either buck or go over backward. However, his pre- 
 liminary success had inspirited him, and a dozen times that 
 day he began to buck, usually choosing a down grade, where 
 the snow was deep, and there was much fallen timber. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt's conception of hunting is different 
 from that of most other men. Never has he gone long 
 distances for game, but he has shot the wild animals if 
 they furnished a particularly beautiful trophy, or if 
 his camp was in need of food. He who shoots down 
 indiscriminately everything that comes before his 
 gun, is, in his opinion, no hunter, but a butcher. If 
 hunting is done in moderation, the numerical strength 
 of the wild animals hardly suffers from it ; if it degen- 
 erates into butchery, the animals disappear in a very 
 short time, especially the ones that are the most 
 
 [89] 
 
FROM KOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 attractive to the eye of the hunter, the buffalo for 
 example. Much as Mr. Roosevelt enjoys hunting, no 
 one deplores more than he the rapid disappearance of 
 American game, and he recommends the establish- 
 ment of some State and National Parks in which the 
 wild animals shall remain unmolested, and the settle- 
 ment of such territory shall be strictly forbidden. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt's humane conception of the sport 
 arises from the fact that he does not practise hunting 
 as an end but as a means to an end. To him it is a de- 
 sirable sport because it serves to develop the strength 
 of the body. The purpose in hunting should not be to 
 kill as many animals as possible, but to harden one's 
 power of endurance and sharpen one's faculties.- In 
 this respect hunting is the best preparatory school for 
 the soldier: it gives him a keen eye, an alert ear and 
 a steady hand. In bear-fighting, the hunter can al- 
 ways show courage and daring, a wolf -hunt requires 
 good horsemanship, and the pursuit of the mountain 
 goat calls for unremitting climbing. Though other 
 sports benefit, as a rule, only some particular part of 
 the body, hunting develops the whole man, and for this 
 reason Roosevelt considers it a most noble sport. 
 
 But even this is not enough. According to Roose- 
 velt, a hunter must enjoy the silent communion with 
 the things of the vegetable world no less than the more 
 exciting contact with the wily members of the animal 
 kingdom. His heart must rejoice at beholding the im- 
 mense trees, centuries old, pointing their aged arms 
 
 [90] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 heavenward; he must be able to walk with reverence 
 beneath their mighty boughs, on the soft, green carpet 
 of moss ; nor must that reverence grow less when the 
 forest is robed in its garments of Winter — when ice 
 and snow lie heavy upon the frozen landscape and 
 the cold moonbeams touch to liquid silver every cliff 
 and tree. He should feel his heart beat fast with joy 
 at the sight of the foaming torrent rushing in lordly 
 grandeur down the mountain side, and be inspired to 
 see the rays of the setting sun rest with caressing ten- 
 derness on the bald brow of the topmost peak. He 
 must take delight in watching the bear earn his food 
 by his own earnest efforts, as he tears up the earth in 
 search of tender roots and overturns stumps of trees 
 in quest of young squirrels ; or watch from a safe dis- 
 tance the deadly battle of two Wapiti bulls or peer un- 
 observed into the lair of the young of the springbuck. 
 
 Even while Mr. Roosevelt was upon the plains, he 
 was a good judge of birds. Just as now he is glad 
 that a great variety of songsters have built their nests 
 around the White House, so then he listened, soothed, 
 the whole night through, to the mocking-bird of the 
 Far West which sang on his window ledge. 
 
 The region of the Little Missouri, where Mr. Roose- 
 velt had settled, had been bought only a few years 
 before from the Sioux. The older settlers of the 
 neighborhood could tell of many encounters with the 
 red-skins, and Mr. Roosevelt himself frequently came 
 in contact with them. In his " Ranch Life and the 
 
 [91] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Hunting Trail," * he tells of one of these encounters 
 which might have had more serious consequences. 
 
 ' ' My only adventure with Indians was of a very mild kind. 
 
 It was in the course of a solitary trip to the north and east of 
 
 our range, to what was then practically unknown country, 
 
 although now containing many herds of cattle. One morning 
 
 I had been travelling along the edge of the prairie, and about 
 
 noon I rode up a slight rise and came out on a plateau that 
 
 was perhaps half a mile broad. When near the middle, four 
 
 or five Indians suddenly came up over the edge, directly in 
 
 front of me. The second they saw me they whipped their 
 
 guns out of their slings, started their horses into a run, and 
 
 came on at full tilt, whooping and brandishing their weapons. 
 
 I instantly reined up and dismounted. The level plain where 
 
 we were was of all places the one on which such an onslaught 
 
 could best be met. In any broken country, or where there is 
 
 much cover, a white man is at a great disadvantage if pitted 
 
 against such adepts in the art of hiding as Indians ; while, on 
 
 the other hand, the latter will rarely rush in on a foe who, 
 
 even if overpowered in the end, will probably inflict severe 
 
 loss on his assailants. The fury of an Indian charge, and 
 
 the whoops by which it is accompanied, often scare horses so 
 
 as to stampede them ; but in Manitou I had perfect trust, and 
 
 the old fellow stood as steady as a rock, merely cocking his 
 
 ears and looking round at the noise. I waited until the 
 
 Indians were a hundred yards off, and then threw up my 
 
 rifle and drew a bead on the foremost. The effect was like 
 
 magic. The whole party scattered out as wild pigeons or teal 
 
 ducks sometimes do when shot at, and doubled back on their 
 
 tracks, the men bending over alongside their horses. When 
 
 some distance off, they halted and gathered together to con- 
 
 * " Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," by Theodore Roose- 
 velt. Copyright The Century Co., New York. 
 
 [92] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 suit, and after a minute one came forward alone, ostentatiously 
 dropping his rifle and waving a blanket over his head. When 
 he came to within fifty yards I stopped him, and he pulled 
 out a piece of paper — all Indians, when absent from their 
 reservations, are supposed to carry passes — and called out, 
 ' How ! Me good Indian ! ' I answered ' How ! ' and assured 
 him most sincerely that I was very glad that he was a good 
 Indian, but I would not let him come closer; and when his 
 companions began to draw near, I covered him with my rifle 
 and made him move off, which he did with a sudden lapse 
 into the most canonical Anglo-Saxon profanity. I then 
 started to lead my horse out to the prairie ; and after hovering 
 around a short time they rode off, while I followed suit, but 
 in the opposite direction. It had all passed too quickly for 
 me to have time to get frightened; but during the rest of 
 my ride I was exceedingly uneasy, and pushed tough, speedy 
 old Manitou along at a rapid rate, keeping well out on the 
 level. However, I never saw the Indians again. They may 
 not have intended any mischief beyond giving me a fright, 
 but I did not dare to let them come to close quarters, for 
 they would probably have taken my horse and rifle, and not 
 impossibly my scalp as well. Towards nightfall I fell in with 
 two old trappers who lived near Killdeer Mountains, and 
 they informed me that my assailants were some young Sioux 
 bucks, at whose hands they themselves had just suffered the 
 loss of two horses." 
 
 In such cases, Mr. Eoosevelt, as others who had 
 made their homes in the wild regions, was dependent 
 upon himself solely. The robbers and horse-thieves 
 who stripped the wanderer and plundered the lonely 
 farms were not all Indians by any means. There were 
 many shiftless white men who preferred this way of 
 getting a living to honest work. As soon, therefore, as 
 
 [93] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the settlers became numerous enough, they instituted 
 a kind of police-system of their own, and those who 
 officiated were called " stranglers, ' ' because they used 
 summary measures when they captured a criminal 
 and dragged him to the nearest tree. A short time 
 before Eoosevelt moved upon his claim, this police- 
 system had been very active; about sixty evil-doers, 
 and among them many innocent persons, had been shot 
 or hanged. There was a sheriff in the country, but the 
 territory over which he had to stand guard was so 
 large that before he could reach the place of trouble, 
 the people had generally meted out punishment them- 
 selves or had suffered for their own aggressions. 
 
 Once the robbers paid a visit to the Roosevelt ranch, 
 and stole among other things the boat with which he 
 was accustomed to cross the Little Missouri. For ap- 
 parent reasons, it was assumed that the deed had been 
 perpetrated by three daring fellows who had been 
 under suspicion in the neighborhood for some time, 
 and of whom the people wished to be rid. Inasmuch 
 as an unpunished theft invites a new one, Mr. Roose- 
 velt determined to follow them up without delay. 
 
 But to do that was not easy. It was winter and very 
 cold. Furthermore, as the robbers had taken away 
 the only boat at hand, a new one had to be built. In a 
 short time, however, the boat was ready, and Mr. 
 Roosevelt with two of his most faithful cowboys 
 entered it. All were well armed and warmly clothed. 
 They also provided themselves with the necessary 
 
 [94] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 food, which could be supplemented from time to time 
 from the game that crossed their pathway. 
 
 On the afternoon of the third day, they saw the stolen 
 property on the shore. There was also a smaller boat 
 near and a little distance from the shore a smoke could 
 be seen. Cautiously they turned their course to the 
 bank of the river. As soon as the boat touched land, 
 Roosevelt leaped ashore and stepped forward a few 
 paces in order to protect his companions who had to 
 tie the boat first. When the boat was securely fast- 
 ened, they all three approached the fire. The only man 
 present, a German, surrendered without opposition. 
 
 Leaving one of the cowboys with the prisoner, Mr. 
 Roosevelt with the other one went out to meet the two 
 robbers who had gone out to shoot some game for 
 supper. About an hour later they came along, unsus- 
 pectingly with their guns carelessly thrown on their 
 shoulders. Roosevelt and his companion stepped 
 suddenly from their hiding place with their guns lev- 
 elled on the robbers and shouted, " Hands up ! " 
 One of the men threw away his gun immediately, but 
 the other one seemed inclined to fight; but seeing 
 that they had the drop on him, he instantly gave 
 up without resistance. In camp the three prisoners 
 were all closely examined. They made them sit near 
 the fire and take off their shoes. As the ground was 
 covered with hedge-hog thistles, escape in bare feet 
 was impossible. 
 
 They now had the criminals, but inasmuch as Mr. 
 
 [95] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Eoosevelt had no inclination to use the methods of the 
 " stranglers," the hard part of his task was just 
 begun, for the nearest sheriff was three hundred miles 
 away in the little city of Dickinson. The first week, 
 they floated down the river. Often ice prevented them 
 from going forward, so that the whole company had 
 to go on land and wait for the noon-sun to thaw the 
 river. Food became scarce, and as game could not be 
 had, the men had to be satisfied with bread made of 
 flour and dirty river water. But the most disagree- 
 able thing was the nights. They camped on some 
 protected spot on shore, the prisoners were forced to 
 sit close together near the fire while one of Eoosevelt 's 
 party, with his gun on his knee, kept guard. At last 
 they reached a farm where they found a man who was 
 willing to take the prisoners to Dickinson in a wagon, 
 though he wondered why Eoosevelt did not take the 
 law into his own hands. 
 
 Sending his cowboys back home, Mr. Eoosevelt set 
 out with his prisoners over rough country roads. The 
 wagon went very slowly, and for the greater part of 
 the way, Eoosevelt walked behind: he could thereby 
 avoid the jolting and also keep closer watch on his pris- 
 oners. The journey took two days. The night on the 
 road was spent in a small hut. As he did not wish to 
 leave the men unguarded in the cabin, he sat by the 
 door on duty the long night through ; and when morn- 
 ing came, he again took his place behind the wagon and 
 before sundown delivered the robbers to the sheriff at 
 
 [96] 
 
FEOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Dickinson. He had not closed his eyes for thirty-six 
 hours, and had eaten nothing for nearly two days, al- 
 though he had walked behind the wagon almost the 
 entire distance from the ranch on the river to Dickin- 
 son, while those who had made all these hardships nec- 
 essary were much more comfortable than he. Mr. 
 Roosevelt received for the transportation of the pris- 
 oners the sum of fifty dollars, which he was entitled to 
 according to the Dakota law. 
 
 The two years, 1884-1886, which Mr. Roosevelt spent 
 in the Wild West were eventful for him in more ways 
 than one. Above all he had recovered from the fatigue 
 of his political campaigns and the blows that fate had 
 dealt him, and had laid up reserve force for future 
 activities. Physically and mentally tired out, he had 
 sought refuge in the freedom of the broad and track- 
 less prairies, and the charm of wild mountain tracks. 
 He now turned his back upon the woods and prairies, 
 which had meant so much to him, the personification of 
 perfect manhood. He had come in contact with a 
 rough, and somewhat wild, yet good and industrious 
 people; he had been a companion to them: he had 
 shared with them joy and grief and sport and toil ; he 
 had often divided with them his last bite of bread and 
 his last drop of water, until they came to look upon 
 him as one of their number and to love him accord- 
 ingly. On his hunting trips and other journeys, he 
 was often carried into districts where the foot of the 
 white man had seldom trod ; he learned to know at first 
 
 [97] 
 
FKOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 hand the value of the land and its artistic beauty; 
 and, as he entered more and more into the life of the 
 people and understood their needs, their hopes and 
 their ambitions, the deeper became his love for his 
 country and its people, and the more he desired to 
 make the future of that people what it should be. 
 
 [98] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ROOSEVELT THE REFORMER 
 
 THOUGH Mr. Roosevelt, during his stay in the 
 Wild West, had refrained from taking an 
 active part in politics, he had not been forgotten by 
 his political friends. In the second half of the year 
 1886, the Republicans in New York were in great dis- 
 tress for want of a suitable candidate for mayor in 
 the coming city election. The poorer class of the party 
 had unwittingly fixed upon Henry George, who under 
 the banner of ' ' Progress and Poverty ' ' played heavy 
 to the great army of malcontents, but who had none of 
 the qualities that would appeal to the better educated 
 class of people. In their effort to find a man who could 
 command the support of all classes, they thought of 
 Theodore Roosevelt. They presented the situation to 
 him, and urged him to accept the candidacy. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt did not hesitate long. The hopeless- 
 ness of his being elected rather than deterring him 
 made the offer of the nomination more attractive, for 
 it showed to him the great need. Jle entered the cam- 
 paign with his characteristic energy; he often made 
 four speeches in a single evening in as many parts of 
 the city. But all efforts were in vain. On election day, 
 
 [99] 
 
FEOM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Hewitt received 90,552, George 68,110, and Roosevelt 
 60,435 votes. Inasmuch as George refused to with- 
 draw, the Republican party was split and the election 
 of Hewitt was assured from the beginning. Mr. Roose- 
 velt was really not disappointed; he knew when he 
 accepted the nomination that the odds were against 
 him. He had done his duty as he saw it and was sat- 
 isfied with the result. 
 
 The election occurred in November ; in December he 
 was married again. This time Edith Carow, his for- 
 mer school-love, became his wife. His daughter Alice 
 had thus far been educated at the home of her grand- 
 parents in Boston ; Mr. Roosevelt now took her to him- 
 self. The next three years he devoted himself to his 
 family and to his writings. Again he enjoyed the 
 hunting and the scenery at his farm on the Little Mis- 
 souri, and even occasionally took part in the round- 
 ups ; but during these three years, his main occupation 
 was writing. 
 
 In the year 1882, his first book, ' ' The Naval War of 
 1812," appeared. After that, he plunged deeper and 
 deeper into the history of America, read with growing 
 interest the lives of many of the famous men, and 
 rejoiced over the deeds of the population of the Amer- 
 ican frontier. The fruits of his historical studies were 
 " The Life of Thornas H. Benton " (1887), a son of 
 the West, who had exercised a decisive influence in the 
 Senate of the United States for thirty years, ' ' The 
 Life of Gouverneur Morris " (1889), who, as ambassa- 
 
 [100] 
 
FBOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 dor to France saw the French Revolution in all its 
 bloody terror, and the first two volumes of his master- 
 piece, " The Winning of the West " (1889), the last 
 two volumes of which appeared in 1894 and 1896 re- 
 spectively. In this work, he describes the general ad- 
 vance of civilization from the Coast States over the 
 Alleghanies and into the valley of the Mississippi. He 
 speaks of the heroic deeds of such men as Daniel Boone 
 and David Crockett and of the bloody fights which the 
 white settlers had with the red masters of the land. 
 The noble characters of Cooper's " Leather-stocking 
 Tales," which are familiar to every German boy, find 
 their real counterparts in the historic figures of " The 
 Winning of the West." Besides his works in history, 
 he also wrote a number of political essays. These were 
 first published in the magazines, but, as they became 
 popular, they were printed in book form under the 
 title of " Essays on Practical Politics " (1888). He 
 also wrote from time to time of his hunting trips and 
 his experiences with the cowboys and trappers. In 
 1886 he published " Hunting Trips of a Ranchman " 
 and in 1888 his most excellent book, ' ' Ranch Life and 
 the Hunting Trail. ' ' 
 
 The large number of works written during his stay 
 on the Little Missouri furnish ample proof of Mr. 
 Roosevelt's industry, so that we are somewhat pre- 
 pared to see him later on while in the heat of political 
 fights finding time to write many and not at all worth- 
 less books. Of historical works, there followed " New 
 
 [101] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 York City: a History" (1891), " Hero Tales from 
 American History" (1895), "The Rough Riders" 
 (1899), and " Oliver Cromwell " (1901). He dealt 
 with politics in " American Ideals " (1897) and " The 
 Strenuous Life" (1900). Hunting experiences and 
 appreciative observations of nature form the con- 
 tents of " The Wilderness Hunter " (1893), " Hunting 
 in Many Lands " (1895), " The Deer Family " 
 (1902), and " Outdoor Pastimes of an American 
 Hunter " (1905). 
 
 The quiet life which Mr. Roosevelt led in the wilder- 
 ness soon began to weigh upon him and to make him 
 long for a change. Politics attracted his attention 
 again. He kept himself posted as to things of the 
 busy world without, and especially as to the course of 
 affairs in New York. On his lonesome tramps, he 
 thought over the problems confronting the American 
 people and tried to arrive at some definite conclusion 
 as to the best method to solve them. These conclu- 
 sions he expressed in his own characteristically 
 pointed way in numerous magazine and newspaper 
 articles. The public seemed to take well to all that he 
 wrote. One soon noticed that Roosevelt took up his 
 pen only when he had something really worth while to 
 say, and, as he always had a high conception of per- 
 sonal responsibility in public business, he never failed 
 to emphasize the fact that justice and honesty should 
 be fundamental in politics and in every form of human 
 intercourse. His sentiments found an echo in the 
 
 [ 102] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 hearts of the better class of American citizens, and he 
 became widely and favorably known. 
 
 What he had thought out theoretically during many 
 years, far from the rush of the Empire City, he now 
 wished to give a practical test to. He therefore wrote 
 to President Harrison in 1889 and asked for a respon- 
 sible position in the Department of the Interior. But, 
 as he was still considered by many of the more con- 
 servative men in public life, a hot-headed youth who 
 was far more likely to bring about disagreeable 
 entanglements with foreign countries than to render 
 worthy services, his request was refused. President 
 Harrison did, however, call him into the Civil Service 
 Commission, where, it is sometimes said, he got his 
 ideas of political reforms. But that is not the truth. 
 "When he was a representative at Albany, Mr. Roose- 
 velt helped to enact a civil service law which was a 
 blow at the spoils system which was then flourishing 
 in the State of New York, and about the same time a 
 similar law had been passed by the government of the 
 United States. During the six years that had inter- 
 vened since that time, the special commission to which 
 was entrusted the task of making the law effective was 
 leading a harmlessly inactive existence. The major- 
 ity of the members of Congress liked that; they had 
 voted for the law, it is true, but they had done so in 
 response to public opinion and they heartily approved 
 the sleeping process as a means of nullifying the law. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was of a different opinion. He saw 
 
 [103] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 in the spoils system a gigantic evil which should be 
 rooted out at all hazards. For seventy years, the 
 spoils system had been in vogue, for Andrew Jacksou, 
 who became president in 1828, declared that " to the 
 victors belong the spoils. ' ' From that time on, it was 
 the custom to dismiss at the close of every presidential 
 term all federal officials, from the members of the pres- 
 ident's cabinet to the mail-carriers on the most insig- 
 nificant of star routes, and thousands were made 
 breadless in a single day. But that was not the worst 
 of it. According to the principle, the offices were 
 always filled with political adherents, and without 
 regard in many instances to the fitness of the men for 
 the positions in which they were placed. Faithfulness 
 to duty meant nothing; loyalty to party meant every- 
 thing. The interests of the country were sacrificed to 
 party greed ; and one president had fallen a victim to 
 the insane demands of the system. 
 
 There was urgent need of reform. In " American 
 Ideals ' ' * Eoosevelt said : 
 
 " No question of internal administration is so important 
 to the United States as the question of civil service reform, 
 because the spoils system, which can only be supplanted 
 through the agencies which have found expression in the act 
 creating the Civil Service Commission, has been for seventy 
 years the most potent of all the forces tending to bring about 
 the degradation of our politics. No republic can per- 
 manently endure when its politics are corrupt and base; and 
 
 *" American Ideals," by Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 
 
 [104] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the spoils system, the application in political life of the 
 degrading doctrine that to the victor belong the spoils, pro- 
 duces corruption and degradation. The man who is in politics 
 for the offices might just as well be in politics for the money 
 he can get for his vote, so far as the general good is con- 
 cerned. . . . The spoils-monger and spoils-seeker invari- 
 ably breed the bribe-taker and bribe-giver, the embezzler of 
 public funds and the corrupter of voters. Civil service 
 reform is not merely a movement to better the public service. 
 It achieves this end, too ; but its main purpose is to raise the 
 tone of public life, and it is in this direction that its effects 
 have been of incalculable good to the whole community. ' ' 
 
 These were also in general the demands which the 
 opponents of the spoils system made, and which were 
 accepted in name only by the civil service act of 1884. 
 In reality, as said before, most of the members of 
 Congress were opposed to the law and pushed their 
 own adherents into office wherever they could, and the 
 commissioners who had to make the lists of applicants 
 for the different offices, who were to hold examinations 
 and to prevent violations of the law, were careful not 
 to arouse those people by undue strictness, which 
 resulted in no strictness at all. Everything remained, 
 therefore, practically as it had been before, in spite of 
 the hope which the law had offered to the people. 
 
 With Roosevelt's appearance on the commission, 
 matters changed. His two colleagues were also good, 
 honest men who despised the spoils system with their 
 whole heart, but who lacked the fighting spirit and 
 bold initiative of Mr. Roosevelt. Though he was not 
 chairman of the commission, he certainly was the soul 
 
 [105] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 of it. The three men worked in perfect harmony, how- 
 ever, and their labor has borne fruit. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was determined to get the law into 
 operation and prosecute any violations of it. The 
 test which he wished to apply to applicants for govern- 
 ment positions was a simple one. He demanded abil- 
 ity, honesty, and faithfulness to duty. He made it a 
 rule to allow no one to get a federal position to whom 
 he would not feel safe in entrusting his own private 
 affairs. The men who could bear successfully these 
 tests should remain in office if they were already there, 
 and should be placed on the accredited list if they were 
 not then in office. It will be observed at once that this 
 was in entire harmony with the civil service law. 
 
 As soon as the commission learned that the law had 
 been violated anywhere, they instituted proceedings 
 with a thoroughness that proved embarrassing to cer- 
 tain members of Congress. Though they were heart- 
 ily disliked by many of the higher federal officials, 
 their action had a beneficial effect upon all depart- 
 ments of the federal government. The men who 
 appointed the minor officials were careful in their selec- 
 tions, because they felt themselves under the scrutiny 
 of men who asked for the highest degree of efficiency 
 in all federal positions. The men who held the offices 
 under civil service rule enjoyed greater security than 
 they had ever done before, and consequently rendered 
 better services to the State. 
 
 As the commission had done its work without taking 
 
 [106] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the public into its confidence, the feeling became wide- 
 spread, helped along by designing enemies, that some- 
 thing mysterious was going on there. Mr. Roosevelt, 
 therefore, gladly welcomed the public to his office. 
 Whenever a senator or a representative attacked the 
 Civil Service Commission, he promptly received an in- 
 vitation from Mr. Roosevelt to visit the office and to 
 convince himself with his own eyes of the recklessness 
 of his accusations. He also requested the newspaper 
 reporters to visit his office and gave them all the infor- 
 mation they wished in regard to the work of the com- 
 mission. He feared neither the criticisms of the 
 public nor of his avowed enemies, whose loaves and 
 fishes he had cut off. He had sufficient confidence in 
 the ultimate good sense of the people to believe that 
 they would soon be convinced that the commission was 
 doing its duty impartially. 
 
 At one time an article appeared in a recalcitrant 
 newspaper to the effect that under a Republican pres- 
 ident only Republicans would apply for office. Roose- 
 velt 's reply was not long delayed. He invited the rep- 
 resentatives of the great Southern newspapers to his 
 office, and when they were assembled, he addressed 
 them as follows: 
 
 " Gentlemen, I am about to ask you to help me wipe 
 out this false accusation and to render a service to your 
 countrymen at the same time. I have looked over the 
 list of promotions, and have found that, though the 
 Northern and the Western States get their full share, 
 
 [107] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the Southern States do not get theirs. I request that 
 you make it known in the most emphatic way that it is 
 the desire of the members of this commission that the 
 young men of the South apply for positions, and take 
 the examinations without regard to their political 
 views. I presume that the majority of your educated 
 young men are Democrats; but you may transmit to 
 them my full assurance that they will receive in every 
 way the same consideration as young men from other 
 parts of the country, that no one will ask them about 
 their political views and that they will be promoted 
 according to merit in the regular order. The commis- 
 sion has been established not for Eepublicans, not for 
 Democrats, but for the American people, and, as long 
 as I stay here, will be managed for the best interests 
 of the country regardless of party affiliations." 
 
 Greater and greater became the interest of the coun- 
 try in the reforms of the Civil Service Commission. 
 People generally admired the man who dared fight with 
 corruption wherever he found it and to take upon him- 
 self the hatred and enmity of all the opposing ele- 
 ments. It made no difference to Mr. Eoosevelt who 
 the sinner was ; they all looked alike to him. He even 
 invaded the cabinet of President Harrison and publicly 
 exposed a member of it who presumed upon being 
 allowed to disregard the provisions of the law. At 
 that time, even the president, though an honest, con- 
 scientious man, wished to remove the indomitable, 
 incorruptible, inconvenient reformer, but out of regard 
 
 [108] 
 
FEOM HOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 for public opinion, which was entirely with Mr. Roose- 
 velt, did not do it. 
 
 The congressmen who were adherents of the spoils 
 system were Mr. Roosevelt's most bitter opponents. 
 They regarded the action of the commission in stop- 
 ping favoritism in the distribution of federal offices as 
 a piece of unwarranted impudence. On account of the 
 activity of the Civil Service Commission, they could 
 no longer reward their supporters by pushing them 
 into fat public offices, and they had unpleasant visions 
 of their henchmen deserting them. The leader of the 
 anti-reformers was Senator Gorman. His rage against 
 the commission drove him again and again to vigorous 
 attacks against it, and he was loyally aided by many of 
 his colleagues. An opportunity was given at each 
 session of Congress, when the report of the Civil Serv- 
 ice Commission was made, for the disgruntled mem- 
 bers to air their indignation. They found excuse for 
 criticising everything that the commission did or did 
 not do and showed only too plainly that they were for 
 doing away with the disagreeable trap at any price. 
 
 The attacks against Roosevelt and his colleagues 
 were often ridiculous. At one time, Gorman declared 
 on the floor of the Senate that " an intelligent young 
 man from Baltimore, an applicant for a position as 
 mail-carrier, had been asked on examination to name 
 ' the shortest route from Baltimore to Japan,' and, 
 because he was unable to answer this and similar ques- 
 tions, was not permitted to pass." As soon as Mr. 
 
 [109] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Roosevelt heard of Senator Gorman's speech, he wrote 
 him a polite letter in which he asked him to name the 
 place and date of the examination and invited him to 
 look over for himself all the questions that had been 
 given on examination to mail-carriers and to convince 
 himself whether such questions had ever been asked. 
 Mr. Gorman, however, told his colleagues in the Sen- 
 ate that he had done as he always did when a mean 
 fellow mixed in his affairs : he had taken no notice of 
 the letter. 
 
 To this Mr. Roosevelt replied in an open letter, 
 which concluded as follows: 
 
 ' ' High-minded, sensitive Mr. Gorman ! Clinging, trustful 
 Mr. Gorman ! Nothing could shake his belief in that ' bright 
 young man.' Apparently, he did not even yet try to find out 
 his name — if he had a name; in fact, his name, like every- 
 thing else about him, remains to this day wrapped in the 
 Stygian mantle of an abysmal mystery. Still less has 
 Mr. Gorman tried to verify the statements made to him. It 
 is enough for him that they were made. No harsh suspicion, 
 no stern demand for evidence or proof, appeals to his art- 
 less and unspoiled soul. He believes whatever he is told, 
 even when he has forgotten the name of the teller, or never 
 knew it. It would indeed be difficult to find an instance of 
 a more abiding confidence in human nature — even in anony- 
 mous human nature. And this is the end of the tale of 
 Arcadian Mr. Gorman and his elusive friend, the bright 
 young man without a name ! ' ' 
 
 At another time, a newspaper friendly to Gorman 
 printed a facsimile of a Roosevelt letter and asked in 
 a derisive way whether a man with such penmanship 
 
 [110] 
 
FKOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 could pass the examination for a clerk of the third 
 class in Roosevelt's office ; and added that that man was 
 a member of a commission that had to decide upon the 
 hand-writing of others. To this article Roosevelt 
 replied in a way that the editor had not expected. He 
 confessed that he would not apply for the position of 
 clerk for the obvious reason that he would have little 
 chance of passing the examination and that he would 
 make a very poor clerk, though he felt that he was a 
 fairly efficient member of the commission. "And," 
 he added, " there it is. Under our system of civil 
 service examinations I couldn't get in, whereas under 
 the old spoils system you advocate I would have had 
 pull enough to get the appointment to the clerkship I 
 was n't fit for. Don't you see f " 
 
 The members of Congress went so far in their 
 opposition as to cut down considerably the appropri- 
 ation for the work of the commission. Mr. Roosevelt at 
 once retaliated. He took the lists before the commis- 
 sion for examinations and erased the names of all of 
 those from the districts whose representatives had 
 voted for curtailing the expenses of the commission. 
 At the same time, he informed the people through the 
 press what was being done, and added in justification 
 of his own conduct that inasmuch as examinations 
 would have to be abandoned in some districts for the 
 lack of money, it was nothing but right that those dis- 
 tricts whose representatives had tied the hands of the 
 commission by decreasing the appropriation should 
 
 [HI] 
 
FROM HOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 suffer. A tumult arose immediately throughout the 
 country, especially among those who were expecting 
 to take the examinations ; and such pressure was soon 
 brought to bear upon Congress that the allowance to 
 the commission was increased to the original sum 
 asked for. 
 
 Against such opposition, Mr. Eoosevelt worked con- 
 scientiously through the two years of Harrison's 
 administration and the four years of Grover Cleve- 
 land's. His energy gave life to his colleagues. 
 " Every day," one of them said, " I went to the office 
 with pleasure. I knew that while Roosevelt was there 
 something would be done that would make our work 
 worth while, and after he left the office, I found the 
 duties laborious." 
 
 The result of the activities of the Civil Service Com- 
 mission while he was a member of it, Mr. Roosevelt 
 sums up in these words : ' ' Offences were made public 
 to greatest extent possible. Even where we were not 
 able to win our fight, we gained something from the 
 fact that we had undertaken it and were ready to renew 
 it again if provoked. Though there were violations 
 and evasions of the law, the percentage was very small 
 if we consider the extent of the civil service. As a 
 whole, it is doubtful whether one per cent of all offi- 
 cials removed were dismissed for political reasons. 
 In other words, where under the reign of the spoils 
 system, a hundred men would have lost their positions, 
 ninety-nine remained secure in the discharge of their 
 
 [112] 
 
FROM BOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 duties because of the civil service as it was adminis- 
 tered under our supervision." 
 
 When in 1895 Mr. Roosevelt resigned his position 
 on the commission, President Cleveland was justified 
 in congratulating him on his success. He had per- 
 formed a gigantic task well. He is to be praised not 
 only because he increased the number of positions 
 subject to civil service rule, from 14,000 to 40,000, 
 but particularly because he instituted in the service 
 high moral standards, and followed them himself for 
 six years. The frankness and honesty with which he 
 had met all opponents, the courage with which he had 
 opposed injustice of every description, impressed 
 themselves deeply upon the American people and 
 gained for him the respect and admiration of many 
 men of power and influence. How incessantly he 
 worked can be learned from the statements of officials 
 of the Congressional Library. They said that a clerk 
 would be kept busy for a week if he were even to make 
 out a list of all the articles which Mr. Roosevelt pub- 
 lished in defence of his reforms — and these were quite 
 as necessary to the country as the reforms themselves 
 for they opened the way to greater reforms. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt had decided to accept the position 
 offered him as chief of police of New York City. He 
 did this against the advice of his friend and adviser 
 and fellow-worker, Proctor. Proctor was firmly con- 
 vinced that it was not the proper thing to do, and 
 argued long and insistently, till at last Roosevelt pat- 
 
 [113] 
 
FROM BOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 ted him on the shoulder and said, ' ' Old friend, I have 
 decided that I ought to go. ' ' 
 
 " Go, then," said Proctor almost roughly as he rose 
 from the table. " You must always have your way, 
 and I believe you are right; clean up the city thor- 
 oughly." And the gray-bearded man walked out and 
 wept like a child. 
 
 [114] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 KOOSEVELT AS POLICE COMMISSIONER OP NEW YORK 
 
 OLD Mr. Proctor was not the only one who tried 
 to dissuade Mr. Roosevelt from accepting the 
 position of chief of police of New York. His friends 
 generally thought that he was too good and too big a 
 man to be chief of police, even of the metropolis of the 
 American continent. The police of New York at the 
 time enjoyed, too, a rather unsavory reputation. But 
 it was for these very reasons that the work appealed 
 to Mr. Roosevelt; he saw before him something that 
 needed to be done, something that was worthy of being 
 done with the highest degree of efficiency ; and he felt 
 himself equal to the task. He had declined the office 
 of commissioner of the street cleaning department, 
 which had first been offered him, on account of ' ' lack 
 of experience. ' ' He believed himself capable, however, 
 of directing the police system of the great city. He 
 knew that, if he succeeded in reforming the system, he 
 would render a lasting benefit to his fellow citizens. 
 He, therefore, remained deaf to all the advice and 
 warning of his friends, and entered upon his duties on 
 May 5, 1895. 
 
 The conditions which he found to exist were indeed 
 
 [115] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 wretched. The whole system was inseparably con- 
 nected with politics ; the dominating party, Democratic 
 adherents of the spoils system, who had united in 
 forming the Tammany ring, had exercised for many 
 years a veritable tyranny over the patrolmen and used 
 them in a shameless way to further their nefarious 
 plans. As in all other departments of the city gov- 
 ernment, the worst incompetency, immorality, and dis- 
 honesty reigned in the department of police. The 
 officers worked hand in hand with thieves and crimi- 
 nals ; he who paid for it could go unmolested, but he 
 who could not or would not buy immunity was annoyed 
 by them in every manner possible. Instead of being 
 a protection to the people, they were themselves a 
 menace. Many people preferred rather to deal with 
 the outlaws than with the policemen. 
 
 Under the Tammany regime, all offices were bought. 
 Only when a very influential congressman wanted a 
 place for a favorite, was an exception made to the 
 rule. And the exceptions were rare ; the required sum 
 had to be furnished usually before one could get 
 employment under the city. There was a special levy 
 upon policemen. An ordinary policeman's position 
 cost from $200 to $300; he who was ambitious to 
 become police lieutenant had to pay for the appoint- 
 ment from $12,000 to $15,000. 
 
 In deciding upon the high prices for offices, they 
 bore in mind that policemen have the opportunity of 
 securing large amounts of money from bribes, and the 
 
 [116] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 men who bought their positions were certain that they 
 would not be reprimanded if they fleeced every one 
 with whom they came in contact. But they were 
 expected to " tote fair " with the leaders of Tammany 
 Hall and to deliver to them half of the spoils. The 
 income which the Democratic party received in this 
 way footed up millions of dollars. 
 
 A police officer could play his game of robbery with 
 incredible success on account of the freedom that was 
 given him. If a saloon-keeper wished to observe the 
 law, and, therefore, refused to pay the ' ' freewill ' ' 
 offering to the policemen, his rival in business was 
 given such extensive privileges that the honest busi- 
 ness man was either ruined or compelled to pay up as 
 the others had done. The police closed their eyes 
 everywhere for money; gambling dens, saloons, dis- 
 orderly houses bought immunity from punishment and 
 flaunted their vice in the faces of respectable citizens. 
 Every form of vice paid its toll and flourished with 
 the connivance of the men who were supposed to sup- 
 press vice. 
 
 The shameful practices of the Tammany people con- 
 tinued and increased at an alarming rate until even 
 the most indifferent citizen became aroused to the 
 necessity of reform. The feeling of the people was 
 expressed in the election of 1894 and the Tammany 
 gang was expelled and a Republican by name of Strong 
 was elected mayor. He had the best of intentions but 
 lacked in energy to make right and justice prevail at 
 
 [117] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 all times. When he entered office in the following 
 year, he asked Mr. Roosevelt to take charge of the 
 department of police, and to put an end to the undesir- 
 able conditions. 
 
 When Mr. Roosevelt appeared for the first time in 
 Mulberry Street as the head of the police of New- 
 York, Byrnes, the chief of the secret service, greeted 
 him with these words : ' * The system will break your 
 opposition. You will give in, for you are only human 
 after all." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt began by separating the police from 
 politics. He refused absolutely to let any one have 
 anything to say in regard to his appointments. In 
 making appointments and promotions, he considered 
 only the fitness of the men for the work. He put out 
 of the service those who were physically weak and 
 those who were given to drink. He asked neither 
 as to one's politics nor religion, but was satisfied on 
 examination if one showed a fair degree of knowledge 
 united with native common sense. For once the test 
 of merit was applied to the police force of New York 
 City. 
 
 Nor did the test end with the appointments. In 
 order to find out as to the faithfulness of the officials, 
 Mr. Roosevelt in company with a friend often made 
 his rounds through certain districts of the city. These 
 tours of inspection were usually made between mid- 
 night and sunrise when the men, if they ever were, 
 would be off their guard. Of his first inspection, his 
 
 [118] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 friend Leupp gives the following interesting descrip- 
 tion : * 
 
 " The friend found the commissioner at the appointed 
 place and hour, armed only with a little stick and a written 
 list of the patrolmen's posts in the district which was to be 
 visited. They walked over each beat separately. In the first 
 three beats they found only one man on post. One of the 
 others had gone to assist the man on the third, but there 
 was no trace of the third man's whereabouts. They went 
 over to Second Avenue, where they came upon a patrolman 
 seated on a box with a woman. 
 
 " ' Patrolman,' asked the commissioner, ' are you doing 
 your duty on post 27? ' 
 
 ' ' The fellow jumped up in a hurry. This pedestrian, though 
 unknown to him, was obviously familiar with police matters; 
 so he stammered out, with every attempt to be obsequious: 
 ' Yes, sir; I am, sir.' 
 
 ' ' ' Is it all right for you to sit down ? ' inquired the mys- 
 terious stranger. 
 
 ' ' ' Yes, sir — no, sir — well, sir, I was n 't sitting down. I 
 was just waiting for my partner, the patrolman on the next 
 beat. Really, I wasn't sitting down.' 
 
 " ' Very well,' said the stranger, cutting him short and 
 starting on. 
 
 " The officer ran along, explaining again with much volu- 
 bility that he had not been sitting down — he had just been 
 leaning a little against something while he waited. 
 
 ' ' ' That will do ; you are following me off post. Go back 
 to your beat now and present yourself before me at head- 
 quarters at half past nine this morning. I am Commissioner 
 Roosevelt. ' 
 
 " Another three blocks and the strollers came upon a 
 patrolman chatting with a man and a woman. They passed 
 
 *From Leupp 's " The Man Roosevelt." Copyright, 1904, 
 D. Appleton & Co. New York. 
 
 [119] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the group, went a little way, and returned; the woman was 
 gone, but the patrolman and the man were still there, and deep 
 in conversation. The talk was interrupted to enable the officer 
 to answer the commissioner's questions. The man seized 
 the opportunity to slip off. 
 
 " ' They were drunk, sir, a little intoxicated, sir,' was the 
 patrolman's excuse, as he caught an inkling of the situation. 
 ' I was just trying to quiet them down a bit. I ? m sorry, sir, 
 very sorry.' 
 
 " ' That 's enough. Come to Commissioner Roosevelt's office 
 at half past nine.' 
 
 " In search of the roundsman the commissioner started, 
 to call him to account for all this laxity of discipline. The 
 roundsman was found gossiping with two patrolmen on an- 
 other beat. 
 
 " ' Which of you men belongs here? ' demanded the com- 
 missioner, addressing the patrolmen. 
 
 ' ' They and their companion met the inquiry defiantly. One 
 of the trio retorted : ' What business is that of yours ? ' 
 
 " The commissioner made no response except to repeat his 
 question in another form : ' Which one of you is covering 
 beat 31 ? ' 
 
 " It was now plain that they were in trouble. By the light 
 of a neighboring gas-lamp the roundsman recognized the in- 
 terrogator's face. He cast a significant glance at one of his 
 companions, who answered, meekly enough, ' It 's me, sir. ' 
 
 " The other told where he belonged and left quickly for 
 his post, while the roundsman made a poor fist of explaining 
 that he was ' just admonishing the patrolmen to move around 
 and do their duty ' when the commissioner came up. 
 
 " ' You may call on me at half past nine and tell me all 
 about it, ' was the response ; ' I have n 't time now to listen. ' ' 
 
 And so he continued his rounds till dawn. The dis- 
 agreeable impression which the discoveries made was 
 
 [120] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 relieved somewhat when he came to a precinct where 
 every man was found at his post. The officer in charge 
 was ordered to report on the same day at police head- 
 quarters, not to be reprimanded but to be congratu- 
 lated. The guilty officers made all kinds of excuses, 
 some of which were really amusing. A few assured 
 him it was the first night they had been negligent. 
 
 " See to it that it is the last one," came the quick 
 reply. ' ' I wish to convince myself with my own eyes 
 how you spend your time. ' ' 
 
 On another of his night tours of investigation, he 
 found only one of ten policemen doing his duty prop- 
 erly. One was sitting on a butter-box in the middle 
 of the sidewalk and snoring so loud that he could be 
 heard on the other side of the street. In another pre- 
 cinct, Eoosevelt went around a certain beat three times 
 without being able to find his man. He was just on 
 the point of leaving without having effected his pur- 
 pose when the owner of a night cafe, whose guests had 
 got into a quarrel, came into the street and by knock- 
 ing on the sidewalk with a stick gave the signal that 
 he needed police protection. He repeated the signal 
 three times ; but, as the policeman did not come, cried 
 in anger : ' ' Where in thunder does the scoundrel 
 sleep ? He should have told me if he had given up the 
 barber shop, so that I could have found him." This 
 officer also received an invitation to headquarters to 
 inform the chief why he had changed his sleeping 
 place. 
 
 [121] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Mr. Eoosevelt's night visits had the desired effect. 
 The policemen did not feel secure for a moment, for 
 they conld not know at what hour of the day or night 
 Mr. Eoosevelt might break in upon them. They, 
 therefore, attended strictly to business. After the 
 first week, Mr. Roosevelt was known in police circles 
 as Harun. He soon was able to find out the cause of 
 the weakness of the police force. It was not due pri- 
 marily to the rank and file of the men of the service, 
 but to the superior officers who compelled them in one 
 way or another to earn extra money and always con- 
 doned laxity in the discharge of duty, provided they 
 fed the coffers of the men higher up. 
 
 The most money had formerly been extorted from 
 saloon-keepers. If they paid the policemen suffi- 
 ciently, they could keep their doors open as long as 
 they pleased. It, therefore, seemed most necessary 
 to Eoosevelt to enforce the law in regard to opening 
 and closing saloons, and to punish severely every 
 infraction of it. A short time before, a law had been 
 passed ordering saloons to be closed on Sunday; but 
 like many other laws, it had never been enforced, save 
 so far as it was necessary to extort money from the 
 saloon men. 
 
 Mr. Eoosevelt ordered a most careful enforcement 
 of the law, and requested the policemen to' close the 
 saloons if necessary by force and to report the propri- 
 etors who resisted. A storm at once arose, for the 
 policemen, for fear of their master, did as they were 
 
 [122] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 told, and soon the fury of the twelve thousand or four- 
 teen thousand saloon-keepers of New York City was at 
 white heat. Half the city took sides with the saloon- 
 keepers. Singly and in crowds men came to Mr. 
 Roosevelt to get him to withdraw his order ; members 
 of the city council advised him not to turn everything 
 upside down, to work with discretion. To them he 
 replied that there was nothing in his oath about discre- 
 tion; he had sworn to enforce the laws and would 
 remain true to his oath, and added that he had not 
 made the laws ; if they were obnoxious they should be 
 repealed. As long as they remained on the statute 
 books, he would see to it that they were enforced. He 
 backed up his position with the words of Lincoln: 
 ' ' Teach respect for the laws in school, print it in the 
 readers and story books, preach it from the pulpits, 
 give explanation to them in the meetings of the repre- 
 sentatives and enforce them in the courts, and, in 
 short, let them become the political gospel of the 
 people." 
 
 Though Mr. Eoosevelt had done nothing but enforce 
 in an honest way laws that had formerly been enforced 
 in a dishonest way, complaint against him increased. 
 Some papers that knew how to foment trouble as- 
 serted that crime was on the increase, since the police 
 were giving so much time to the saloons and were un- 
 able to protect the law-abiding citizens. Mr, Roosevelt 
 listened to the accusations in silence, and stuck firmly 
 to the line of conduct which he had marked out. It 
 
 [ 123] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 was not long, however, before he received substantial 
 proof of the wisdom of his course. The Bellevue Hos- 
 pital reported that for the first time since the institu- 
 tion was founded no case had been treated on Monday 
 which had resulted from a drunken row on Sunday. 
 The police courts stated that the number of delin- 
 quents was decreasing, the savings banks made it 
 known that the number and the amount of deposits 
 were continually on the increase, and the pawnbrokers 
 complained of hard times. 
 
 While the fight about the Sunday law was at its 
 height, the " United Societies for Liberal Sunday 
 Laws " decided upon a big parade as a protest against 
 the Roosevelt tyranny. A number of the city fathers 
 as well as the representatives of the most important 
 breweries were invited to see the demonstration. A 
 platform had been erected for them in a conspicuous 
 place. They invited Mr. Roosevelt to join them on 
 the platform, little thinking that he would do it as the 
 demonstration was against him. But to their surprise 
 and to the astonishment of every one, he suddenly 
 appeared upon the platform and took his place in the 
 front row after saluting with a friendly bow those 
 present. At the head of a certain group was a burly 
 German veteran of the Franco-German War who found 
 it difficult to dispense with his " Sunday beer." The 
 police president was particularly intolerable to him, 
 and as he passed the platform, he cried out in a most 
 derisive tone, " Nun, wo 1st der Roosevelt t ' 
 
 [1241 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 He was almost stunned when suddenly a round face 
 with heavy eyeglasses bent over him and replied in 
 his native tongue: " Hier bin ich ! Was willst du, 
 Camerad f " The German was speechless at first and 
 looked up as if he saw a spirit. But as soon as he 
 comprehended what was going on, he raised his hat 
 and roared: " Hurrah for Roosevelt ! " 
 
 Group after group passed by. One man carried a 
 banner with the inscription: "Roosevelt's Drunken- 
 ness — Reform Rumblings." Another read: "Send 
 the police czar to Russia ! ' ' Roosevelt laughed when 
 he saw the banners and sent a policeman after the 
 wagon to ask that he might have them as souvenirs. 
 The men were so astonished that they handed them 
 over without a word. The good humor of Mr. Roose- 
 velt pleased the people and, when the German cheered 
 him, they also joined in the applause, so that one group 
 after another passed the platform with hurrahs for 
 Roosevelt. What was to have been a protest against 
 his tyranny became a tribute to his honor. Many a 
 man gave expression to his feeling in such words as 
 these : ' ' Bravo, Teddy ! " ' ' He is all right ! ' ' "He 
 is a fine fellow ! ' ' 
 
 But the hatred of the men whom he had brought to 
 terms was not at all softened. On the contrary, when 
 they saw him growing in favor with the people, they 
 sought other means of getting rid of him. A few 
 councilmen whose interests were in common with those 
 of the saloon-keepers tried to veto his appointment, 
 
 [125] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 claiming that lie had been appointed only temporarily 
 by the mayor, Mr. Strong. But unconsciously Mr. 
 Roosevelt had rendered himself a great service years 
 before. As a member of the General Assembly of 
 New York in 1883, he had put through a law which 
 took the veto-power away from the council and placed 
 it in the hands of the mayor. The city fathers learned 
 to their sorrow that their old time prestige was gone, 
 for with their veto-power gone they were rattlesnakes 
 without fangs. They had to keep Mr. Roosevelt at 
 the head of the police, much as they hated him. 
 
 How strong was the hatred against him in certain 
 circles can be seen from the fact that even his life was 
 in danger. Twice bombs were found in his desk, and 
 that he escaped harm was due to his own intrepid 
 spirit and to the watchfulness of his friends. For, 
 after all, those who hated him belonged always to the 
 same class of people. But since he was after the 
 light -shunning crowd and attacked every one that 
 under one pretext or another sinned against life and 
 property of his neighbors, he was the living terror of 
 those who lived in constant war with the law, but on 
 the other hand he soon gained the unlimited confidence 
 and respect of all right-thinking people. He soon 
 became well known to the residents of the city. Chil- 
 dren flocked to him in numbers and told him their 
 small and their larger sorrows and expected him to 
 help them if possible. He came to occupy such a place 
 in the minds of the children that they continued to go 
 
 [126] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 to the police headquarters for Mr. Roosevelt long after 
 he had resigned his office. 
 
 Against one who has the children and the helpless 
 for friends, the hearts of other people cannot long be 
 locked, especially when that one has a nature so frank 
 and so filled with a sense of justice as Mr. Roosevelt. 
 Above all, the officials under Mr. Roosevelt came to 
 love him. The majority of them were men who needed 
 only encouragement and the example of their superi- 
 ors to make them efficient officers of the law, and as 
 they now had both, the efficiency of the police service 
 rapidly increased. To the astonishment of every one, 
 the men responded readily to the wishes of a leader 
 who held the oath of office a sacred thing and who con- 
 sidered the sale of liquor to children and the accept- 
 ance of bribes as crimes but little less dark than cold 
 murder itself. 
 
 Under the old regime, the policemen received neither 
 reprimands for gross neglect of duty nor praise when 
 they had done their duty heroically. Mr. Roosevelt 
 was no less careful to bestow praise where praise was 
 due than to censure where censure was due. Only a 
 few days after he formally took up the duties of his 
 office, a policeman followed a burglar one night into 
 the subway, into which the man had jumped, and 
 finally at the risk of his own life captured the man. 
 When Roosevelt heard of his conduct, he promptly 
 promoted him to a higher position. Another one, a 
 bicycle policeman, ran after a runaway horse on a 
 
 [127] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 crowded street. After a hard race, he succeeded in 
 stopping the horse, but not till he had received broken 
 limbs and a bruised body, which necessitated his going 
 to the hospital. When he was able to take up his 
 work again, he was a roundsman and wore the medal 
 of bravery upon his breast. 
 
 Another case shows the difference between the old 
 way and the Eoosevelt way of doing things. A gray- 
 haired policeman had risked his life by swimming 
 through the ice-filled river to save a woman ; Roosevelt 
 ordered him to report at headquarters and promptly 
 gave him a better position. The old man, a veteran 
 of the Civil War, had already saved twenty-eight lives 
 in the same way, for his beat was near the river, where 
 such accidents are frequent. During his entire serv- 
 ice, his record had been without blemish. Congress 
 had honored him with the medal for bravery and had 
 conferred upon him the life-saving medal; but the 
 police department, which he had served so faithfully, 
 had never a word of appreciation for him; they had 
 even allowed him to buy a new uniform at his own 
 expense when the old one had become useless on 
 account of his efforts in saving the lives of others. 
 Mr. Eoosevelt had not been longer than four weeks in 
 the department when he made it known that uniforms 
 which were rendered unfit for service on account of 
 risk of life while on duty were marks of honor and 
 that the department would bear the expense of new 
 ones. 
 
 [128] 
 
FEOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 By such treatment, he awakened in the officials a 
 love and a respect for their work. They knew that 
 they were judged according to their merit, and that 
 even the ' ' pull ' ' of friends in higher positions could 
 not save them if they were not faithful and efficient 
 in the performance of their duty. Formerly people had 
 spoken with shame and indignation of the police de- 
 partment, but under the Roosevelt administration the 
 New Yorker came to speak of it with pride and pleas- 
 ure. In order to bring about the change, no particular 
 genius had been necessary, as he himself stated. Only 
 the ordinary, every-day virtues, the presence of which 
 should be taken for granted in every citizen, were 
 needed. Healthy common-sense, honesty, courage, 
 determination, the willingness to learn and the desire 
 to be as kind to every one as consistent with strict per- 
 formance of one's duty — these were the qualities 
 which made Mr. Roosevelt so successful in the police 
 department of the American metropolis, and these are 
 the qualities which will make any man successful in 
 almost any line of work. 
 
 That his friendliness and kindness were at times 
 taken advantage of is to his credit rather than to his 
 discredit. Mr. Roosevelt is by nature optimistic and 
 sees the good in men to the exclusion of the bad ; and 
 he is occasionally deceived when a less trustful man 
 would pierce the deception. At one time, a certain 
 policeman had tried his patience too far and was dis- 
 missed. Next morning when he arrived at his office, 
 
 [129] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the policeman with eleven children of all ages awaited 
 him. The dismissed official led the children into the 
 presence of his chief and with a sorrowful wave of his 
 hand, said, ' ' All of them motherless ! ' ' 
 
 "What? All these children without a mother?" 
 Then the severity of his countenance changed to one 
 of sympathy: " Go back to your work and try once 
 more and for the last time." He afterwards learned 
 that only two of the children belonged to the man ; the 
 others he had borrowed for the occasion from his 
 neighbors. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt lived in a state of open war with the 
 saloon-keepers. Besides forcing the saloons to close 
 their doors at the hours fixed by law, he fought many 
 another battle with them that earned for him the 
 respect of all law-abiding citizens but made the liquor 
 element his lasting enemy. He enforced strictly the 
 law against selling liquor to minors. The increase in 
 the use of alcoholic liquors among children had become 
 alarming. The most reliable statistics obtainable by 
 the police of the city showed that more than half of 
 those addicted to drink acquired the habit before they 
 had reached the age at which it was lawful to sell them 
 the beverage. Again and again news of accidents 
 and crimes, which were the result of drunkenness 
 among children, reached the police. Only recently a 
 boy had fallen a victim to the curse. He had been sent 
 into a saloon regularly by workingmen to purchase 
 liquor for them, and learned to like the taste of it him- 
 
 [130] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 self. One evening while intoxicated, he fell into an 
 old cellar and was literally eaten up by the rats. 
 
 The conditions became so horrifying that an asso- 
 ciation was formed for the purpose of protecting the 
 children. Mr. Roosevelt was in the movement with his 
 whole heart. The saloon-keepers denied that they ever 
 sold liquor to children, and it was not easy to get direct 
 evidence against them inasmuch as the boys and the 
 men interested would not tell on each other. Finally 
 Mr. Eoosevelt adopted a plan, which led to his being 
 much criticised. He himself sent a boy into the 
 saloons for whiskey, and in that way got undeniable 
 evidence against the violators of the law. The law 
 threatens with punishment not only him who sells the 
 liquor, but every one who is a party to the sale ; and, 
 therefore, it was maintained by his enemies that Mr. 
 Roosevelt had put himself under the ban of the law 
 and was himself as guilty as the saloon-keepers. To 
 which Mr. Roosevelt replied that he had chosen the 
 lesser of two evils, as there was no other way out. The 
 boy who had entered the saloon hundreds of times for 
 a bad purpose entered it once for a good purpose ; and 
 though the letter of the law had been violated, the 
 spirit of it had been observed, and he was enabled to 
 stop completely the sale of intoxicating liquor to 
 children. 
 
 The means which his opponents said that he should 
 have applied were totally inapplicable. They main- 
 tained that he should have used the secret service of 
 
 [131] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the department ; but if the policeman had entered the 
 saloons in the disguise of a civilian, he could not have 
 caught the guilty parties, because they knew that they 
 were shadowed and were constantly on their guard. 
 Besides, they waited upon children in a narrow hall or 
 other places where it was impossible for the ordinary 
 customer to enter. No fair-minded man would con- 
 demn Mr. Eoosevelt for a moment. He merely adopted 
 the simplest and surest plan of getting hold of the men 
 whom he knew to be guilty but against whom he found 
 it impossible to secure evidence sufficient to convict 
 them. 
 
 As head of the department of police, Mr. Eoosevelt 
 was, also, a member of the department of health, in 
 which capacity he had an opportunity to do much 
 good. Here again it was the children that were sinned 
 against. In the old tenements the annual death-rate 
 among children was one-third. But that does not tell 
 it all: those who were able to fight off death were 
 frequently rendered physically unfit to meet the re- 
 sponsibilties of bread-winners when they reached 
 manhood, and sooner or later became objects of char- 
 ity. On account of the lack of fresh air, cleanliness, and 
 public playgrounds and parks in the tenement dis- 
 tricts, the children were not given an opportunity to 
 develop into normal men and women; they were 
 deprived by the greed of men of their God-intended 
 heritage — the right to be born well and raised well. 
 
 In his night visits throughout the city, Mr. Roose- 
 
 [ 132 1 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 velt went to these tenements to convince himself of the 
 misery that was hidden within their walls. In accord- 
 ance with his recommendation, the worst of them were 
 bought by the city and torn down. If the owners did 
 not accept the offers made them, the property was con- 
 demned and disposed of anyway. In the place of the 
 rickety, old fire-traps and disease holes, modern build- 
 ings arose under the direction of the department of 
 health. The streets were cleaned up and widened. 
 The newly erected school-houses were constructed on 
 sanitary principles, and playgrounds, though not so 
 large as could be wished, were left for the children. 
 In a word, everything was done that could be done to 
 give greater comfort and privileges to the city's poor. 
 But all these reforms were not brought about with- 
 out opposition, even if they were tilings of life and 
 death to thousands of people and of direct benefit to 
 the entire city. Mr. Roosevelt was sued by two land- 
 lords who had been compelled to tear down their old 
 buildings, but the court upheld the action of Mr. 
 Roosevelt and the department of health. The press, 
 or a part of it, almost without interruption attacked 
 him. It not only criticised all his measures of reform 
 but circulated the most damaging lies about his work. 
 The most flagrant charges he replied to in other 
 papers, but generally he was too busy to give heed to 
 mendacious accusations made by a disreputable en- 
 emy. He was convinced that the public wished to 
 know the truth, that the good sense of the majority of 
 
 [133] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 people would make them favor what is right; and he, 
 therefore, took the public into his confidence, did noth- 
 ing behind closed doors but gave the fullest publicity 
 to all that he was doing. The few disgruntled papers 
 could not destroy his faith in the usefulness and integ- 
 rity of the press, nor affect his relation to their repre- 
 sentatives. He invited a large number of reporters 
 to his office, as he had done when a member of the 
 Civil Service Commission, and later in other positions, 
 so that they might inform themselves and thus be able 
 to instruct the public. He even told them more than 
 they were allowed to publish ; he then added that this 
 and that were not for publication; and the confidence 
 which he placed in the " knights of the pen " was 
 never betrayed. 
 
 The complaint was frequently made that the police- 
 men were boastful and arrogant, that conscious of 
 their power they sometimes forgot the courtesy which 
 the public might rightfully expect of them. It was 
 even charged that they sometimes drove away from 
 the office people who came there on business. Mr. 
 Roosevelt insisted upon official courtesy, upon the ut- 
 most kindness consistent with a faithful discharge of 
 duty. And he set the example himself. 
 
 Once during a strike, he invited the leaders of the 
 workingmen to meet him and effect a compromise if 
 possible. It was early in his administration and the 
 men did not yet know him. They rather resented his 
 interference and openly boasted that the police would 
 
 [134] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Have to do their bidding. At this Mr. Roosevelt rose 
 and said very decisively : 
 
 ' ' Gentlemen : We want to understand each other. 
 That was the purpose of our coming here. Remem- 
 ber, please, that he who advocates force renders the 
 worst service to the cause of labor. Bear in mind that 
 order will be maintained; the police will maintain it. 
 Now let us go on with the discussion, gentlemen. ' ' 
 
 For a moment, the audience were shocked, and acted 
 accordingly. They heeded his warning, however, and 
 a satisfactory understanding was soon reached. 
 
 Any one could visit Mr. Roosevelt in his own office, 
 and he tried to help everybody who desired help. 
 That at times silly requests were made of him is not at 
 all surprising. The advice which he frequently gave 
 to such requests showed plainly that he had not lost 
 his sense of humor. He played a harmless, yet an 
 amusing trick, on one of our countrymen, who years 
 ago was much talked of in Germany. Mr. Ahlwardt, 
 the grim hater of the Jews, visited the United States 
 in 1895 in order to promote anti-Jewish sentiments. 
 He was billed to address a public meeting, but his 
 friends in New York feared for his safety, and ap- 
 plied to Mr. Roosevelt for protection. 
 
 " What do you fear ? " asked Mr. Roosevelt. 
 
 " Mr. Ahlwardt is very caustic in his remarks," 
 they replied, " and we are afraid that the Jews might 
 possibly get together and insult him." 
 
 " That is nonsense," coolly answered Mr. Roosevelt, 
 
 [135] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 " there are in New York no more peaceable people 
 than the Jews." 
 
 But as the men insisted that a special guard of 
 policemen would have a desirable effect on any 
 unruly Jew who might be present, Mr. Roosevelt 
 finally dismissed them with the assurance that they 
 should have sufficient protection on that evening. 
 Hardly had the door closed upon the delegation, which 
 was very profuse in expressions of appreciation, when 
 Mr. Eoosevelt called the captain of the police. He 
 told him the circumstances and asked him to select 
 from the policemen of New York City thirty men of 
 Jewish faith, the more distinctly they showed their 
 Semitic origin the better. The captain knew his men, 
 and when they reported to Roosevelt for instructions, 
 he had to confess that the captain had made a most 
 careful selection. He told them what he wanted and 
 sent them to the hall where Mr. Ahlwardt was to 
 speak. 
 
 Imagine the feelings of Mr. Ahlwardt 's friends 
 when they were received at the entrance of the hall by 
 a few policemen of whose origin there could not be the 
 slightest doubt. Everywhere at the posts and win- 
 dows they stood, with their hook noses and black hair, 
 erect and ready to protect him who was to speak 
 against them and their race. And they did protect 
 him. In the audience there were a few Jews, and 
 when one of these tried to interrupt the speaker, he 
 was seized by the collar and pushed unceremoniously 
 
 [136] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 into the street before the speaker knew that any one 
 was trying to disturb him. 
 
 Mr. Ahlwardt, himself, experienced the greatest 
 disappointment, however. He missed the noise and 
 tumult that always rose wherever he spoke, at home, 
 and soon left the land in which his plans for the puri- 
 fication of the people met with so little response, 
 
 [137] 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN THE NAVY DEPARTMENT 
 
 FOR two years Mr. Roosevelt had been untiringly 
 active as head of the department of police of 
 New York City. With sleepless vigilance he had 
 sought to break up the old system, to check bribery, to 
 suppress crime and lawlessness, to protect life and 
 property, to ameliorate the hard lot of the poor, and 
 to reward his subordinates for faithful performance 
 of their task and to punish them for neglect of duty. 
 Not only did he keep politics out of his work but 
 almost out of his mind. The policemen of New York 
 City remember to this day their one-time president 
 with high esteem. They realized at the time that a 
 man of strong character and high sense of official duty 
 guided them; and they repaid him for the confidence 
 which he placed in them by confidence and attachment 
 in return and by conscientious performance of the 
 work assigned them. 
 
 But Mr. Roosevelt was not to remain in the service 
 of the New York police long ; an energetic, high-souled 
 man was needed in a more important position. On 
 March 4, 1897, William McKinley entered upon his 
 duties as president of the United States, and Mr. Long 
 
 [138] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 became secretary of the navy, who appointed Mr. 
 Roosevelt as his first assistant secretary. While act- 
 ing in this capacity Mr. Roosevelt was in a position to 
 render most valuable services to the entire country. It 
 was a time, too, when great responsibility rested upon 
 the Navy Department, for war clouds were gathering 
 on the horizon, dark and ominous. If war did come, it 
 was evident to all that the navy would have to play a 
 leading part. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt saw clearly that the troubles that had 
 been dragging along for years between the United 
 States and Spain could be definitely settled only by a 
 war. At the bottom of his heart, he was not a lover of 
 war. He said in his message to the Fifty-seventh Con- 
 gress (December 3, 1901) : 
 
 " The true end of every great and free people should be 
 self-respecting peace ; and this Nation most earnestly de- 
 sires sincere and cordial friendship with all others. Over the 
 entire world, of recent years, wars between the great civ- 
 ilized powers have become less and less frequent. Wars with 
 barbarous or semi-barbarous peoples come in an entirely dif- 
 ferent category, being merely a most regrettable but neces- 
 sary international police duty which must be performed for 
 the sake of the welfare of mankind. Peace can only be kept 
 with certainty where both sides wish to keep it; but more 
 and more the civilized peoples are realizing the wicked folly 
 of war and are attaining that condition of just and intelli- 
 gent regard for the rights of others which will in the end, as 
 we hope and believe, make world-wide peace possible." 
 
 In these words, Mr. Roosevelt stated his position 
 as to peace clearly and distinctly, as he has oftentimes 
 
 [139] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 done on other occasions. No one loves his home and 
 family more than he, no one knows better than he 
 what it means to be separated from wife and children, 
 from betrothed, from parents, in order to go to war, 
 perhaps never to return, or to come back a cripple for 
 life. He knows, as every statesman knows, that war- 
 like enterprises undermine the prosperity of the coun : 
 try, bring commerce to a standstill, and inflict a most 
 serious blow to the progress of civilization. He has 
 always advocated, therefore, that the difficulties be- 
 tween nations should be settled by arbitration. 
 
 No one will deny that, were nations to conduct them- 
 selves in that way, peace would be secure. But on 
 account of the imperfections of human nature, the 
 strong will always be inclined to do injustice to the 
 weak, the armed to the unarmed, and, therefore, every 
 one must be on his guard, must strive to be strong so 
 that he may defend himself when it is necessary. 
 "Si vis pacem, para helium 1" If a nation wants 
 peace, she must have a strong army and navy, for ' ' the 
 voice of the weakling or the coward counts for nothing 
 if he calls for peace ; but the voice of the just man in 
 arms is powerful." The peace which a country en- 
 joys in this way, is an honorable peace, under the pro- 
 tection of which the citizen can respect himself, and 
 only such a peace is desirable. No one admires a man 
 who keeps the peace only because he is afraid, who 
 tolerates every species of injustice in order to live in 
 peace at any price. We rather admire him who man- 
 
 [1401 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 fully and resolutely solves the problems which are 
 presented to him, who lets his neighbor live in peace, 
 not because he is afraid of him but because he scorns 
 to do wrong; who helps his friends, but arises in his 
 might against interference with his rights, be it for- 
 eign or domestic. "The man who does not wish to 
 fight in order to prevent injustice or to revenge it is 
 only a poor creature, but he is after all less dangerous 
 than the man who fights on the side of injustice and 
 oppression. Again and again the time must come in 
 the history of nations when war is the highest duty. 
 Peace, however, must be the normal condition, else the 
 nation goes quickly to a bloody ruin." Nations as 
 well as individuals must know how to secure respect if 
 peace is to be honorable and lasting; and just as the 
 individual must rely upon the strength of his muscles 
 to compel recognition of his just demands, so a nation 
 must be strong enough to deter other nations from 
 needlessly provoking her to arms, nor must she hesi- 
 tate to appeal to the arbitrament of war if necessary. 
 "War at best is regrettable, an evil, and should be 
 avoided as long as possible ; but when the highest good 
 of a people is at stake, when the existence of a nation 
 is threatened, when the honor of a State is in danger, 
 when the cause of humanity and civilization is in the 
 balance, then people should not be afraid to invoke the 
 stern god of war. When peaceful entreaties can not 
 accomplish anything, the cannons must speak their 
 bloody words, and woe to the nation that is not suf- 
 
 [141] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 ficiently prepared for that last, worst alternative. Mr. 
 Roosevelt's whole philosophy of war and peace may be 
 summed up as follows: honorable peace, made secure 
 by a strong army and an efficient navy, must be the 
 aim of every nation; if necessity should demand the 
 drawing of the sword in a just cause, then the people 
 must embrace war with a firm heart and carry it to a 
 righteous end. That the occasions of war should 
 become more and more rare and ultimately cease alto- 
 gether is to be wished for devoutly and striven for 
 with hope of final success. 
 
 At the time that Mr. Roosevelt was appointed 
 assistant secretary of the navy, April, 1897, war with 
 Spain was already in the air. The peace which the 
 United States enjoyed with Spain was gradually be- 
 coming dishonorable on account of the bad manage- 
 ment of Spain in the island of Cuba. Every year the 
 yellow fever, which originated in the unsanitary con- 
 ditions in Cuba, spread to the shores of the United 
 States and took its deadly toll from American homes. 
 It was like living near a pest-house over which one has 
 no control. The United States could see what needed 
 to be done, knew how to do it, but could not, because 
 Spain would say, ' ' It is no affair of yours. ' ' But the 
 yellow fever was not all that tried the patience of the 
 American people. Within gun-shot of her shores 
 almost, a vile and corrupt government reigned supreme. 
 The officers of the law, hired minions of Spain, commit- 
 ted crimes against the people that made civilized 
 
 [142 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 nations shudder with horror. Insurrections which 
 broke out here and there were crushed with the cruelty 
 of tyranny, but rebellion was not put down in one part 
 of the island till it raised its determined head in 
 another. The cry for help crossed the channel and 
 kindled sympathy in every American breast. Yet the 
 United States government remained neutral and used 
 its good offices to bring about peace. 
 
 But its good offices were rejected by haughty Spain. 
 She refused even to consider the proposition to sell the 
 " Pearl of the Antilles " to the United States. She 
 would rule her possessions without the aid of other 
 nations and rule them in her own way. The natives, 
 stirred by the hatred that had been burning and 
 increasing in fervency for a half century, rose against 
 their tormentors anew and turned to the United States 
 for help. The islanders thought, and naturally, that 
 the United States were their God-given friends. They 
 had themselves struggled for liberty against a power- 
 ful enemy. 
 
 Then, too, the commercial interests of the United 
 States in Cuba were great. Horrifying reports of 
 conditions in the island reached the outside world; 
 and public opinion in the United States demanded in- 
 tervention, armed intervention if necessary, but inter- 
 vention at any cost. But President McKinley, who 
 was naturally a man of peace and who knew that 
 intervention meant war, and a war for which the 
 United States was ill prepared, hesitated. His atti- 
 
 [143] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 tude, however, did not change Mr. Roosevelt's con- 
 viction that war was inevitable. 
 
 One day he was sitting in the committee room in 
 Washington with his friend, Senator Lodge of Massa- 
 chusetts, when a German, a cigar manufacturer from 
 Boston, who travelled once or twice each year in Cuba, 
 entered for a conversation with Senator Lodge. He 
 told how, on his last trip, he had visited several cities 
 of the interior in which he had formerly done business 
 but which he found deserted and destroyed. The mis- 
 ery of the interior of the island was beyond descrip- 
 tion. In one place, he seated himself in a small hotel 
 for dinner. A meagre fare it was, but, while he ate, a 
 crowd of pale and hungry women, half-naked, with 
 starving babies at dry breasts, crawled about his chair 
 like dogs and fought for the crumbs that fell from his 
 plate. Big tears rolled down the German's cheeks as 
 he told the story. He had not been able to eat or 
 sleep, but had hastened to Washington in order to 
 report there what he had seen. 
 
 The story of the German made a deep impression 
 upon Mr. Roosevelt. He thought of his own children, 
 to whom he was strongly attached; and he, whose 
 anger the smile of an innocent baby can disarm, he, 
 who kisses the babies that fond mothers hold up to him 
 and around whom the children gather by thousands 
 when he visits any city in the United States, he, the 
 apostle of a pure, unspotted family life, who even 
 to-day as president does not enter a home before a 
 
 [144 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 woman, — he was convinced that the interests of 
 humanity demanded a war with Spain. He was in 
 sympathy with the press of the country which pointed 
 out that it was disadvantageous to the reputation of 
 the United States to let a European nation possess 
 American soil which it was incapable of governing 
 in a moral and enlightened manner. Though no one 
 in America questioned the historic title of Spain to 
 Cuba, every one thought that she had forfeited all the 
 rights which she had ever possessed by her failure to 
 give to the island a just and stable government. The 
 American people felt that the time had come when the 
 United States should demand that Spain withdraw 
 from American soil, and that the United States her- 
 self restore order in the distressed island in the name 
 of common humanity. Mr. Roosevelt, who was a firm 
 advocate of the Monroe Doctrine, repeatedly said in 
 the circle of his friends that the war must come and 
 the sooner the better. He believed war not only inevi- 
 table but even desirable, and would have liked to begin 
 with a master-stroke before Spain was prepared. 
 His friend, Francis E. Leupp, says : * 
 
 " One Sunday morning in March, 1898, we were sitting in 
 his library discussing the significance of the news that Cer- 
 vera's squadron was about to sail for Cuba, when he suddenly 
 rose and brought his hands together with a resounding clap. 
 
 "'If I could do what I pleased,' he exclaimed, 'I would 
 
 *From Leupp 's " The Man Roosevelt." Copyright, 1904, 
 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
 [145] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 send Spain notice to-day that we should consider her despatch 
 of that squadron a hostile act. Then, if she didn't heed the 
 warning, she would have to take the consequences.' 
 
 ' ' ' You are sure, ' I asked, ' that it is with unfriendly in- 
 tent that she is sending the squadron ? ' 
 
 1 ' ' What else can it be ? The Cubans have no navy ; there- 
 fore the squadron can not be coming to fight the insurgents. 
 The only naval power interested in Cuban affairs is the 
 United States. Spain is simply forestalling the " brush " 
 which she knows, as we do, is coming sooner or later. ' 
 
 ' ' ' And if she refused to withdraw the orders to Cervera — ' 
 " ' I should send out a squadron to meet his on the high 
 seas and smash it! Then I would force the fighting from 
 that day to the end of the war. ' ' ' 
 
 Although Mr. Koosevelt and the public at large 
 advocated war energetically, the members of the cabi- 
 net were divided in opinion. Several of the secreta- 
 ries favored peace, others could not come to any defi- 
 nite decision, and the president himself hesitated. 
 i ' But since he had learned, ' ' says Leupp, ' ' that Mr. 
 Roosevelt had formed a definite opinion about what 
 the situation demanded, he sent for him one morning 
 and listened to his plans. "When the question was dis- 
 cussed in the cabinet the same day, the president 
 remarked with a smile, ' Gentlemen, not one of you 
 has put half as much enthusiasm into his expressions 
 as Mr. Roosevelt, our assistant secretary of the navy. 
 He has laid out the whole programme of the war. ' 
 
 " ' Could you not induce him to work out a written 
 report as a model for us ? ' queried one of the members 
 of the cabinet in the same tone as that of the president. 
 
 [146] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 a i 
 
 I can do better than that,' replied President Mc- 
 Kinley, < I can call him in and let you hear for your- 
 selves.' " 
 
 The proposal met with general approval and Mr. 
 Roosevelt was sent for. He accepted the invitation 
 at once. President McKinley asked him a few lead- 
 ing questions to give him a start, and the whole cabinet 
 leaned back in their chairs and listened to a second 
 edition of what the president had heard before; but 
 this time it was repeated with even greater enthusiasm 
 and accompanied with many expressive gestures. 
 When he had finished and left the room, the president 
 smiled, three or four of the others laughed aloud. 
 Those who did not laugh were impressed by the seri- 
 ousness of the situation, though they found something 
 amusing in what appeared to them to be the exagger- 
 ated enthusiasm and radical views of the assistant 
 secretary. That very evening the scene in the cabi- 
 net room was the topic of discussion in the Washington 
 clubs. 
 
 But Mr. Roosevelt did not confine himself to mak- 
 ing speeches in favor of the war and working out 
 plans for the actual conflict, but he did everything pos- 
 sible to get ready for hostilities so that the outbreak of 
 the war might not find the United States wholly unpre- 
 pared. _ Though he was only assistant secretary and 
 his duties consisted in the main in carrying out the 
 orders of his superior, Secretary Long, he saw to it 
 that his commands were carried out with energy and 
 
 [147] 
 
FROM KOUG-H RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 » 
 
 despatch. He aroused the whole sluggish, awkward 
 government machinery and was the soul of the Navy 
 Department. Secretary Long could very truthfully 
 say of him after he had resigned, " He was very effi- 
 cient in the discharge of his duties, and the entire 
 department felt the stimulus of his personality for a 
 long time." 
 
 The care of the fleet rested in a large measure on 
 his shoulders, and it had to be taken for granted that, 
 in case of war with Spain, the navy would have enough 
 to do. In order to acquaint himself with naval affairs, 
 he studied carefully the technical naval literature of 
 the English, the French, and the Germans, and made 
 himself thoroughly familiar with the condition of the 
 Spanish navy. The Lista de Buqnes informed him as 
 to the number and tonnage of the Spanish ships, and 
 though he knew that much of what he found there, 
 although it looked well on paper, was old and worm- 
 eaten, nevertheless he was worried to know that the 
 Spaniards, on account of their torpedo-destroyers, had 
 an advantage over the American fleet. The motion of 
 Senator Lodge to appropriate money to build more 
 torpedo-destroyers had not carried, and Mr. Roose- 
 velt, therefore, looked forward with some anxiety to a 
 sea-fight. That the Spanish destroyers did not seri- 
 ously harm the American fleet was not due to the supe- 
 riority of the American ships but to the inactivity and 
 mistakes of the Spanish officers. 
 
 Congress had refused the request for a very large 
 
 [148] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 appropriation for increasing the navy, it granted, 
 however, other important concessions to Mr. Roose- 
 velt. Soon after entering upon the duties of his office, 
 he asked for $500,000 for the purpose of buying ammu- 
 nition, and Congress gave it to him. But when a few 
 months later he sought $800,000 more for the same 
 purpose, Congress hesitated and inquired what he had 
 done with the first $500,000. Mr. Roosevelt replied 
 that he had used it in buying powder and guns and that 
 every grain of the powder had been consumed. He 
 also said that the $800,000 asked for would be spent for 
 ammunition for target practice. Congress voted the 
 second allowance, also. 
 
 In this way, he saw to it that the sailor boys were 
 instructed in shooting, " for in war," he once said, 
 " only the shots that hit count." But he did not stop 
 with target practice. He bought and manned ships 
 for the invasion of Cuba, which he saw must ultimately 
 be made. He enlisted and drilled recruits, and did all 
 in his power to remove the old jealousy between the 
 officers and the engineers. He united the warships of 
 the Atlantic into one squadron, that they might have 
 an opportunity for manoeuvring, so that there might 
 be concerted action when the hour came for an attack 
 upon Cuba or the coast of Spain. The torpedo-boats 
 were organized into a flotilla and thoroughly disci- 
 plined. He recalled the smaller vessels from Euro- 
 pean and South American waters and selected the 
 steamers, which, in case of war, were to be used as 
 
 [149] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 auxiliary cruisers, and held them in readiness. He col- 
 lected provisions and coal, and munitions of war of 
 every description, and stored them at suitable places. 
 It was due to the foresight of Mr. Roosevelt that 
 Admiral Dewey found ammunition and coal at Hong 
 Kong at the outbreak of the war and was thus enabled 
 to reach Manila a week before he had been expected. 
 
 That Mr. Roosevelt encountered many difficulties in 
 the discharge of his duties is not surprising. There 
 have always been people who are ready to take advan- 
 tage of their country in an hour of need. He met with 
 a painful experience when he came to buy coal vessels 
 at the beginning of the war. Many boats were offered 
 to him, it is true, but they were in such miserable con- 
 dition that they were far more ready for the dry-dock 
 than for carrying coal on the high sea; and the 
 prices demanded for them were enormous — frequently 
 wholly out of proportion to their value if they had 
 been in good repair. 
 
 Now, Mr. Roosevelt might have compiled the names 
 of the ships, their owners, and the quality of the 
 vessels and the prices demanded for them and pub- 
 lished the list in the newspapers. That would have cre- 
 ated a sensation, and the owners would have been 
 marked; but the excitement of the people would have 
 soon subsided and the government would have had no 
 ships. If, on the other hand, he paid the prices asked 
 by the agents, who were unwilling to take less inas- 
 much as they knew that the government was at their 
 
 [150 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 mercy, he might expect at the close of the war to be 
 reprimanded or even sued for mismanagement of pub- 
 lic business, for the prices demanded were many times 
 what could be got for the vessels in time of peace. 
 But there was no way out of the dilemma. The gov- 
 ernment had to have ships and there was no other way 
 to get them. That he protested against the exorbi- 
 tant prices and sometimes expressed his ill-humor 
 and disgust with the men who demanded them, the 
 words of Mr. Leupp,* who was an eye witness to one 
 interview between Mr. Roosevelt and an agent for the 
 owners of some vessels, will show : 
 
 " I burst in upon him one day at the department without 
 warning, and found him in the middle of the floor, indulg- 
 ing in some very spirited talk to a visitor. As I was hastily 
 withdrawing, he called me back. 
 
 1 ' ' Stay here, ' said he ; ' I want to see you. ' Then he 
 abruptly turned from me and again faced the third party, 
 in whom I recognized, as the light fell on his face, a lawyer 
 of some prominence and an office-holder under a former ad- 
 ministration. Mr. Roosevelt's teeth were set, and very much 
 in evidence, in the peculiar way they always are when he is 
 angry. His spectacle-lenses seemed to throw off electric sparks 
 as his head moved quickly this way and that in speaking; 
 and his right fist came down from time to time upon the op- 
 posite palm as if it were an adversary's face. And this was 
 about the way he delivered himself: 
 
 " ' Don't you feel ashamed to come to me to-day with an- 
 other offer, after what you did yesterday? Don't you think 
 
 *From Leupp 's " The Man Roosevelt." Copyright, 1904, 
 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
 [151] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 that to sell one rotten ship to the Government is enough for a 
 single week? Are you in such a hurry that you couldn't 
 wait even over Sunday to force your damaged goods upon 
 the United States? Is it an excess of patriotism that brings 
 you here day after day, in this way, or only your realization 
 of our necessities ? ' 
 
 ' ' ' Why, our clients — ' began the lawyer. 
 
 " ' Yes, I know all about your clients,' burst in the as- 
 sistant secretary. ' I congratulate them on having an attor- 
 ney who will do work for them which he wouldn't have the 
 face to do for himself. I should think, after having enjoyed 
 the honors you have at the hands of the Government, you 'd 
 feel a keen pride in your present occupation! No, I don't 
 want any more of your old tubs. The one I bought yester- 
 day is good for nothing except to sink somewhere in the 
 path of the enemy's fleet. It will be God's mercy if she 
 does n 't go down with brave men on her — men who go to 
 war and risk their lives, instead of staying home to sell rotten 
 hulks to the Government.' 
 
 ' ' The air of the attorney as he bowed himself out was almost 
 pitiable. The special glint did not fade from Mr. Roosevelt's 
 glasses, nor did his jaws relax or his fist unclench, till the 
 door closed on the retreating figure. Then his face lighted 
 with a smile as he advanced to greet me. 
 
 ' ' ' You came just in time, ' he cried. ' I wanted you to 
 hear what I had to say to that fellow ; not ' — and here his 
 voice rose on the high falsetto wave which is always a sign 
 that he is enjoying an idea while framing it in words — 
 ' not that it would add materially to the sum of your pleasure, 
 but that it would humiliate him to have any one else present 
 while I gave him his punishment. It is the only means I have 
 of getting even.' " 
 
 In spite of all such difficulties, Mr. Eoosevelt ad- 
 hered firmly to his purpose to prepare the American 
 navy for a war with Spain. In the meantime, the 
 
 [152] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 waves of national indignation against Spain rose 
 higher and higher. It needed only some outside stimu- 
 lus to enkindle that indignation into the flames of 
 war. 
 
 The fatal stimulus came. Apparently as an act of 
 national courtesy but in reality for the protection of 
 American interests in Cuba, the United States sent the 
 battleship Maine to Havana, and on the evening of 
 February 15, 1898, it was blown up in Havana harbor 
 and two hundred and sixty American sailors were 
 killed. 
 
 The Spaniards were at once accused of having caused 
 the explosion. The court of inquiry, composed of 
 Americans and Spaniards, which was immediately 
 appointed, could not agree. The Americans main- 
 tained that the disaster was due to a mine which had 
 been accidentally or purposely set off; the Spaniards 
 insisted that one of the ship's own magazine chests 
 had exploded. No definite proof could be found to 
 show that any one was to blame for the destruction of 
 the vessel and the death of the sailors. The Ameri- 
 can people were almost wild with rage against Spain 
 and clamored loudly for war. 
 
 President McKinley in response to the demand of 
 the people asked Spain to withdraw her land and naval 
 forces from Cuba before April 23. Spain replied by 
 recalling her plenipotentiary from Washington, and 
 handing the American representative at Madrid his 
 passport. War now actually existed, and on April 20, 
 
 [153] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 1898, President McKinley issued a proclamation to 
 that effect. 
 
 The finished programme which we have already 
 spoken of Mr. Roosevelt's presenting to President Mc- 
 Kinley and his cabinet provided not only that Cuba 
 should be made the scene of war, but that the Spanish 
 possessions in the East should also be taken. The man 
 to whom he wished to entrust that task was Admiral 
 Dewey. Though Admiral Dewey was called a fop 
 and dandy in the United States, Mr. Roosevelt knew 
 that he had a lion's heart and would know the right 
 moment to strike. He had already been sent into 
 Chinese waters where he was to stay till he received 
 the orders which should call him into action. When 
 the War Department ordered the Olympia home, Mr. 
 Roosevelt got the order revoked and sent a cablegram 
 to Admiral Dewey, "Keep the Olympia. Provide 
 yourself with coal." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt had done all in his power to get the 
 fleet in war trim, and hardly had President McKinley 
 declared war, when Mr. Roosevelt signed the des- 
 patch to Admiral Dewey which ordered him to sail 
 into the port of Manila and to capture or destroy the 
 Spanish fleet. Only the extensive preparations of Mr. 
 Roosevelt made it possible for Admiral Dewey to 
 enter Manila Bay on the night of April 30 and May 1 
 and to destroy all the Spanish ships but one in a fight 
 of less than two hours. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt considered his work as done at the 
 
 [1541 
 
FKOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 outbreak of the war. He had made preparations for 
 the struggle, had sharpened the weapons of war; and 
 now asked to be relieved. ' ' I have nothing more to do 
 here," he said, " I must go to war myself." Presi- 
 dent McKinley and Secretary of the Navy Long both 
 urged him to keep his position, as they felt he was 
 more needed there than at the front. His friends also 
 attempted to dissuade him from exposing himself to 
 the vicissitudes of a campaign ; the women of the cabi- 
 net reminded him that he had six children, the oldest 
 of whom was only ten and the youngest a few months, 
 and that he would leave a great responsibility on his 
 wife if he went and were killed — besides the sacrifice 
 was not necessary, as there were many young men 
 who were ready and eager to go. But in spite of all 
 entreaties he stuck to his purpose. " I have done what 
 I could to bring about the war," he said, " because I 
 believed that it would come anyway sooner or later; 
 now that it has come, I have no right to ask others to 
 fight it out while I remain at home." He, therefore, 
 closed up his affairs and started for the South as soon 
 as a suitable command could be found for him. 
 
 [155] 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 EOOSEVELT IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 THE regular army of the United States, which 
 ought, according to law, to number thirty thou- 
 sand men, consisted at the opening of the Spanish- 
 American War of only twenty-six thousand; and, as 
 the fighting strength of the militia of the various States 
 is not great, a call for volunteers was issued. Con- 
 gress further provided for the enlisting of three regi- 
 ments of cavalry, as it was thought that the plains of 
 the West and Southwest with their many bold riders 
 and fearless marksmen would furnish very dashing 
 and successful chargers. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt and his friend Leonard Wood, who 
 also wished to take an active part in the war, had for 
 days been trying to get a suitable command. Several 
 generals agreed to take them on their staffs ; but they 
 declined on the ground that they preferred to go to 
 the front. Mr. Wood had hoped to get a commission 
 from his native State, Massachusetts, and Mr. Roose- 
 velt had applied to the colonel of the Seventy-first, 
 with whom he was acquainted, but both had been re- 
 jected. The secretary of war, Mr. Alger, offered Mr. 
 
 [156] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Roosevelt one of the three new cavalry regiments to 
 be organized. Although Mr. Roosevelt had belonged 
 to the State militia of New York from 1884 to 1888 and 
 had served as lieutenant and for three years as cap- 
 tain in the Eighth Regiment, he had had no war expe- 
 rience and did not feel capable of taking command of 
 a regiment. He, therefore, replied to the secretary 
 of war that he should be satisfied as lieutenant col- 
 onel if his friend Wood were made colonel. It would 
 take at least a month, he said, to learn how to lead a 
 regiment, and even a month he did not like to waste in 
 that way. President McKinley and Mr. Alger ap- 
 proved of Mr. Roosevelt's plan and appointed Wood 
 as colonel and Roosevelt as lieutenant colonel of the 
 First Volunteer Regiment of ''Rough Riders." 
 
 Colonel Leonard Wood had been originally a physi- 
 cian and surgeon, and, as a member of the medical 
 staff, had been with General Miles against the Apaches. 
 Being naturally a man of strong physique and free 
 from debilitating excesses of every kind, he had hard- 
 ened himself until he was almost equal to the Apache 
 in power of physical endurance. Though he was a 
 doctor, he had a certain longing for adventure which 
 prompted him to like the life of a warrior. He had 
 received the medal for courage shown in several expe- 
 ditions under his leadership against the Indians. His 
 friendship with Mr. Roosevelt was only of late date, 
 for he was assistant secretary of war when Mr. 
 Roosevelt became acquainted with him. The two men 
 
 [157] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 soon found that they had much in common : they were 
 both men of strong personality; they both had high 
 ideals of public service; and they both believed thor- 
 oughly in the war with Spain and realized the impor- 
 tance of prosecuting it with vigor. 
 
 The assistance of his more experienced friend was 
 a great help to Mr. Roosevelt, but the favor bestowed 
 was not all on one side. Colonel Wood would have 
 found difficulty in equipping the regiment in the time 
 at their disposal had it not been for the aid of Mr. 
 Roosevelt. The regiment was to be raised from the 
 Southern and Western States: from Arizona, New 
 Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. No sooner was it 
 known that Mr. Roosevelt was to be on the staff of 
 the regiment than requests for enlistment poured in 
 from all sides. A brigade, or even a division, it 
 seemed, could easily have been formed, and it was 
 often difficult to decide who should be accepted. 
 
 The difficulty was made all the greater from the fact 
 that the regiment was at first limited to seven hun- 
 dred and eighty men and in a general way to the 
 States before mentioned. Later the number was 
 raised to one thousand men, and Mr. Roosevelt was 
 able to enlist some men from other States who were 
 especially desirable applicants. It was a strange 
 combination that was finally brought together. The 
 majority of the men were cowboys, who had been used 
 to the saddle and knew how to use their guns. To 
 them were added the hunter of the backwoods, who 
 
 [158 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 was not afraid to follow the grizzly bear into his own 
 wilderness alone, the trap-setter of the Rockies, the 
 path-finder and the Indian fighter, and even the Indian 
 himself. And alongside the sons of the prairies were 
 members of the most aristocratic clubs of New York 
 and Boston, students of Harvard, Yale, and Prince- 
 ton who had begged to be enlisted as privates, and 
 even members of the New York police force sought a 
 place under their former chief. These men were not re- 
 ceived, however, unless they could prove superior abil- 
 ity as horsemen and as shooters and were physically 
 able to endure the hardships to which the men of the 
 plains were accustomed. 
 
 To transform such a mixed company into an effici- 
 ent regiment was a task to stagger less determined 
 men than Wood and Roosevelt. Even Mr. Roosevelt's 
 optimism was not proof against doubt when he saw 
 the various classes represented in the regiment. 
 There were men enlisted with whom he had one time 
 been on familiar terms : there was a Harvard student, 
 a well-known sportsman in Roosevelt's college days, 
 and Robert Monroe Ferguson, who had had an inter- 
 est in Roosevelt's farm on the Little Missouri and had 
 been his companion on many a hunting trip. These 
 men had both enlisted as privates, and there were 
 other men in the ranks that he had, at one time or an- 
 other, known in a less intimate way. About fifty of 
 these men who had enlisted in Washington, he called 
 together before the oath was administered and ex- 
 
 [159] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 plained to them what they might expect. He told them 
 that they would not only have to fight but that they 
 would have to do disagreeable, monotonous work day 
 in and day out ; that they would have to defy fever as 
 well as the bullets of the enemy ; that they would have 
 to hold themselves in readiness to obey every com- 
 mand without hesitation, were it to occupy a fort or to 
 charge the enemy. He informed them further that 
 no soldier had a right to complain but that it was his 
 duty to do faithfully and cheerfully whatever he was 
 commanded. He then said that they were still at lib- 
 erty to go back to their homes if they wished, but that, 
 after they had taken the oath, there would be no turn- 
 ing aside, no giving up. But not one faltered. They 
 were sent immediately to San Antonio where the regi- 
 ment was to be formed. Colonel Wood went to take 
 charge of the regiment, but Mr. Roosevelt remained in 
 Washington a few days longer in order to hasten as 
 much as possible the regimental supplies. 
 
 Colonel Wood and Mr. Roosevelt were very eager 
 to get into the firing line. They knew, however, that 
 the most difficult work would be given to the regular 
 army, and they did all in their power to get for their 
 regiment the same equipment as was given to the 
 regular army, in the hope that their regiment might 
 be joined to a brigade of the regular army and sent to 
 the front, even if the war lasted only a short time. 
 
 In the matter of equipment, they were successful. 
 They received for their regiment the Krag-Joergensen 
 
 [160 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 carbines of the same pattern then in use in the cavalry 
 of the standing army. As sabres were entirely un- 
 known to the sons of the prairies, the leaders decided 
 to substitute for the sabres revolvers, with which the 
 men had been familiar all their lives. On account of 
 the energetic action of Mr. Eoosevelt, the equipment 
 was on hand in a very short time, and the necessary 
 drilling begun, which was not as difficult as it might 
 appear, for the regiment was not drilled for parade 
 but for service in the field. The task was made much 
 easier because the officers as well as the men in the 
 ranks were eager to learn everything as quickly as 
 possible, for they knew that only by so doing could 
 they hope to get to the front. Besides, the men were 
 already skilled horsemen and crack shots ; they needed 
 only to be drilled to act in concert and to obey com- 
 mands instantly. 
 
 Those who know something of the time necessary to 
 drill an ordinary regiment for the regular army will 
 be surprised to learn that in one month the First Regi- 
 ment of Rough Riders could bear a very favorable 
 comparison with the regulars. One would be tempted 
 to believe that Wood and Roosevelt were satisfied 
 with a mastery of the more important movements and 
 excused the rest by saying that a regiment could not 
 be thoroughly drilled in so short a time, and besides, 
 that they wished to give to the men as much freedom 
 as possible. But such was not the case. With the 
 exception of the use of the sabre, which we have 
 
 [1611 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 already said was not attempted at all, all the manoeu- 
 vres of the cavalry of the regular army were prac- 
 tised. Though with us the parade drill is usually 
 learned more readily than the drill in the open field, 
 with Eoosevelt's regiment it was different. They 
 learned quickly how to act on the firing line, on patrol 
 and on outpost duty and encountered their greatest 
 trouble in the parade drills. 
 
 Many of the men had lived in the saddle and had 
 scarcely walked a mile in their lives. To them march- 
 ing on foot was torture. On the other hand, they had 
 in the main grown up upon the frontiers ; they knew 
 what it was to meet unlooked-for dangers and to take 
 the advantage of every possible covering which nature 
 offered them ; and above all they had acquired an indi- 
 vidual independence and initiative which made the 
 service in the open field easy for them. 
 
 Much more interesting and comfortable for them 
 became the work when they began drill on horseback. 
 Every morning the regiment marched out into the 
 country near San Antonio for drill and was put 
 through all the manoeuvres known to the regular cav- 
 alry service. In addition, they were trained as 
 mounted infantry, a form of service which appealed 
 to Mr. Roosevelt very strongly, for the reason that it 
 unites the merits of cavalry and infantry: it has the 
 mobility of cavalry and the fighting supremacy of 
 infantry. During our own colonial wars of recent 
 years, the mounted infantry has come into its own. 
 
 [162 1 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 In spite of his confidence in mounted infantry, Mr. 
 Roosevelt thought highly of the effectiveness of cav- 
 alry properly trained, and he drilled his regiment 
 accordingly. He says in his "Rough Riders":* 
 
 "As it turned out, we were not used mounted at all, so 
 that our preparations on this point came to nothing. In a 
 way, I have always regretted this. We thought we should 
 at least be employed as cavalry in the great campaign against 
 Havana in the fall ; and from the beginning I began to 
 train my men in shock tactics for use against hostile cavalry. 
 My belief was that the horse was really the weapon with 
 which to strike the first blow. I felt that if my men could be 
 trained to hit their adversaries with their horses, it was a 
 matter of small amount whether, at the moment when the 
 onset occurred, sabres, lances, or revolvers were used ; while 
 in the subsequent melee I believed the revolver would out- 
 class cold steel as a weapon. But this is all guesswork, for 
 we never had occasion to try the experiment. ' ' 
 
 The regiment camped near San Antonio, and after 
 drill, in the evenings, there were lively times about 
 there. In the beginning, the men were not as careful 
 as they might have been in regard to cleanliness, but 
 Colonel Wood made that his particular duty and soon 
 they had a neat and orderly camp. The spirit of the 
 men was excellent. All of them were there because 
 they wanted to be, they were eager to learn so that 
 they could go to the front, and willingly obeyed all 
 orders without murmuring. The strict discipline of 
 
 •" The Rough Riders," by Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright 
 England and America, Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 [163] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the soldier's life may have been hard for some of the 
 backwoodsmen and rangers; but they never com- 
 plained and, if they failed in the discharge of any 
 duty, they failed through ignorance, not from 
 design. 
 
 The relation existing between the men was most 
 friendly. For instance, a cook one day summoned the 
 colonel and three majors to dinner with these words: 
 " If you fellows don't come soon, everything will be 
 cold." A private soldier who had learned the manual 
 of arms with difficulty proudly presented arms when 
 Mr. Roosevelt passed, and added with a friendly nod 
 of the head, " Good-evening, Colonel. " One night 
 when the mosquitoes were very annoying, Colonels 
 "Wood and Roosevelt stepped out of their tents and 
 saw a soldier on guard who was also fighting mos- 
 quitoes. He put his gun aside, sat down on the ground 
 and began deliberately to hunt for an insect which had 
 got up his leg. When he perceived that his superiors 
 were watching, he nodded in a friendly manner and 
 remarked as though it were no breach of military 
 etiquette, ' ' These insects are intolerable. ' ' Such 
 little, unmilitary slips of the tongue were always 
 taken as they were meant, and one word was sufficient 
 to remind the men that they were soldiers. 
 
 A particularly picturesque group, one possible only 
 in an American regiment, were the Indians. They 
 belonged to the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and 
 Creeks, and were in only a few cases full-bloods. 
 
 [164] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 These native Americans were always on the best 
 terms with their white brothers. 
 
 Roosevelt says, in the book previously quoted: 
 
 " Not all of the Indians were from the Indian Territory. 
 One of the gamest fighters and best soldiers in the regiment 
 was Pollock, a full-blooded Pawnee. He had been educated. 
 like most of the other Indians, at one of those admirable In- 
 dian schools which have added so much to the total of the 
 small credit account with which the white race balance the 
 very unpleasant debit account of its dealings with the red. 
 Pollock was a silent, solitary fellow — an excellent penman, 
 much given to drawing pictures. When we got down to 
 Santiago he developed into the regimental clerk. I never 
 suspected him of having a sense of humor until one day, at 
 the end of our stay in Cuba, as he was sitting in the adju- 
 tant's tent working over the returns, there turned up a 
 trooper of the First who had been acting as barber. Eying 
 him with immovable face Pollock asked, in a guttural voice, 
 ' Do you cut hair ? ' The man answered ' Yes' ; and Pol- 
 lock continued, ' Then you 'd better cut mine,' muttering, 
 in an explanatory soliloquy, ' Don't want to wear my hair 
 long like a wild Indian when I 'm in civilized warfare.' 
 
 " Another Indian came from Texas. He was a brakeman 
 on the Southern Pacific, and wrote telling me he was an 
 American Indian, and that he wanted to enlist. His name 
 was Colbert, which at once attracted my attention ; for I was 
 familiar with the history of the Cherokees and Chickasaws 
 during the eighteenth century, when they lived east of the 
 Mississippi. Early in that century various traders, chiefly 
 Scotchmen, settled among them, and the half-breed descend- 
 ants of one named Colbert became the most noted chiefs of 
 the Chickasaws. I summoned the applicant before me, and 
 found that he was an excellent man, and, as I had supposed, 
 a descendant of the old Chickasaw chiefs. 
 
 ' ' He brought into the regiment, by the way, his ' partner, ' 
 
 [165] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 a white man. The two had been inseparable companions for 
 some years, and continued so in the regiment. Every man 
 who has lived in the West knows that, vindictive though the 
 hatred between the white man and the Indian is when they 
 stand against one another in what may be called their tribal 
 relations, yet that men of Indian blood, when adopted into 
 white communities, are usually treated precisely like any 
 one else. 
 
 " Colbert was not the only Indian whose name I recognized. 
 There was a Cherokee named Adair, whom, upon inquiry, I 
 found to be descended from the man who, a century and a half 
 ago, wrote a ponderous folio, to this day of great interest, 
 about the Cherokees, with whom he had spent the best years 
 of his life as a trader and agent. 
 
 " I don't know that I ever came across a man with a 
 really sweeter nature than another Cherokee named Holder- 
 man. He was an excellent soldier, and for a long time acted 
 as cook for the headquarters mess. He was a half-breed, and 
 came of a soldier stock on both sides and through both races. 
 He explained to me once why he had come to the war; that 
 it was because his people always had fought when there was 
 a war, and he could not feel happy to stay at home when the 
 flag was going into battle. ' ' 
 
 On May 29, the regiment received the long-looked- 
 for order to go to the front. Their first stopping 
 place was Tampa, Florida, and the transport steamer 
 did not really weigh anchor until June 13. 
 
 The journey from San Antonio to Tampa was a try- 
 ing one. They were on the train forty-eight hours, 
 and when they reached their destination, they found 
 that no preparations had been made for them, no food 
 for the men, no water for the horses. They got off 
 the train nine miles out of Tampa because they knew 
 
 [166] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 that they would be in worse shape if they entered the 
 city under the circumstances. Colonel "Wood ordered 
 camp pitched in the most desirable place he could 
 find. The commissary, however, was helpless, he 
 could do nothing for men nor horses ; and Mr. Roose- 
 velt bought provisions out of his own pocket, and for 
 the time the regiment was provided for. 
 
 A few days later an order was received from Tampa 
 for the regiment to take the train for Tampa at 2 :00 
 a.m. But that order contained also a disappoint- 
 ment, for it called for only eight companies of seventy 
 men each and commanded that all the horses and the 
 greater part of the baggage should be left behind. 
 The regiment originally consisted of ten companies of 
 one hundred men each, and the selection of those who 
 should go was a hard task. The men begged and wept 
 like children not to be left behind. It was also a 
 severe blow to the cowboys to be compelled to give up 
 their horses. But they did not complain, and those 
 who drew the lucky lots were jubilant and ready to 
 start at 2 :00 a.m. 
 
 But the difficulties were not yet ended. They had 
 been ordered to go, but no way had been prepared to 
 reach Tampa. Mr. Roosevelt was afraid that the 
 whole regiment would be left behind, because they 
 could not get on their transports in time. Regiments of 
 regulars entered the empty coaches but they seemed 
 no better off than the volunteers, for the cars did not 
 move. Some distance away was another line leading 
 
 [ 167 ] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 to Tampa and the regiment was marched through the 
 darkness to it, but with no better result. At last, how- 
 ever, Mr. Eoosevelt found a number of empty coal 
 cars of which he immediately took possession. He 
 appealed to an engineer to run the train to Tampa on 
 the best time possible. Covered with coal dust, they 
 finally reached the pier at Tampa and saw the trans- 
 port ships in waiting. The men were bubbling over 
 with joy for they thought they should soon be upon 
 the water. 
 
 But the troubles of the regiment were not yet over, 
 at least for the commanders. They could not find out 
 which steamer they were to take. They inquired of 
 every general they saw, but no one seemed to know 
 anything about it. For hours they searched for the 
 quartermaster, who ought to know, but they could not 
 find him. It was insisted that he slept on one of the 
 transports while thousands of men were waiting for 
 his orders. Be that as it may, he was at last found, and 
 ordered the "Rough Riders" to the Yucatan. 
 
 Then by chance Mr. Roosevelt learned that the 
 quartermaster had selected the same ship for two 
 other regiments. He, therefore, hastened to his regi- 
 ment and brought them on double-quick to the water, 
 while Colonel Wood went out to the Yucatan, which 
 lay in mid-stream, and had her brought to the land. 
 In spite of the protests of other regiments, that had 
 now put in an appearance, the "Rough Riders," with- 
 out horses, went on board. After thirty-six hours of 
 
 [168] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 hard work and more trying excitement, the men were 
 glad of a rest upon the transport. 
 
 But their patience was to be tried yet further. On 
 account of a rumor — a false rumor, as was after- 
 wards learned — that Spanish warships were coming 
 between Florida and Cuba, Major-General Shafter 
 ordered the departure to be postponed until the way 
 was clear. For six days the transports were held in 
 Tampa by the groundless fear of a hostile war-vessel. 
 Time hung heavily on the hands of the soldiers who 
 were eager for a fight ; and everybody breathed a sigh 
 of relief when the transports moved out into the open 
 sea, under the protection of the American warships. 
 
 The destination of the transports was known only 
 to General Shafter, which was strange, for up to this 
 time the War Department had let all their plans be 
 published in such a way that the Spaniards always 
 knew beforehand what the Americans were going to 
 do. For instance, the despatching of a fast cruiser to 
 Cuban waters for the purpose of finding out what was 
 being done there was announced in the American 
 press two days before the departure of the ship, so 
 that the Spaniards were looking for it when it hove in 
 sight and watched its movements with interest. For 
 these reasons, the sealed orders under which the 
 transports were sailing kept the excitement of the 
 soldiers at the highest pitch, for they felt that some- 
 thing was in the wind. 
 
 The voyage itself was not particularly pleasant. 
 
 [169] 
 
FKOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The men were crowded together like sardines in a box ; 
 the water was bad; the meat, poor. But since they 
 were all jolly young men inured to privations, they 
 did not feel the discomforts so much; and then, too, 
 they knew that the voyage would be short and they 
 could stand anything for a time. 
 
 The transports, thirty in all, with fifteen thousand 
 men on board, in a long line one behind the other 
 headed south, then east, closely guarded by all kinds 
 of warships, from mail-ships and fast cruisers to reg- 
 ular battleships and torpedo boats. When on the sev- 
 enth day the fleet turned south again, they knew that 
 they were going to Santiago. On the morning of June 
 22, the Yucatan cast anchor in the port of Daiquiri, a 
 few miles east of Santiago. 
 
 The same confusion that accompanied the embark- 
 ing reigned again when they came to land. After the 
 warships had bombarded Daiquiri and vicinity for a 
 time to drive away any Spaniards who might offer 
 resistance to the landing, each commanding officer 
 had to see to it himself that his regiment got to shore. 
 On account of the small number of boats and the 
 strong surf that was rolling upon the coast, it took 
 several days for the entire expedition to disembark. 
 Mr. Eoosevelt's regiment was one of the first to get 
 ashore, for the commander of one of the smaller war- 
 ships, who had been his adjutant while he was secre- 
 tary of the navy, helped in getting the regiment ashore. 
 The entire regiment was enabled to disembark during 
 
 [170] 
 
FROM BOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the afternoon. The horses of the officers and the few 
 mules that they were permitted to take with them 
 were on another transport ; they were thrown into the 
 water to swim to land. One of Mr. Roosevelt's two 
 horses was drowned, but the other one swam ashore. 
 
 The corps which, under the command of Major- 
 General Shafter, was to carry on the war in Cuba, con- 
 sisted of two infantry divisions and one cavalry, of 
 three brigades each. Major-General Wheeler, a vet- 
 eran of the Civil War and a dashing cavalry leader, 
 commanded the cavalry. His second brigade was 
 under Brigadier-General Young, and was composed of 
 the First and the Tenth Regiments of regular cavalry, 
 the latter a negro regiment, and the First Regiment of 
 Volunteers, usually known as the " Rough Riders." 
 The first detachment of infantry which went ashore 
 was under the command of Brigadier-General Law- 
 son ; they took upon themselves to protect the landing 
 from the enemy and that very afternoon came in con- 
 tact with Spaniards who, instead of contesting the 
 landing of the troops as they might easily have done 
 on account of the nature of the ground, withdrew, 
 without striking a blow, toward Santiago. 
 
 But old General Wheeler, who had command on land 
 as long as General Shafter was with the ships, prided 
 himself on dealing the first blow with his cavalry, 
 though he had very few horses. He ordered General 
 Young to advance early the next morning from the 
 little village of Siboney toward Santiago and to attack 
 
 [ 171 ] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the enemy wherever found. Eoosevelt started early 
 in the afternoon for Siboney to join the other regi- 
 ments of the brigade. About midnight the ' ' Rough 
 Riders " reached their destination and went into 
 camp for a few hours of restless sleep before they 
 should receive the order to advance again. Their 
 baggage had not yet come ashore and the soldiers had 
 only what food they carried with them. The officers 
 had none. Colonel Roosevelt's equipment consisted 
 of a rain-coat and a tooth-brush. 
 
 Two roads, from one to one and a half miles apart, 
 lead from Siboney to Santiago. The eastern is the 
 better road; the western is, in fact, no more than a 
 pathway over the mountain and through dense woods. 
 The valley between the two roads is covered with a 
 heavy undergrowth. General Young advanced on the 
 eastern road with the First and the Tenth Regiments 
 and Wood and Roosevelt took the western (to the 
 left) over the mountains. The two roads come 
 together near the small village of Las Guasimas, and 
 there the two commands were to unite. 
 
 The first news to reach "Washington from the scene 
 of war was of disaster. It was reported that Wood 
 and Roosevelt, on account of recklessness and care- 
 lessness, had fallen into an ambush, that Wood was 
 dead and the regiment badly cut up. The news caused 
 great excitement in Washington and a member of 
 Congress moved that Roosevelt be court-martialled. 
 
 Fortunately the rumor was false. It had origi- 
 
 [H2] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 nated with one of the war reporters (eighty-nine of 
 whom accompanied the army), who had met some 
 wounded men from the regiment and drawn upon his 
 imagination for the rest. In reality, the regiment had 
 not fallen into an ambush nor was there any cause for 
 the charge of carelessness or recklessness. That 
 every precaution was taken is proved by the state- 
 ment * of Richard Harding Davis, who followed the 
 regiment as a correspondent: 
 
 " As soon as the Rough Riders had reached the top of 
 the ridge not twenty minutes after they had left camp, which 
 was the first opportunity that presented itself, Colonel Wood 
 took the precautions he was said to have neglected. He or- 
 dered Captain Capron to proceed with his troop in front of 
 the column as an advance guard, and to choose a ' point ' 
 of five men skilled as scouts and trailers. Still in advance 
 of these he placed two Cuban scouts. The column then con- 
 tinued along the trail in single file. The Cubans were just 
 at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards ; the ' point ' 
 of five picked men under Sergeant Byrne and duty-Sergeant 
 Fish followed them at a distance of a hundred yards, and then 
 came Capron 's troop of sixty men strung out in single file: 
 No flankers were placed for the reason that the dense under- 
 growth and the tangle of vines that stretched from the 
 branches of the trees to the bushes below made it a physical 
 impossibility for man or beast to move forward except along 
 the beaten trail. 
 
 " Colonel Wood rode at the head of the column, followed 
 by two regular army officers who were members of General 
 W T heeler's staff, a Cuban officer, and Lieutenant-Colonel 
 
 *From "The Cuban and Porto Rican Campaigns," by 
 Richard Harding Davis. Copyright Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 '[ 173 ] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Roosevelt. They rode slowly in consideration of the troopers 
 on foot, who carried heavy burdens under a cruelly hot sun. 
 To those who did not have to walk it was not unlike a hunting 
 excursion in our West; the scenery was beautiful and the 
 view down the valley one of luxuriant peace. Roosevelt had 
 never been in the tropics and Captain McCormick and I were 
 talking back at him over our shoulders and at each other, 
 pointing out unfamiliar trees and birds. Roosevelt thought 
 it looked like a good deer country, as it once was; it re- 
 minded McCormick of southern California; it looked to me 
 like the trail across Honduras. They advanced, talking in 
 that fashion and in high spirits, and congratulating them- 
 selves in being shut of the transport and on breathing fine 
 mountain air again, and on the fact that they were on horse- 
 back. They agreed it was impossible to appreciate that we 
 were really at war — that we were in the enemy's country. 
 "We had been riding in this pleasant fashion for an hour and 
 a half with brief halts for rest, when Wood stopped the head 
 of the column, and rode down the trail to meet Capron, who 
 was coming back. Wood returned immediately, leading his 
 horse, and said to Roosevelt: 
 ' ' ' Pass the word back to keep silence in the ranks. ' 
 " The place at which we had halted was where the trail 
 narrowed, and proceeded sharply downward. There was on 
 one side of it a stout barbed-wire fence of five strands. By 
 some fortunate accident this fence had been cut just where 
 the head of the column halted. On the left of the trail it shut 
 off fields of high grass blocked at every fifty yards with 
 great barricades of undergrowth and tangled trees and chap- 
 arral. On the other side of the trail there was not a foot 
 of free ground; the bushes seemed absolutely impenetrable, 
 as indeed they were later found to be. 
 
 " When we halted the men sat down beside the trail and 
 chewed the long blades of grass, or fanned the air with their 
 hats. They had no knowledge of the situation such as their 
 leaders possessed, and their only emotion was one of satis- 
 
 [174] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 faction at the chance the halt gave them to rest and to shift 
 their packs. Wood again walked down the trail with Capron 
 and disappeared, and one of the officers informed us that 
 scouts had seen the outposts of the enemy. It did not seem 
 reasonable that the Spaniards, who had failed to attack 
 us when we landed at Daiquiri, would oppose us until they 
 could do so in force, so, personally, I doubted that there were 
 any Spaniards nearer than Santiago. But we tied our horses 
 to the wire fence, and Capron 's troop knelt with carbines at 
 the ' ready,' peering into the bushes. "We must have waited 
 there, while Wood reconnoitred, for over ten minutes. Then 
 he returned, and began deploying his troops out at either side 
 of the trail. Capron he sent on down the trail itself. G Troop 
 was ordered to beat into the bushes on the right, and K and 
 A were sent over the ridge on which we stood down into the 
 hollow to connect with General Young's column on the op- 
 posite side of the valley. F and E Troops were deployed out 
 in skirmish-line on the other side of the wire fence. Wood 
 had discovered the enemy a few hundred yards from where 
 he expected to find him, and so far from being ' surprised,' 
 he had time, as I have just described, to get five of his troops 
 into position before a shot was fired. 
 
 " The firing, when it came, started suddenly on our right. 
 It sounded so close that — still believing we were acting on 
 false alarm, and that there were no Spaniards ahead of us — ■ 
 I guessed it was Capron 's men firing at random to disclose 
 the enemy's position. I ran after G Troop under Captain 
 Llewellyn, and found them breaking their way through the 
 bushes in the direction from which the volleys came. It 
 was like forcing the walls of a maze. If each trooper had not 
 kept in touch with the man on either hand he would have 
 been lost in the thicket. 
 
 " At one moment the underbrush seemed swarming with 
 troopers, and the next, except that you heard the twigs break- 
 ing, and the heavy breathing of the men, or a crash as a vine 
 pulled some one down, there was not a sign of a human be- 
 
 [175] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 ing anywhere. In a few minutes they all broke through into 
 a little open place in front of a dark curtain of vines, and 
 the men fell on one knee and began returning the fire that 
 came from it." 
 
 During the fight the majority of the companies 
 spread out on the left in a long line. Here Roosevelt 
 was in command, and he tried to outflank the enemy 
 on their right. On the right of the road, Colonel 
 Wood, who was in command, closed up the gap be- 
 tween himself and the Tenth Regiment, under General 
 Young. Young's troops advanced steadily in battle- 
 line against the Spaniards, who had taken a well- 
 covered position on a hill. 
 
 Continuing, Mr. Davis says : * 
 
 " It was for all of them, from the moment it started, 
 through the hot, exhausting hour and a half that it lasted, a 
 most serious proposition. The conditions were exceptional. 
 The men had made a night march the evening before, had 
 been given but three hours troubled sleep on the wet ground, 
 and had then been marched in full equipment up hill and 
 under a cruelly hot sun, right into action. Not one man in 
 the regiment had ever fired a Krag-Jorgensen carbine until 
 he fired it at a Spaniard, for their arms had been issued to 
 them so soon before sailing that they had only drilled with 
 them without using cartridges, and perhaps eighty per cent 
 of them had never been under fire before. To this handicap 
 was also added the nature of the ground and the fact that 
 our men did not see their opponents. Their own men 
 fell or rolled over on every side, shot down by an invisible 
 enemy, with no one to retaliate upon in return, with no sign 
 
 *From "The Cuban and Porto Rican Campaigns," by 
 Richard Harding Davis. Copyright Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 [ 176 ] 
 
PROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 that the attack might not go on indefinitely. Yet they never 
 once took a step backward, but advanced grimly, cleaning a 
 bush or thicket of its occupants before charging it, and secur- 
 ing its cover for themselves, and answering each volley with 
 one that sounded like an echo of the first. The men were 
 panting for breath ; the sweat ran so readily into their eyes 
 that they could not see the sights of their guns; then limbs 
 unused to such exertion after seven days of cramped idle- 
 ness on the troop-ship trembled with weakness and the sun 
 blinded and dazzled them; but time after time they rose and 
 staggered forward through the high grass, or beat their 
 way with their carbines against the tangle of vines and 
 creepers. A mile and a half of territory was gained foot by 
 foot in this brave fashion, the three Spanish positions carried 
 in that distance being marked by the thousands of Mauser 
 cartridges that lay shining and glittering in the grass and 
 behind the barricades of bushes. But this distance had not 
 been gained without many losses, for every one in the regi- 
 ment was engaged. Even those who, on account of the heat 
 had dropped out along the trail, as soon as the sound of the 
 fight reached them, came limping to the front — and plunged 
 into the firing-line. It was the only place they could go — 
 there was no other line." 
 
 At last the left wing reached more open ground, and 
 Colonel Roosevelt saw on the top of a wooded hill a 
 decayed building, which the Spaniards held in force. 
 It was apparently the key to the Spanish position in 
 this part of the field — and later gave the name Guasi- 
 mas to the battle. The order was forward and in 
 short, quick jumps the line steadily approached the 
 position. The difference in the manner in which the 
 men from the East and those from the West advanced 
 was noticeable. The men from the East jumped up at 
 
 [177] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the order to advance, rushed straight forward with 
 maddening haste and threw themselves breathless on 
 the ground. Those, however, who had spent their 
 lives in the West slipped along like Indians from tree 
 to tree, from one protection to another, and finally lay 
 down in the firing line without having exposed them- 
 selves during the advance. 
 
 When the column was within about 500 yards of 
 the redoubt, Mr. Roosevelt heard the shout of the 
 Americans on the right and, supposing that the final 
 attack was on in that part, ordered the left wing to 
 charge. The ' ' Rough Riders ' ' approached the works 
 on the double-quick in spite of the lively fire which the 
 Spaniards kept up at first. When they reached the 
 Spanish position, they found only two dead men and 
 a pile of empty shells. The enemy had withdrawn in 
 good order with all his baggage with him in the direc- 
 tion of Santiago. 
 
 The attack was general along the whole line at the 
 time that Guasimas was taken. The Spaniards offered 
 no further resistance and the way lay open to San- 
 tiago. As it became known later, General Linares 
 had about four thousand men in the first attack; the 
 Americans numbered not more than one thousand. 
 Linares thought that the entire American army was 
 in his front, because he could account for the fierce- 
 ness of the assault in no other way. The Spaniards 
 themselves testified that the "Rough Riders" 
 advanced as if they wished to seize them with their 
 
 [178] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 hands. They advanced, however, in single file with 
 no support behind them to fall back on in case they 
 met the enemy in too great numbers. When the last 
 stronghold was taken, the regiment halted for rest, 
 for no one thought of following the enemy on account 
 of the exhausted condition of the troops. 
 
 During the battle, Roosevelt heard that Colonel 
 Wood was killed, and he immediately took command 
 of the regiment. The report happily proved to be 
 false ; but two days later General Young was stricken 
 with fever and the command of the brigade devolved 
 upon Wood, and Eoosevelt was left in command of 
 the " Rough Riders." 
 
 The government's insufficient preparation for 
 the campaign soon became apparent. Though the 
 army in the front had driven back the enemy and were 
 ready to follow up the victory and to attack the Span- 
 iards in their stronghold at Santiago, it could not do 
 it, for, though men and provisions continued to be 
 landed, supplies could not be got to the men in the 
 field. The wounded and the sick could with difficulty 
 be carried to the shore. Colonel Roosevelt felt that 
 he must have provisions for his men, and he, there- 
 fore, took the horses of the officers and the few mules 
 that were at his disposal and sent them to the shore 
 after supplies. 
 
 The men succeeded in getting a large quantity of 
 salt pork and hard-tack, but everything else was 
 denied them, even coffee. Mr. Roosevelt led his regi- 
 
 [179] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 ment a few miles farther inland and pitched camp for 
 several days. Only with the greatest difficulty and at 
 his own expense did he succeed in getting a few vege- 
 tables for his men. To add to the difficulty showers 
 fell every afternoon with unceasing regularity. The 
 soldiers had no change of clothing, and the clothing 
 they did have was unsuited to a tropical climate. When 
 the men got wet, they had to let their clothes dry on 
 them or else sit naked while they were drying by a 
 fire. The air reeked with miasma, and malaria soon 
 broke out among the soldiers. 
 
 During these trying days Roosevelt himself was the 
 life of the regiment. He fared no better than they. 
 He even gave his rain-coat to a soldier whom he 
 thought needed it worse than he. The men on their 
 part were loyal to him, almost worshipped him on 
 account of his faithfulness to their interests. 
 
 The camp of the ' ' Rough Riders ' ' was often vis- 
 ited by the military attaches of foreign countries. 
 Mr. Roosevelt was on friendly terms with First Lieu- 
 tenant Count von Goetzen, later governor of German 
 East Africa, who together with Major von Reuben 
 Paschwitz was at the scene of war as representative 
 of the German War Department. 
 
 On June 30, the regiment received orders to break 
 camp. One detachment after another passed them 
 and finally the " Rough Riders " fell in behind. But 
 the roads were full of soldiers and the advance was 
 very slow. Night found them at El Poso Hill. 
 
 [ 180 ] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The soldiers slept on their arms in the heart of a 
 dense wood, where crabs abound from the size of a 
 coffee cup to that of a large soup bowl. During the 
 night the guards frequently fired at them thinking 
 they were Spaniards as they slipped through the 
 woods. Colonel Roosevelt inspected the guard him- 
 self and then snatched a few hours ' sleep. 
 
 About six o'clock the next morning, the artillery 
 opened fire. The Spaniards were assembled in force 
 on the chain of hills which lie between El Poso and 
 Santiago. At the foot of San Juan Hill flows the little 
 Juan River, which the Americans had to wade in the 
 face of the enemy. The whole country was covered 
 with a dense undergrowth so that it was impossible to 
 advance rapidly. Besides the lay of the ground the 
 Spaniards had the further advantage of settled 
 intrenchments, protected in front by wire fences. 
 They had also apparently fixed the distance before- 
 hand so that they almost always aimed correctly. 
 Their position was especially hard to determine 
 because they used smokeless powder. 
 
 The Spaniards had learned of the advance of the 
 Americans by means of a chained balloon which went 
 up in front of their lines. It offered a fine target and 
 attracted the fire to such an extent that the detach- 
 ments near it were showered with bullets. They were 
 all glad when it was, at last, shot to pieces and taken 
 down. 
 
 It was planned that the infantry should bear the 
 
 [181] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 brunt of the battle that day. After passing the ford, 
 the detachments marched to the right, parallel to the 
 river, to their position in the line of battle. The Ninth 
 Infantry was on the extreme right and to its left 
 the Sixth and Third. In the second line on the 
 extreme right, behind the Ninth Infantry, the " Rough 
 Riders " took their stand, partly covered by the slop- 
 ing bank of the river from the Spanish bullets. To 
 their left stood the First and Tenth Regiments of cav- 
 alry. As the bullets continually fell into their ranks, 
 their position was a dangerous one and Roosevelt 
 wanted to advance. But the colonel of the Ninth 
 Infantry was not present, and Roosevelt, therefore, 
 asked that his men might pass through the ranks of 
 the Ninth to the attack. When Colonel Roosevelt 
 gave the order to charge and rode ahead of his men 
 with sword in hand, the men of the Ninth Infantry 
 could not longer be restrained and rushed ahead with 
 the ' ' Rough Riders ' ' without waiting for the com- 
 mand. Up they went, never halting, into the murder- 
 ous fire of the Spaniards who were stationed on what 
 was later called " Kettle Hill," on account of an 
 immense kettle for boiling sugar which was found 
 there. 
 
 About the same time that Roosevelt advanced on 
 the right, the Sixth and Third Regiments of infantry 
 charged on the left. "When they reached the top of the 
 hill, they were raked by a deadly fire from the Span- 
 iards, who had retreated to a heavily intrenched hill 
 
 [182] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 further ou. From his position on Kettle Hill, Colonel 
 Roosevelt saw that the Americans on his left were 
 hard pressed by the Spaniards; and, as the colonels 
 of the other regiments on the right had either been 
 killed or wounded, he took command himself and 
 ordered a charge on San Juan block-house. Under a 
 continuous fire, the line advanced nearer and nearer 
 the enemy's stronghold; and finally, when the four 
 machine guns which had been given the " Rough 
 Riders " came into action, their noise increased the 
 excitement to the highest pitch. Colonel Roosevelt, 
 who was always in the front line, seized the critical 
 moment and ordered a charge. 
 
 But the noise was so terrific that the men did not 
 hear him. When he had run one hundred yards in a 
 perfect hail-storm of bullets, he found that he had 
 only five men with him, one of whom just then fell 
 mortally wounded, while another was shot through 
 the leg. Without an expression of pain, he asked 
 Roosevelt to put his canteen where he could reach it. 
 He did so, and, leaving the three men where they were, 
 he rushed back to the main line. He angrily up- 
 braided them for not following him. They declared 
 that they had not heard the command and asked him 
 to give it again. 
 
 When he gave the order the second time, over the 
 wire fence they went like a storm-wind, " Rough 
 Riders " and infantry, white and colored, in one 
 mighty onrushing mass of men. The valley through 
 
 [183] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 which they had to pass was somewhat wide and many 
 gave out while running. The long-legged fellows out- 
 distanced the shorter men in the race. But it did not 
 matter, for the Spaniards did not wait for a hand-to- 
 hand fight, but retreated as before. Only a few were 
 found in the intrenchments and these were either cap- 
 tured or shot down. The intrenchments were full of 
 dead men whose light blue uniforms indicated that 
 they belonged to the regular army of Spain. Almost 
 all were shot through the head, as their bodies were 
 protected by the breastworks. 
 
 But the enemy had not given up the attack alto- 
 gether; they had only withdrawn to their reserves 
 and now began firing more fiercely than ever, from 
 behind other intrenchments. But now for the first 
 time since the battle began the Americans were pro- 
 tected by fortifications. The soldiers were, exhausted 
 from the fourteen hours of continual fighting and 
 marching, and to renew the struggle was out of the 
 question. Eoosevelt immediately set about to restore 
 order in his ranks and to get the men into their proper 
 regiments at least, for he still held command of the 
 entire right wing. Though the Spanish bullets were 
 still doing damage around him, he gave his orders 
 with perfect coolness. Only once during the battle 
 was he wounded and then only slightly in the hand. 
 The soldiers who had seen him in the thickest of the 
 fight became more convinced than ever that he was 
 bullet-proof. 
 
 [184] 
 
FEOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Once the Spaniards tried to win back the hill, but 
 they were easily repulsed by the Americans from 
 their sheltered position. The Americans dug ditches 
 and prepared to pass the night in them. Two 
 ' ' Rough Eiders ' ' found a camp outfit belonging to 
 Spanish officers, the provisions of which they gener- 
 ously divided with the rest of the boys, in accordance 
 with the custom in the regiment. Though the men 
 were wet with perspiration at the close of the day 
 and soon were chilled by the mist upon the mountain 
 till their limbs were stiff, they immediately fell asleep 
 on account of fatigue. They were aroused at three 
 a.m. by the firing of the Spaniards, but, as the enemy 
 did not advance to attack, the regiment was soon 
 asleep again. 
 
 Both parties maintained their positions till the fall 
 of Santiago a few days later, July 17. Occasional 
 shots were exchanged between the two armies from 
 time to time, but, as Colonel Roosevelt had ordered 
 the intrenchments in his front strengthened, his regi- 
 ment suffered no further injuries. The regiment lost, 
 killed and wounded, on the day of battle eighty-nine 
 men out of four hundred and ninety engaged. At first 
 Roosevelt experienced some difficulty in getting sup- 
 plies for his men, but after the third day they became 
 more regular. Besides, on account of some money 
 which some friends in New York placed at his dis- 
 posal, he was able to give his men many things which 
 the Department of War did not furnish. 
 
 [185] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 After the capitulation of Santiago, the ' ' Rough 
 Riders ' ' were sent to the coast, where they pitched 
 camp in the vicinity of El Caney. The Spaniards had 
 surrendered, but another enemy began unceasing 
 attacks: malaria fever broke out among the soldiers. 
 The authorities at Washington were afraid that it 
 was the yellow fever, of which there were in reality 
 only twelve cases, while the malaria affected the whole 
 army, and ordered the men to remain in Cuba till win- 
 ter when all danger from the yellow plague would be 
 over. Such a policy meant death to thousands of 
 brave men. The army physicians and generals knew it 
 and protested against it; but the War Department 
 was firm. It ordered the camps to be changed 
 from time to time as a precautionary measure, which 
 would have been well enough if the men had been able 
 to march. In many instances, the soldiers were not 
 able to march a single mile, much less carry the neces- 
 sary baggage for camp. 
 
 This order was about as wise as some others that 
 were issued from the " green table " in Washington 
 during the campaign. For example, the soldiers were 
 forbidden to sleep on the uncovered ground but they 
 were given nothing to cover the ground with. They 
 were also commanded to boil all the water they drank, 
 in spite of the fact that they often had to drink when 
 they had not the slightest opportunity to boil the 
 water. Again they were forbidden to sleep in wet 
 clothes, but they were furnished with but one suit, 
 
 [ 180 ] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 which was soaked every afternoon with unceasing 
 regularity, and the men would have been compelled 
 to sleep naked on the ground if they had carried out 
 the order of the department. 
 
 When General Shatter, who commanded the Amer- 
 ican forces in Cuba, received the telegram from the 
 War Department directing him to lead the army into 
 the interior and to hold it there, he called a council 
 of war at the palace in Santiago, July 31. All of the 
 division and brigade commanders and many officers 
 of the medical department were present. As Wood 
 had been made commandant of the city of Santiago 
 after the surrender, Eoosevelt took command of the 
 brigade and rode on horseback to the council of war. 
 The concensus of opinion was that the fate of thou- 
 sands of men would be sealed if the order of the 
 department was obeyed; but the officers hesitated to 
 place a remonstrance before the secretary of war for 
 fear that it might prove a handicap to them in their 
 careers. Colonel Eoosevelt then offered to take the 
 initiative. 
 
 It was agreed that Roosevelt should write a letter 
 to General Shatter in which he should explain the sit- 
 uation of the army and that General Shatter should 
 pass the letter on. When the generals met on the fol- 
 lowing day to go over what Mr. Roosevelt had writ- 
 ten, it was found that the other officers had, in the 
 meantime, decided to send a joint-resolution to Gen- 
 eral Shatter. The upshot of the matter was that both 
 
 [187] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 letters were published, the joint-resolution and the 
 private letter of Mr. Roosevelt. In spite of that, how- 
 ever, there are people to-day who accuse Mr. Roose- 
 velt of insubordination. Nothing could be further 
 from the truth. Mr. Roosevelt, as well as every other 
 man in the council, was actuated by the purest of mo- 
 tives. They all knew that the lives of thousands of 
 brave men who had bled for their country's cause 
 would be sacrificed if the army was kept on foreign 
 soil. On the contrary, Mr. Roosevelt deserves even 
 greater praise for his energetic action at this time 
 than for his bravery at Guasimas, Kettle Hill, and San 
 Juan Hill. President McKinley did not consider him 
 guilty of insubordination but promoted him to the 
 rank of brigadier-general and awarded him a medal 
 of honor. 
 
 The letter, which created a sensation throughout 
 the country and made him famous at once, is as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " Major-General Shafter : 
 
 " Sir: In meeting of the general and medical officers called 
 by you at the Palace this morning we were all, as you know, 
 unanimous in our views of what should be done with the army. 
 To keep us here, in the opinion of every officer commanding a 
 division or a brigade, will simply involve the destruction 
 of thousands. There is no possible reason for not shipping 
 practically the entire command north at once. 
 
 " Yellow-fever cases are very few in the cavalry division, 
 where I command one of the two brigades, and not one true 
 case of yellow fever has occurred in this division, except 
 
 [188 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 among the men sent to the hospital at Siboney, where they 
 have, I believe, contracted it. 
 
 " But in this division there have been 1,500 cases of 
 malarial fever. Hardly a man has yet died from it, but the 
 whole command is so weakened and shattered as to be ripe 
 for dying like rotten sheep, when a real yellow-fever epi- 
 demic instead of a fake epidemic, like the present one, strikes 
 us, as it is bound to do if we stay here at the height of 
 the sickness season, August and the beginning of September. 
 Quarantine against malarial fever is much like quarantining 
 against the toothache. 
 
 " All of us are certain that as soon as the authorities at 
 Washington fully appreciate the condition of the army, we 
 shall be sent home. If we are kept here it will in all human 
 possibility mean an appalling disaster, for the surgeons here 
 estimate that over half the army, if kept here during the 
 sickly season, will die. 
 
 " This is not only terrible from the standpoint of the in- 
 dividual lives lost, but it means ruin from the standpoint of 
 military efficiency of the flower of the American army, for 
 the great bulk of the regulars are here with you. The sick 
 list, large though it is, exceeding four thousand, affords but 
 a faint index of the debilitation of the army. Not twenty 
 per cent are fit for active work. 
 
 " Six weeks on the North Maine coast, for instance, or else- 
 where, where the yellow-fever germ cannot possibly propa- 
 gate, would make us all as fit as fighting cocks, as able as we 
 are eager to take a leading part in the great campaign against 
 Havana in the fall, even if we are not allowed to try Porto 
 Rico. 
 
 " We can be moved north, if moved at once, with absolute 
 safety to the country, although, of course, it would have been 
 infinitely better if we had been moved north or to Porto 
 Rico two weeks ago. If there were any object in keeping 
 us here, we would face yellow fever with as much indifference 
 as we faced bullets. But there is no object. 
 
 [189] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 " The four immune regiments ordered here are sufficient 
 to garrison the city and surrounding towns, and there is 
 absolutely nothing for us to do here, and there has not been 
 since the city surrendered. It is impossible to move into 
 the interior. Every shifting of camp doubles the sick rate 
 in our present weakened condition, and, anyhow, the interior 
 is rather worse than the coast, as I have found by actual 
 reconnoissance. Our present camps are as healthy as any 
 camps at this end of the island can be. 
 
 " I write only because I cannot see our men, who have 
 fought so bravely and who have endured extreme hardship 
 and danger so uncomplainingly, go to destruction without 
 striving so far as lies in me to avert a doom as fearful as 
 it is unnecessary and undeserved. 
 
 " Yours respectfully, 
 
 " Theodore Roosevelt, 
 " Colonel Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade." 
 
 The resolutions of the generals were of the same 
 tenor, and when both were sent to headquarters, they 
 had the desired effect. Within three days, the army in 
 Cuba received orders to hold themselves in readiness 
 to return home ; and on August 6 the " Bough Eid- 
 ers " embarked on the Miami for the return trip. 
 
 The hardships of the journey, the poor provisions, 
 the insect plague, were borne by the men with a light 
 heart, for they thought that after a rest of a few 
 weeks, they would enter the campaign against 
 Havana. But when the regiment arrived at Mon- 
 tauk, on the east shore of Long Island, they learned 
 that peace preliminaries were already in progress. 
 
 The men quickly regained their strength while in 
 camp at Montauk, though very few of them were well 
 
 [190] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 when they reached Long Island. Mr. Eoosevelt him- 
 self was one of the number who were in good health, 
 although he had lost twenty pounds during the cam- 
 paign. The men did almost as they pleased as long 
 as they did not disturb any one. Mr. Eoosevelt had 
 his hands full, inasmuch as the regiment was soon to 
 be discharged. Nevertheless he occasionally found 
 time for a horseback ride or a swim. He often talked 
 over with friends his experiences of the past few 
 months. 
 
 Among other friends that visited Mr. Eoosevelt 
 while he was with his regiment at Montauk was Baron 
 von Sternberg of the German embassy at Washing- 
 ton. The " Little Baron," as he was called, spent a 
 whole week in camp. Colonel Eoosevelt had asked at 
 the beginning of the war for permission to take 
 Baron von Sternberg with him in the campaign, but 
 his request was not granted, so the two friends seized 
 the opportunity to talk over together the things 
 that they had not been permitted to share in common. 
 
 When the day for disbanding the regiment drew 
 nigh, Mr. Eoosevelt publicly addressed the regiment. 
 He expressed his joy at being permitted to lead such 
 a brave band of men, and at the same time, he ex- 
 horted them that now, as they were going home, they 
 must not rest upon their laurels but that they must 
 take up again their accustomed work with the same 
 zeal and determination that they had shown in the 
 campaign. 
 
 [1911 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 On the following day, he was called out of his tent 
 to find the entire regiment lined np before him. One 
 of the men stepped out of the circle and presented to 
 Mr. Eoosevelt in the name of the regiment a bronze 
 statue of Remington's " The Horse-Tamer," as an 
 expression of good-will from the regiment that he had 
 led through so many hardships and whose interests 
 he had always so carefully guarded. After this all 
 the men shook hands with him and thanked him indi- 
 vidually for what he had done for them. 
 
 When the regiment was disbanded, Mr. Roosevelt 
 also took up again the affairs of private life. . But just 
 as his men had become attached to him, he too entered 
 heartily into the joys and sorrows of those who had 
 endured so much with him while they were upon the 
 soil of the enemy. 
 
 [192] 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ROOSEVELT AS GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK AND VICE- 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT was never a professional pol- 
 itician. What he has accomplished in a politi- 
 cal way is due to his phenomenal popularity and not 
 to the tricks of the demagogue. Professionalism in 
 politics has always been distasteful to him. He has 
 made it a point to appeal to the good sense of good 
 people, and he has never appealed in vain. His polit- 
 ical adversaries and friends have often been made to 
 wonder at his influence with the people, an influence 
 which he secures by no indirect and secret means, but 
 by open and above-board methods. Often those who 
 were at heart opposed to him felt themselves com- 
 pelled to fall in line with him on account of the pres- 
 sure which the people brought to bear upon them. 
 
 While Mr. Roosevelt was still with his regiment at 
 Montauk, he was informed by his friends that they 
 intended to nominate him for the governorship of 
 New York. At first, he did not take favorably to the 
 suggestion, and even told several of his friends that 
 he preferred rather to remain with his regiment than 
 to become governor of New York. The professional 
 
 [193] 
 
PROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 politicians were even less inclined to see Mr. Roose- 
 velt placed in such an important position; they were 
 perfectly willing that he should remain with his regi- 
 ment. But inasmuch as the Democratic candidate 
 had a large following and the man proposed by the 
 Republican bosses could not hope to carry more than 
 his own party, the leaders were forced to accept Mr. 
 Roosevelt as the nominee in order to save the party 
 from defeat. 
 
 Statesmen of the same type as Senator Piatt, who 
 was then the leader of the Republican party in New 
 York, would have rejoiced to see Mr. Roosevelt return 
 to his farm on the Little Missouri ; they were entirely 
 willing to run things in New York without him. They 
 did not relish the idea of having the hero of Santiago, 
 whom the people enthusiastically admired, present at 
 the council-table of the party. They had not forgot- 
 ten how, fifteen years before, though then a young 
 man just out of college, he had broken traditions and 
 thrown old customs to the wind in the General Assem- 
 bly of New York; they remembered, too, that as a 
 member of the Civil Service Commission he had struck 
 hard and long at all sorts of political favoritism; 
 and they held still fresh in mind that, as police presi- 
 dent of New York City, he had completely ignored the 
 leaders of the party and freed his department from 
 all political control. They who regarded politics as a 
 game at which they enriched themselves knew very 
 well that, with Theodore Roosevelt in the guberna- 
 
 [1941 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 torial chair at Albany, they could not ply their former 
 trades. Nevertheless, they dared not openly oppose 
 him for he was popular with the great masses of the 
 people. The result was that Mr. Roosevelt was 
 offered the nomination for governor and accepted it. 
 The campaign opened up and speakers were sent into 
 all parts of the State, but no enthusiasm was aroused. 
 The people wished to see the Rough Rider in person. 
 Finally, the managers of the campaign consented, 
 somewhat against their will, to let Mr. Roosevelt 
 take the platform. The situation was immediately 
 changed. Old men said that they had never seen such 
 interest manifested before in a gubernatorial race; 
 the people flocked in great numbers to the places at 
 which he. was to speak. Excitement almost reached 
 the presidential heat. 
 
 His appearance had something of the spectacular 
 and picturesque in it, and appealed powerfully to the 
 American people, though it would not have been to 
 our liking. Four or five " Rough Riders ' ' in khaki uni- 
 form accompanied him on his tour, and frequently 
 made speeches in which they told how much they 
 thought of their colonel and related reminiscences of 
 the campaign which threw light upon the kindness, 
 courage, and comradeship of Mr. Roosevelt. Though 
 these things did not prove his fitness for the office of 
 governor of the great State of New York, they did 
 show him to have those traits of character which the 
 American voter, deep down in his heart, admires. 
 
 [195] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 When the votes were counted, it was found that Mr. 
 Eoosevelt had carried the State by a majority of 
 eighteen thousand. He was elected fairly, honestly. 
 He had taken upon himself no obligations; he owed 
 no party, no man, no set of men anything. He could 
 enter upon the duties of his office bound only by the 
 oath to enforce the laws of the commonwealth and to 
 labor for the well-being of its people. 
 
 Though Mr. Roosevelt could enter upon the duties 
 of his office unhampered by campaign pledges or cam- 
 paign contributions, he found difficulties enough 
 awaiting him. The leaders of the Republican party 
 were only nominally his friends ; they were in reality 
 his enemies and tried to defeat all measures that were 
 distasteful to them. But Mr. Roosevelt was not in 
 the least daunted. Scarcely had he got settled in his 
 office when he called the leaders of organized labor to 
 see him. There were a number of laws on record, 
 designed, in one way or another, to benefit the cause 
 of labor. Some of them had not been passed with the 
 idea of their being enforced and they were dead laws 
 as far as effect was concerned; others had met with 
 great opposition and had, therefore, been enforced 
 only in a half-hearted way. 
 
 When the labor leaders appeared before him, he 
 said, ' ' The laws are for you. We shall examine them 
 together to see whether they are good or not. If they 
 are desirable laws, we shall see to it that they are 
 strictly enforced; if they are not, we shall together 
 
 [196 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 apply to the legislature for better ones. But what- 
 ever the laws are, they must be enforced : we expect to 
 have no dead laws." 
 
 In this frank way, he gave the leaders of labor to 
 understand that he was interested in their welfare, 
 but that they must make their interests conform to 
 the law, that under no circumstances would non-en- 
 forcement of the law be winked at. In this, his first 
 meeting with the leaders of organized labor, he con- 
 vinced them that they had nothing to fear from him 
 so long as they made themselves amenable to the 
 law, and that he was as eager as they to have laws 
 enacted that would be just to the man who earns his 
 bread by the sweat of his brow. And their confidence 
 once established was not shaken during his term of 
 office. He was always in close touch with the working 
 men and, though he made demands of them that others 
 could not have secured, he found them ready in 
 the end to accede to any reasonable request. They 
 trusted him because they knew that he was their 
 friend. 
 
 The great masses of the people of the State rejoiced 
 when Mr. Roosevelt made known his intention of hav- 
 ing the railroads and other corporations pay a just 
 proportion of the taxes. At once, his plan met with 
 violent opposition from the friends of corporate 
 wealth. They declared that it was only one of Roose- 
 velt's impulsive notions, that it was neither desirable 
 nor feasible. They attributed his error of judgment 
 
 [197] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 to his youthful enthusiasm, having forgotten evi- 
 dently that years before, while a humble member of 
 the lower house of the General Assembly, he pro- 
 tested against the custom of giving to corporations 
 property for which private individuals would gladly 
 pay a high price. 
 
 When the party leaders saw that Mr. Roosevelt was 
 deadly in earnest and that he was actually at work 
 upon a draft of a bill which he was going to have 
 placed before the legislature, they, urged on by bribes 
 from the corporations, approached him upon the sub- 
 ject. They informed him that he had had nothing of 
 that kind in his platform. 
 
 ' ' ' More 's the pity, ' responded the governor ; ' it was a sad 
 oversight, but I '11 try to make it good.' The corporations 
 have always come down liberally when the campaign hat has 
 been passed, argued the leaders. ' If you mean that they 
 thought they were buying the Republican party,' responded 
 the governor, ' it is high time we should undeceive them.' 
 The corporations deserve just as much consideration as any 
 one else at the hands of the State, argued the leaders. ' And 
 conversely, are under just as great obligations to the State,' 
 responded the governor; ' that 's why I 'm trying to even 
 things up. ' There is great danger that when untrained legis- 
 lators or assessors undertake a specialty like the valuation of 
 franchises, they will blunder, argued the leaders. ' Then 
 we '11 call in the experts to help us frame our bill or trim 
 it into shape,' responded the governor; ' we '11 have hearings 
 for the corporations, and they will be represented by the 
 best talent their means can command. ' " * 
 
 *From Leupp's " The Man Roosevelt." Copyright, 1904, 
 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
 [198] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The passage of such a measure would not have been 
 easy at the beginning of the session; it was doubly 
 difficult on account of the end of the session being so 
 near at hand. The members of the legislature with 
 whom Mr. Roosevelt talked about the bill seemed 
 unwilling to assume the responsibility of putting it 
 through. It became clear to the governor that some 
 secret forces were at work to defeat his measure, and 
 he, therefore, took refuge in the authority invested in 
 him as chief executive of the State and declared the 
 bill an emergency measure. 
 
 " He wrote the message. It was pretty temperate in tone, 
 but contained, as his messages usually do, a very plain state- 
 ment of facts. It was intercepted and ' lost ' on its way to 
 the Legislature. 
 
 ' ' The governor was not satisfied with the explanation of its 
 disappearance, so he prepared a duplicate and sent it in 
 at once. This time he took precautions to see that it got 
 safely into the hands of the speaker of the assembly, with 
 a warning that if it were not read from the speaker's desk, 
 another copy would be read by a member on the floor. ' ' * 
 
 And it was read and passed, too, before the legisla- 
 ture adjourned. 
 
 Before the law was passed by the legislature, Mr. 
 Roosevelt had invited the companies that would be 
 affected by the measure to meet him to talk over the 
 bill. They did not accept the invitation till after the 
 
 * From Leupp's " The Man Roosevelt." Copyright, 1904, 
 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
 [199] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 assembly had adjourned and the bill was ready for 
 the governor's signature. They then informed him 
 that they would be pleased to present their side of the 
 case to him, if he would still hear them. 
 
 ' ' ' Certainly, ' was his cheerful answer, ' I '11 hear you with 
 pleasure. Why did n 't you speak before ? ' 
 
 " Of course, they didn't like the bill as it stood. ' Well,' 
 said the governor, ' I don't know that I am entirely satis- 
 fied with it myself, but it was the best we could do under 
 the circumstances.' 
 
 " ' Then you won't sign it ? You will postpone the whole 
 business till next session and try again 1 ' pleaded the cor- 
 porations. 
 
 " ' One proposition at a time, gentlemen,' said the gov- 
 ernor. ' I 'm willing to recommend any proper amendments 
 at the next session, but meanwhile — well, you know the old 
 proverb about the bird in the hand ? I 've tried all winter 
 to get a bill ; now that I 've got one I don 't think I 'd better 
 let it slip away from me. I '11 sign this bill, and then I '11 
 sign any amendments passed next winter that commend 
 themselves to my judgment.' 
 
 " ' But next winter is some distance away,' the corpora- 
 tions persisted. ' In the meantime the law will have gone 
 into operation and irreparable damage been done. Let this 
 bill drop, and call an extra session to pass one that will be 
 fair all around. We '11 help you.' 
 
 " ' If you really mean that,' said the governor, ' I will 
 split the difference with you. I will sign this bill: that se- 
 cures us something, in any event. Then I '11 convene an ex- 
 tra session, and we can work together for such modifications 
 as would be just and right.' 
 
 " Seeing that he was not to be cajoled, the pleaders withdrew. 
 He was as good as his word. The extra session met, some 
 changes were made in the act, but not so radical as the cor- 
 
 [200] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 porations wished. ' We '11 fight your law in the courts,' 
 they thundered. ' By all means,' he answered imperturba- 
 bly ; ' then we '11 find out which side is right, and the next 
 legislation we put through will avoid any mistakes the courts 
 discover in this.' " * 
 
 The corporations were disappointed, however, for 
 they could find no vulnerable place in the law; they 
 had to obey it. The corporations, which heretofore in 
 one way or another had escaped taxation and had 
 come to regard themselves as rightly exempt from the 
 burdens of state, were now forced to pay thousands of 
 dollars into the treasury of the commonwealth. The 
 bulk of the taxes was shifted from the shoulders of cit- 
 izens of moderate means and placed upon corporations, 
 that had grown rich through State protection but had 
 not paid for the services rendered. 
 
 The benefits from the law were reaped not only by 
 the State of New York but by other States as well. 
 When the Supreme Court declared the law constitu- 
 tional, a precedent was set which was quickly followed 
 by other States of the Union, and the burdens of state 
 were placed where they belonged : upon those best able 
 to bear them. The law worked no real hardship upon 
 corporate wealth ; it merely forced it to bear a just pro- 
 portion of the State expenses. It did not exempt the 
 poor from taxation; it only distributed equably the 
 taxes among all the people, rich and poor, according to 
 ability to pay. Thus again Mr. Roosevelt struck a 
 
 * From Leupp's " The Man Roosevelt." Copyright, 1904, 
 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
 [201] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 blow for higher civic righteousness, for justice between 
 man and man. 
 
 The opposition which Mr. Eoosevelt met from the 
 leaders of his party in the passage and enforcement of 
 the law taxing corporations was extended to every ad- 
 ministrative measure of his. During his two years as 
 governor, he lived in a state of war, open or secret, with 
 the leaders of his party. His utter disregard of politi- 
 cal traditions, his stubborn insistence upon justice and 
 fairness in the administration of public affairs were 
 distasteful to the old-line politicians and they hindered 
 him in every way they could. But he was not at all 
 discouraged by the opposition ; he rather enjoyed the 
 fight and went ahead with his reforms wherever he 
 thought conditions could be bettered. 
 
 In so doing, however, he remained strictly within the 
 limits of his lawful powers. For instance, he did not 
 think for a moment of interfering with the government 
 of New York City, though he had to look on while the 
 old abuses which he had rooted out of the police depart- 
 ment grew up again to the disgrace of the city and the 
 State. The Tammany ring was in control of the 
 city again and machine politics ruled in munici- 
 pal affairs. He contented himself with putting into 
 other offices of trust the men who had been unjustly 
 discharged from the police service on account of their 
 political views. Though he was repeatedly urged by 
 his friends to make an end of the terrible practices, he 
 studiously kept his hands off, for he knew that the law 
 
 [802] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 gave him no right to interfere and he was well aware 
 that interference on his part without the power to 
 enforce his demands would be not only ignored but 
 laughed to scorn. He was too wise to attempt what 
 was manifestly impossible to carry to a successful 
 issue. 
 
 But he by no means condoned the evils. He had a 
 bill introduced, giving the mayor the right to appoint 
 the police commissioner but investing the governor 
 with the power to depose him as soon as he mixed poli- 
 tics with his administrative duties. The motion was 
 lost, however. Senator Piatt, who had promised Mr. 
 Roosevelt that he would support the measure, suddenly 
 left for Florida at the critical moment, ostensibly to 
 recover his health. The bill thus lost the support of 
 one who could have secured its passage had he felt 
 disposed to do it. 
 
 It often happened that measures which Mr. Roose- 
 velt deemed of vital importance to the commonwealth 
 were defeated, but, nevertheless, he was not dismayed 
 nor disheartened in the least. He hoped to present 
 the measures to the legislature at a more opportune 
 time. Because he had left much work that he knew 
 ought to be done and believed that he could do, he 
 wished to be elected governor again. He felt that his 
 work in the State of New York was not finished and he, 
 therefore, obj-ected to being shifted from the can- 
 didacy for governor of the Empire State to the vice- 
 presidency of the United States. 
 
 [203] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Though he had not accomplished all that he wished, 
 he had done much in the interest of better government. 
 Not the least of his acts was the cleaning up of the 
 department of canal and ship-building. He dismissed 
 the commissioner and appointed a competent engineer 
 in his place. The State militia also received his atten- 
 tion. The general in command had distinguished him- 
 self by his inefficiency during the Cuban campaign ; and 
 he was, therefore, replaced by a man who was capable 
 of doing the work assigned him. In the short space of 
 two years, he instituted, as far as possible, the merit 
 system and appointed men to State positions who were 
 qualified for the positions for which they were chosen. 
 
 When Mr. Eoosevelt entered upon the duties of his 
 office, there was a law on the statute books regulating 
 sweat-shops, but the law had always been carelessly 
 enforced. It provided that work could be done in the 
 homes only when the conditions surrounding the work- 
 ers were sanitary: that only one family was living 
 there, that no contagious disease existed in the family, 
 that the work-room itself should contain no bed, and 
 that no person not a member of the family should work 
 therein. The inspectors declared that they had enough 
 to do to keep a record of the people amenable to the 
 law without giving attention to matters of details. 
 There were tenements in which every family was en- 
 gaged in the sweat-shop business, and it was impossi- 
 ble to supervise them all. 
 
 But Mr. Eoosevelt was of a different opinion. The 
 
 [204] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 law Vv as a good one, thoroughly useful and, therefore, 
 ought * ? be enforced. He himself set an example for 
 the inspectors. On one of the hottest days of the sum- 
 mer, he visited, together with a friend, twenty of the 
 worst tenement houses in Albany. He saw everything 
 from attic to basement : nothing escaped him, not even 
 the oxygen-starved faces of the inmates. As a rule, 
 he found only the women and smaller children at home ; 
 the men and larger children were at work or on the 
 street. 
 
 Many things were found that would not meet the 
 requirements of the law. The rooms were dirty. 
 Often two or three families occupied the same rooms. 
 In many places piece-work was being done without offi- 
 cial permission. The floor space seldom came up to 
 demands of the law. Germs of diphtheria, scarlet 
 fever, and consumption were being worked into the 
 coats and trousers that would later be offered to unsus- 
 pecting customers at fashionable stores. 
 
 The governor had to admit that conditions were not 
 as bad as they once were, but he insisted that they were 
 not as good as they should be. Old, ill-repaired, 
 unsanitary houses should not be used for sweat-shops 
 at all, and owners of such property should be informed 
 that permission would not be granted them till the 
 house was put in a sanitary condition. In order to 
 prevent unscrupulous landlords from overcharging 
 the tenants, he secured the passage of a bill that placed 
 all tenement houses under control of the inspectors 
 
 [205] 
 
FEOM BOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 whose duty it became to inquire into the price de- 
 manded of the renters and to forbid exorbitant rates. 
 He justified his course by an appeal " to the general 
 desire for a clean, decent life and for right and fair 
 treatment between man and man. ' ' 
 
 When Mr. Eoosevelt became governor of New York, 
 he found the office of treasurer in the hands of Louis 
 Payn, a close friend of Senator Piatt. He had grown 
 gray in the service of the spoils system and had 
 acquired, through years of association with Piatt and 
 his clique, a reputation that was not at all savory. Mr. 
 Roosevelt deemed it advisable, under the circum- 
 stances, to get rid of him as soon as possible. But 
 Payn had suddenly experienced a change of heart ; he 
 wished to remain in office to redeem his tarnished rep- 
 utation by worthy service under Mr. Roosevelt. But 
 Mr. Roosevelt put no reliance on the man, and turned 
 a deaf ear to his overtures. Payn then appealed to 
 his friends who stormed the governor with protests 
 against removing so old and faithful an officer from his 
 position. Piatt himself called upon the governor, and 
 remarked in the course of the conversation that it 
 would be a mistake to drop Payn. 
 
 " That is not the question at all," replied the gov- 
 ernor. " I should like to know whom I should put in 
 his place. ' ' 
 
 Piatt saw that nothing was to be gained by provok- 
 ing him further, and they both went over a list of men 
 that Roosevelt proposed for the position. To every 
 
 [206] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 one of them Piatt found some objection and those 
 that Piatt proposed the governor would not consider 
 at all. Finally Mr. Roosevelt found a way out of the 
 difficulty by appointing a former State senator and a 
 friend of Mr. Piatt; but the man refused to accept, 
 much to the surprise of the governor. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was beaten and Mr. Payn became 
 arrogant. He even boasted that he would hold the 
 office in spite of Roosevelt. But Mr. Roosevelt was 
 not discouraged ; he had decided to wait until the legis- 
 lature should adjourn and then bring an indictment 
 against Mr. Payn. 
 
 Some one surmised the purposes of the governor, 
 and there was soon a sensation in New York. The 
 friends of Payn tried to get into the secret of the gov- 
 ernor, but the more they tried to find out what he was 
 going to do the more silent Mr. Roosevelt became. The 
 whole Republican party in the State were excited ; they 
 felt that something was going to happen, but they knew 
 not what. They only knew that there were some things 
 that it would be better to keep from the light of public- 
 ity. Piatt became anxious and sent a friend to Mr. 
 Roosevelt to find out what he was intending to do. 
 The ultimatum was given: Payn must go, quietly if 
 he would, forcibly if he must. The governor also let it 
 be known that he had evidence that would implicate 
 other people. He said that he had in his hands the 
 correspondence which showed that Payn had received 
 large sums of money to further the interests of trusts. 
 
 [207] 
 
FKOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Piatt had heard enough; he did not go to Florida 
 this time. He immediately informed Payn that he 
 would have to give up his office, that the party could 
 not hold him any longer. The leaders then went to 
 Mr. Roosevelt and asked for his list of candidates. He 
 handed over the list at once, at the head of which was 
 the ex-State senator who had repeatedly refused to 
 accept. Piatt and his friends declared the selection a 
 good one. When Mr. Roosevelt informed them that 
 the man had several times refused the position, they 
 said that they would vouch for it that he could be 
 induced to take it. And they departed glad to have got 
 off so easily. 
 
 Though there were frequent quarrels between Mr. 
 Roosevelt and the leaders of his party, his popularity 
 with the people steadily grew. They realized that at 
 last there was a man at the head of the State who made 
 it his duty to see to it that every citizen received what 
 was rightfully his ; they rejoiced that they had a gov- 
 ernor who was above petty politics and who dared 
 bring the political aristocrats to justice, a governor 
 who looked well to the interest of the humblest citizen 
 and enforced the laws without the least degree of 
 favor. 
 
 His popularity has nowhere been more clearly shown 
 than during the celebration in honor of the return of 
 Admiral Dewey in the year 1899. New York City was 
 the Mecca of all hero-worshippers. The admiral 
 might well feel proud of the enthusiastic reception 
 
 [208] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 accorded him. And yet it was apparent that the 
 shouting of the multitude became more intense when 
 Mr. Eoosevelt, in a simple dress-suit, became visible 
 in the parade among all the sinning uniforms and wav- 
 ing plumes. The hero of San Juan on his brown 
 charger seemed to hold a higher place in the hearts of 
 the people than the great admiral. The same specta- 
 cle was repeated a few days later when the victorious 
 fleet sailed around the New York harbor. Every- 
 where the ships in the harbor saluted and the cannons 
 of the forts thundered forth applause and thousands of 
 people cheered as the battleships filed by. But when 
 the small river steamer appeared in the line of war- 
 ships with Mr. Roosevelt leaning on the railing, such 
 a spontaneous cry for Roosevelt rose from a thousand 
 lips that the hero felt compelled to go below in 
 order not to distract attention from Admiral Dewey, 
 who stood in plain view on the commander's bridge of 
 the Olympia. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt's two years' service as governor of 
 the great Empire State was not without result. He 
 left an inheritance to the State which can not be too 
 highly prized. The question that he always asked him- 
 self in regard to any line of conduct was " Is it right? " 
 When he was gone, a State official who had long been 
 in the service remarked upon the lasting influence of 
 Mr. Roosevelt in the following language: "Last win- 
 ter when a measure was up for discussion in the legis- 
 lature, I heard for the first time the question, < Is it 
 
 [209] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 right? ' Not ' Is it advisable? ' Not ' What will be 
 the advantage to me and to my party 1 ' but only ' Is it 
 right? ' This is Eoosevelt's legacy to Albany and the 
 State, and it is well worth his coming and going. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt would have liked to continue his work 
 as governor, for he knew that he had left behind him 
 many things that needed to be done, but fate had still 
 greater things in store for him. Curiously enough, both 
 his friends and his enemies worked together to the same 
 end. His friends wished him to be a candidate for the 
 vice-presidency because they thought that his popular- 
 ity would assure the election of the Republican nominee 
 for the presidency. His enemies hoped to see him 
 made vice-president in order to get rid of him in New 
 York politics ; they hoped to punish him for the former 
 victories over them by putting him in a dignified cold- 
 storage for four years. After long hesitation, he 
 agreed to be placed upon the altar of sacrifice in the 
 interest of the great national party to which he 
 belonged. 
 
 The office of vice-president of the United States is a 
 very undesirable one. The vice-president has nothing 
 to do but preside over the Senate unless the president 
 dies or is removed from office. As the men who are 
 elected president are usually in their prime, there is 
 small chance of the vice-president's ever becoming 
 president. In spite of the fact that the president's 
 office is sometimes made vacant by death, which has 
 happened five times in the brief years of the United 
 
 [210] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 States, the custom has grown up of electing men as 
 vice-president whom they wish to honor for some 
 services to the party but whom they would be unwilling 
 to elect as president or whom they wish to put out of 
 the way of some one else who has presidential ambi- 
 tions. Mr. Roosevelt's enemies wanted him elected as 
 vice-president in order to get rid of him in the State of 
 New York and thus prevent him from getting into 
 more important offices. His high ideals of the duty of 
 a public servant stood in the way of the political ambi- 
 tions of some other men of his party ; and they were 
 glad, therefore, to confer upon him the empty honor 
 of vice-president. 
 
 But so far he had received merely the nomination 
 of his party. The election of the president and vice- 
 president was yet to take place. The Republican 
 National Convention was held in June and the great 
 campaign began almost immediately. "William Jen- 
 nings Bryan, the Democratic nominee, took the field as 
 he had done four years before, and Colonel Roose- 
 velt was put upon the platform by the Republican 
 party, while President McKinley remained quietly in 
 Washington. 
 
 • ••• •••• 
 
 It is scarcely conceivable to an European what this 
 campaign meant in physical and mental strain upon 
 Mr. Roosevelt. For eight weeks he made his home in 
 a special car and travelled during that time about 
 twenty-two thousand miles through almost every State 
 
 [211] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 of the Union. He made speeches in the majority of 
 the large cities of the land and in countless smaller 
 ones. He visited more than two hundred in the State 
 of New York alone. But the cities visited represented 
 only a small part of the work done. At every division 
 crowds assembled to hear a few words from him from 
 the rear end of his car while engines were being 
 changed or at a wayside watering tank while the engine 
 took on water. According to newspaper reports, the 
 total number of speeches made during the eight weeks 
 was six hundred and seventy-three, or an average of 
 fourteen per day not counting Sundays. It is esti- 
 mated that three and a half million people heard and 
 saw him during that time. 
 
 Chance brought about a meeting between Roosevelt 
 and Bryan at a station where the former's engine had 
 to take water. 
 
 1 ' Hello, Billy ! ' ' shouted Roosevelt with a merry 
 twinkle in his eyes. 
 
 1 i Hello, Teddy ! ' ' came back from Bryan. ' ' By the 
 way, Teddy," continued Bryan, " how about your voice 
 after these many speeches ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, my voice is as rough as the platform of the 
 Democrats, ' ' replied Roosevelt smiling. 
 
 " Mine," retorted Bryan, " is as broken as the prom- 
 ises of the Republicans." 
 
 Everybody laughed. Soon the whistle blew and the 
 two rivals separated, waving each other a friendly 
 adieu as their trains drew apart. 
 
 [212] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt is not what one would call an orator. 
 He speaks plainly without any rhetorical flourishes; 
 his speech is somewhat broken and his voice not espe- 
 cially pleasing. In this respect, he was at a disadvan- 
 tage when pitted against Mr. Bryan who has the style 
 and the voice of an orator and a personal magnetism 
 that draws men to him. But in spite of the fact that 
 Mr. Bryan seemed to be endowed better by nature to 
 win before the people, Mr. Roosevelt was fully his 
 equal when put face to face with the great common 
 people of America. He lacked Bryan's oratorical pol- 
 ish, it is true, but people were just as eager to hear 
 him. He held them by what he had to say, not by how 
 he said it. Besides, Mr. Roosevelt understands as few 
 men do how to speak to the hearts of men. His words 
 are always accompanied by expressive, though not 
 graceful, gestures which make him, upon the platform, 
 an altogether picturesque and attractive personality — 
 especially to the masses who like an earnest appeal to 
 what is best within them. 
 
 To his strenuous activity, success was not denied. 
 William McKinley was reelected president and Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt was chosen as vice-president. Thus 
 there was conferred upon him the second highest 
 honor in the gift of the American people. 
 
 With the same zeal that he had put into every public 
 trust that had been given him, he devoted himself to 
 the new duties that were placed upon him. During 
 one session of Congress, he presided over the delibera- 
 
 [213] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 tions of the Senate. When Congress adjourned, he 
 joyfully welcomed the opportunity of a rest, the first 
 that had been given him since he entered public life the 
 last time. In spite of the cold weather, he spent two 
 weeks hunting the bobcat and cougar, which he has 
 described in the first chapter of his ' ' Outdoor Pastimes 
 of an American Hunter. ' ' 
 
 But the rest was not to be of long duration. At Buf- 
 falo, the Wonder City, near Niagara Falls, a Pan; 
 American Exposition was being held. The visit of 
 President McKinley at the exposition had been widely 
 announced for September 6, and thousands of people 
 assembled in the Temple of Music on that day to get 
 sight of the chief executive of the land. After the 
 concert, the president stationed himself in the centre 
 of the great hall in order that he might shake hands 
 with all who might care to greet him personally. In a 
 long line, men, women, and children filed by to grasp 
 the hand of the president, and then took their positions 
 on the outside to wait till the president should leave 
 the place. But alas! they were to be disappointed 
 sadly, for the beloved McKinley was not to go out of 
 the Temple of Music as he came in. 
 
 In that crowd of sympathetic friends and patriotic 
 admirers was a man who, unable to appreciate the 
 spirit of American institutions and the lofty ideals of 
 the man who guided the nation, had murder in his heart 
 toward the noble president. That man, well dressed 
 and bearing lightly his twenty-four years, was Leon 
 
 [2141 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Czolgosz. He had taken his place in the line with the 
 other people and slowly approached the place where 
 the president stood. He supported his right arm in a 
 sling and held the hand under his coat. The guards, 
 thinking that he had an injured arm, permitted him to 
 pass. He reached out his left hand to the president 
 who grasped it warmly, and the same instant with his 
 right hand he sent two bullets from the revolver, which 
 he had concealed under his coat, into the body of Pres- 
 ident McKinley, as he was bowing to him a most sym- 
 pathetic greeting. 
 
 For a few seconds, a death-like silence reigned. 
 Then " May God forgive him! " came from the lips of 
 the stricken man as his friends rushed to his side. The 
 president was quickly placed in an arm-chair, while the 
 guards seized Czolgosz, who offered no resistance, and 
 dragged him from the hall. 
 
 It was found that the first bullet had produced only 
 a slight flesh wound, but the second one had entered 
 the stomach. An operation was performed at once, 
 and it was hoped that the patient would speedily re- 
 cover. Mr. Eoosevelt, who was near Burlington, Ver- 
 mont, when the news reached him, hastened at once to 
 the bedside of his chief. Nor did he leave till the phy- 
 sicians assured him that he need have no further fears, 
 for the president would recover. 
 
 He then returned to his own family who were in the 
 Adirondacks for the health of one of his children. Spe- 
 cial despatch service kept Mr. Eoosevelt informed of 
 
 [215] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 the condition of President McKinley. Finally after 
 the bulletins became more and more hopeful for several 
 days, he breathed more freely, and decided to make a 
 trip into the mountains. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt has been variously criticised for his 
 actions during the time between the shooting of Presi- 
 dent McKinley and his death, by a class of men who 
 are fond of attributing unworthy motives to others. 
 Some condemned him for rushing to the bedside of 
 President McKinley, declaring that he could not wait 
 till McKinley was no more to seize the reins of power ; 
 others blamed him because he went on a hunting trip 
 while the president 's life hung in the balance. Neither 
 criticism is worthy of a refutation. Few people at the 
 time, and certainly no sane man would to-day lay up 
 such a charge against him. 
 
 On Friday, September 13, Mr. Roosevelt with a small 
 company ascended Mount Marcy. When they reached 
 the top, it was raining and nothing could be seen of the 
 splendid view they had hoped for. They, therefore, 
 went down to the border of the woods and spread their 
 luncheon, for they were all tired and hungry. Their 
 conversation was suddenly interrupted by approaching 
 foot-steps upon the stony road, a strange sound in 
 those deserted regions. A man came out of the woods, 
 stepped forward and handed Mr. Roosevelt a letter. 
 He broke the seal at once, and read, " The condition of 
 the president has changed for the worse. Cortelyou. ' » 
 Mr. Roosevelt read and reread the despatch and sat 
 
 [216 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 down for a moment ; but he soon arose without having 
 touched his lunch, and said, " I must return immedi- 
 ately." 
 
 Silently, sorrowfully the little company walked back 
 to the cabin where they were stopping at the time ; but 
 he found no further news there, though his private sec- 
 retary, Mr. Loeb, had been informed in the morning 
 from Buffalo of the change for the worse and had has- 
 tened on a fast train to the mountains to find his chief. 
 But the railroad carried him only to North Creek, more 
 than thirty miles from Mount Marcy. All day he had 
 sent telegram after telegram to Mr. Eoosevelt to come, 
 that he would wait for him. The telephone line ended 
 at the club-house at the foot of the mountain, and no 
 one thought of taking the message to Mr. Roosevelt. 
 
 From the cabin, Mr. Eoosevelt sent runners to the 
 club-house and ordered everything ready for immedi- 
 ate departure, before he changed his wet garments for 
 dry ones. Walking to and fro before the cabin, he 
 waited anxiously for the return of his messengers. 
 About midnight, they arrived with Loeb's despatch, 
 " Come at once." He jumped into a carriage and 
 drove out into the night. It was a mad race with death 
 — and death won, for before half the journey had been 
 covered, President McKinley had closed his eyes in 
 eternal sleep. The carriage rolled on over the rocky, 
 mountain paths as if driven by furies. When the 
 driver, fearing that they might dash into an abyss on 
 account of the terrific speed at which they were going, 
 
 [217] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 turned to the silent man behind him wrapped in his 
 overcoat, with a questioning look, he received only the 
 brief words, " Go on — go on! " 
 
 A few minutes after one o 'clock they arrived at the 
 club-house. Loeb, who was still at the other end of 
 the telephone line at North Creek, informed him that 
 the end was nearing in Buffalo. Mr. Loeb knew the 
 dangers of a drive through the mountains after night, 
 and urged Mr. Roosevelt to remain at the club-house till 
 morning, but he received only the short, quick answer, 
 ' 1 1 am coming. ' ' 
 
 The journey from the club-house to the railroad sta- 
 tion at North Creek was a hard one. At one moment 
 the carriage sank into mud to the hubs and at the next 
 bounded from side to side as the horses beat fire from 
 the mountain flints. At a lonely inn, there were fresh 
 horses in waiting and onward they went over moun- 
 tains and through woods. The morning had just begun 
 to break when the almost exhausted horses dashed up 
 to the station at North Creek, where a train was stand- 
 ing ready on the track. Mr. Loeb met Mr. Roosevelt 
 as he stepped from the carriage and informed him that 
 the president was dead — which was only another way 
 of telling him that upon his shoulders had fallen the 
 mantle of the beloved and stalwart William McKinley. 
 
 [218] 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 mr. Roosevelt's political philosophy 
 
 ON SEPTEMBER 14, at 1 :30 p.m. Mr. Roosevelt 
 arrived at Buffalo. Twenty mounted policemen 
 and a squadron of the Fourth Field-Telegraph detach- 
 ment were lined up in front and rear of the carriage 
 that he was to take. They escorted him at a brisk trot 
 to the house where the body of President McKinley 
 was lying. When he left the carriage, he ordered the 
 officer in command to dismiss the soldiers. He then 
 went up into the room of death to take a last look at 
 his murdered friend. He remained only a few min- 
 utes. He wished above all to say a few words of sym- 
 pathy to the stricken wife who, for thirty years, had 
 lovingly and tenderly shared every joy and sorrow 
 with her husband. He, therefore, again turned to his 
 carriage to drive to her hotel. He noticed that the sol- 
 diers were still with the carriage. In a low but firm 
 voice, he ordered the officer to take them away, for he 
 did not want a military guard. Only two detectives 
 were allowed to accompany him. 
 
 The same afternoon he took the oath of office in the 
 home of Mr. Wilcox. It was a touching scene. Secre- 
 tary Root of the Department of War, who had been a 
 
 [219] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 witness to a similar scene twenty years before when 
 Chester A. Arthur took the oath of office after the 
 death of President Garfield, could scarcely control his 
 voice as he asked Mr. Roosevelt in the name of the 
 members of the cabinet to repeat the oath after Judge 
 Hasel of the United States District Court. Pale, trem- 
 bling, with tears in his eyes, Mr. Roosevelt arose, raised 
 his hand and took the oath prescribed by law. Then he 
 let his hand fall and stood there for a moment with 
 bowed head, till Judge Hazel asked him to sign the 
 document. With a firm hand, he wrote his name and 
 then said slowly, solemnly : 
 
 ' * In this hour of terrible grief, I wish to make it 
 known that it shall be my purpose to continue stead- 
 fastly in the policies of President McKinley for the 
 happiness and honor of our beloved country. " 
 
 In this way, he honored the memory of his illustri- 
 ous predecessor. But his first official act was still 
 more gratifying to the country, for it showed that his 
 declaration to continue the policies of President Mc- 
 Kinley was to be faithfully adhered to. He turned to 
 the members of McKinley 's cabinet who were present 
 and said to them that he hoped that no member of the 
 cabinet would feel under obligation to present his res- 
 ignation, for he wished each one to retain his position 
 and to help him carry out the policies of their lamented 
 friend. 
 
 Thus, at the beginning of his presidential term, "he 
 broke with the custom that sanctioned the change of the 
 
 I 220 l 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 cabinet with the in-coming of every president. Even 
 Mr. McKinley had not hesitated to select an entirely 
 new cabinet when he became president. Mr. Roose- 
 velt acted, however, in accordance with the principle 
 which he had always advocated, namely that public offi- 
 cials should not be dismissed so long as they did faith- 
 fully and efficiently the work that was required of them. 
 Mr. McKinley, always a conservative statesman, had 
 won the confidence of the country in a high degree. 
 That he had fallen a victim to the bullet of an anarchist 
 was not because the assassin had anything against him 
 personally — he confessed that he had never seen him 
 before — but because the murderer himself was an un- 
 fortunate victim of that insane delusion that leads men 
 to despise all government and to seek the death of all 
 rulers. The funeral given him showed how deep was 
 the love of the people for their martyred dead. When 
 the body of McKinley was laid to rest in his old home 
 at Canton, Ohio, the near-by fort fired the presidential 
 salute. At the minute that the burial was to take 
 place, business stopped throughout the land. The f ac- 
 torv wheels ceased their hum ; the railroad trains stood 
 still on the track; the boats in the harbors and upon 
 the rivers with flags at half-mast were motionless ; for 
 five minutes, business life was not, and men reverently 
 thought of what was taking place in far-off Ohio. 
 Then business began again: the factory wheels re- 
 newed their hum ; the trains moved on as before ; the 
 boats continued their journey. William McKinley be- 
 
 [221] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 longed to the past; and Theodore Roosevelt was the 
 man of the present and the man of the future. The 
 nation, the world, looked to him. 
 
 At the age of forty-one, he took the reins of govern- 
 ment in his hands, the youngest president who had ever 
 sat in the chair of Washington and Lincoln. Many a 
 man looked with anxiety into the future. It is true 
 that Mr. Roosevelt had grown up under the eyes of the 
 people, and they should have known him better. s But 
 the events of the last few years had blinded them some- 
 what to his real nature. They thought of him only as 
 an impetuous hero of war, who broke down with an 
 iron hand every barrier that stood in his way. They 
 forgot that, in reality, he had devoted only three 
 months to the profession of arms and that he had given 
 twenty of the best years of his life to making himself 
 acquainted with the administrative details of the State 
 and Nation. Fear filled the breast of many a patriotic 
 citizen. He saw that the new president was quick, 
 impulsive; he did not see that, though he made his 
 decisions quickly, Mr. Roosevelt's decisions were dic- 
 tated by reason, not by shallow emotion. Many a 
 statesman feared that the young president would in- 
 volve the country in a foreign war. 
 
 To-day at the approaching close of his second term* 
 
 * The reader will bear in mind that this book was written 
 before the end of Mr. Eoosevelt's second term as President, 
 and it has not been thought desirable to change these ref- 
 erences. — Translator. 
 
 [222] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 of office, his people have learned to trust him; they 
 know that he is not a man of war, but a man of peace, 
 honorable peace; they know that he has been and is 
 the mightiest factor for peace in the world to-day. His 
 country loves him; the world admires and honors him. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was the first author of note to become 
 president in the history of the American republic. As 
 an historian, he had learned from the past ; as a practi- 
 cal statesman, he had watched the government machin- 
 ery in operation; and as a close observer of human 
 nature, he had come in contact with all classes of men 
 and knew the conditions under which the people live 
 and by what motives they are actuated. He entered 
 office with rather definitely formed opinions not only of 
 his duty to the country but of what the country needed, 
 and the best method of attaining those ends. He had 
 a political philosophy of his own that can be traced 
 back, practically unchanged, to the time of his first 
 appearance in public life. And as an understanding 
 of that philosophy throws light both upon his presi- 
 dential career and his character, we shall examine it 
 as found in his books and public addresses of years 
 past. 
 
 The American citizen who enjoys a high degree of 
 personal freedom has shown, on the whole, that he 
 knows how to use that freedom ; but, just as in all other 
 countries where all classes must mingle together and 
 where every one has an opportunity to develop freely 
 the good and the bad side of his character, there are 
 
 [223] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 those who exert an unfavorable influence upon the 
 Nation. The more intelligent and upright statesmen 
 have always been compelled to fight against these 
 baser classes in the State and Nation who are lending 
 their weight to subvert the higher ideals that are right- 
 fully recognized as characteristic of the American peo- 
 ple. Conspicuous among those who have always stood 
 four square against everything that tends to lower the 
 standard of American ideals and character has been 
 Theodore Roosevelt, whose intense love for his country 
 and firm conviction of the world-responsibility resting 
 upon her have made him feel keenly any remissness in 
 her people. But he spent no time in vain regrets; 
 instead he set before his fellow citizens the heroic deeds 
 of their forefathers and urged them to emulate their 
 example. Nor did he stop with preaching positive 
 ideals of good citizenship, but like Chaucer's poor 
 parson, 
 
 " He taught, but first he folwed it himselve." 
 No statesman has had more to say than Mr. Roose- 
 velt of the domestic life of the people. Realizing that 
 the greatness of a nation depends upon the intelligence 
 and integrity of the citizens composing it, Mr. Roose- 
 velt has always emphasized the importance of a correct 
 family life. The boy's home environment should be 
 such as to stimulate all the natural instincts that 
 are helpful to him and repress all those that are detri- 
 mental to the prospective citizen. And not least 
 among those things that a boy must learn is the dig- 
 
 [224] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 nity and necessity of work, and inasmuch as work to 
 the boy usually means study, he must be taught to pre- 
 pare his lessons regularly and thoroughly, for only by 
 so doing can he hope to acquire those habits of mind 
 that will make him a really efficient citizen of this great, 
 free Republic. Though there are those who believe, 
 or make believe, that knowledge gained from books is 
 valueless and even an obstacle to a young man in the 
 struggle for success, no intelligent person will be 
 deceived by such doctrines, all of which spring from 
 ignorance or a petty narrowness akin to ignorance. 
 The young man is fortunate whose home environment 
 gives him an opportunity to cultivate mind and heart, 
 or rather does it for him, so that his mental horizon is 
 broadened and his character strengthened without his 
 being at the time conscious of it. 
 
 Not only should the home develop the intellectual 
 and moral nature of the boy but it should also give to 
 him a strong body, for without a strong body the keen- 
 est intellect and the noblest heart will fail. The nation 
 needs men who can bear the physical strains laid upon 
 them no less than the mental and moral strains. In 
 fact, without strong bodies, men can not do the intel- 
 lectual work that is required of them. For these rea- 
 sons, children should be given an opportunity to play, 
 for otherwise they will become prematurely old. The 
 important thing to remember in this connection, how- 
 ever, is that play and work should be kept separate: 
 they should not play at work nor work at play, but 
 
 [ 225 ] 
 
FEOM EOUGH EIDEE TO PEESIDENT 
 
 give the whole mind to the occupation which engages 
 them at the time. 
 
 But above all, the manly virtues of truth, courage, 
 and perseverance must not be neglected. From youth 
 the child should be taught to love truth and sincerity 
 and to despise falsehood and insincerity and to have 
 ever the courage to stand boldly for what he knows to 
 be right. "A coward who will take a blow without 
 returning it is a contemptible creature ; but, after all, 
 he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who dares not 
 stand up for what he deems right against the sneers of 
 his companions who are themselves wrong. . . . 
 The very fact that the boy should be manly and able to 
 hold his own, that he should be ashamed to submit to 
 bullying without instant retaliation, should, in return, 
 make him abhor any form of bullying, cruelty, or 
 brutality. ... A healthy-minded boy should feel 
 hearty contempt for the coward, and even more 
 hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or 
 small boys, or tortures animals. One prime reason for 
 abhorring cowards is because every good boy should 
 have it in him to thrash the objectionable boy as the 
 need arises." * 
 
 Nor must the grown man forget the principles that 
 should govern the life of the boy, for they apply with 
 even greater force to the man. Every citizen owes 
 duties to himself, to his neighbor, and to the State. 
 
 *From "The Strenuous Life," by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright The Century Company, New York. 
 
 [226] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The first requisite in the performance of that duty is 
 work ; no one who is idle can do his duty to himself or 
 to any one else. The kind of work, the field in which 
 one labors, does not matter, but it is all-important that 
 every one do something. The place in which one 
 should work depends wholly upon the inclination and 
 the ability of the person, and it is of little importance 
 where he does it. But "the law of life is work, and 
 that work in itself, so far from being a hardship, is a 
 great blessing, provided, always, it is carried on under 
 conditions which preserve a man's self-respect and 
 which allow him to develop his own character and rear 
 his children so that he and they, as well as the whole 
 community of which he and they are part, may steadily 
 move onward and upward. The idler, rich or poor, is 
 at best a useless and is generally a noxious member of 
 the community. ' ' * 
 
 Work alone, however, is not sufficient, if one would 
 do one's duty, honestly, faithfully. Many a man who 
 toils early and late never accomplishes anything, 
 because he lacks the will-power to keep himself at one 
 thing long enough. Troubles discourage, and dangers 
 deter him ; he dares not look troubles unflinchingly in 
 the face and boldly, honestly stand for his convictions 
 though the world be against him. Such a man is nec- 
 essarily outdone in the struggle for success. He who 
 wishes to accomplish anything really worth the trou- 
 
 * From ' ' The Strenuous Life, ' ' by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright The Century Company, New York. 
 
 [227] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 ble must not only aim high but must free himself from 
 everything that hinders him and strive incessantly for 
 the attainment of the end desired. 
 
 It is a sad thing to see an ambitious soul go down in 
 defeat, but it is sadder to behold a soul that is without 
 real ambition, for that is defeat of the worst type. The 
 State needs men of positive character : men who do no 
 wrong, not because they are afraid to, but who do right 
 because they prefer to stand for what is best in life. 
 The crying need of the country to-day is for men and 
 women who can live clean, healthy, active lives, — men 
 and women who have learned in the hard school of 
 experience how to ignore danger and to triumph over 
 difficulties. 
 
 "The man must be glad to do a man's work, to dare 
 and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep 
 those dependent upon him. The woman must be the 
 housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise 
 and fearless mother of many healthy children. . . . 
 When men fear work or fear righteous war, when 
 women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of 
 doom ; and well it is that they should vanish from the 
 earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all 
 men and women who are themselves strong and brave 
 and high-minded. ' ' * 
 
 But the strong, brave man who is not afraid to work 
 has a duty which he owes to himself. Just as the boy 
 
 * From "The Strenuous Life," by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright, The Century Co., New York. 
 
 [228] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 must not sit too long over his books but must lay them 
 aside to seek recreation, so must the man not forget 
 that he hurts himself if he does not give over his pro- 
 fessional duties from time to time to that higher duty 
 of caring for his own bodily welfare. Dr. James's 
 gospel of relaxation is a good one, and men should 
 develop an interest in some form of recreative exercise. 
 The high-pressure, commercial age in which we are 
 living makes such relaxation all the more necessary, 
 makes it imperative if we would avoid a nervous break- 
 down. 
 
 After one's regular duties have been done and a 
 proper time given to healthful recreation, the remain- 
 ing hours at one's disposal should not be spent in doing 
 nothing, but in some form of self -improvement. The 
 prudent man will use this time in reading good books 
 or listening to lectures that will widen the sphere of 
 one's knowledge. Intellectual activity will lead one to 
 form high ideals, which can never be without value to 
 him. 
 
 " A man is worthless unless he has in him a lofty 
 devotion to an ideal, and he is worthless also unless he 
 strives to realize this ideal by practical methods." * It 
 is not at all desirable nor necessary that the ambition 
 should be for stocks and bonds. "After a certain 
 amount of wealth has been accumulated, the accumula- 
 tion of more is of very little consequence indeed from 
 
 *From "The Strenuous Life," by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright, The Century Co., New York. 
 
 [229] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the standpoint of success, as success should be under- 
 stood both by the community and the individual. ' ' * 
 
 Naturally every one must, for the sake of his own 
 self-respect and the welfare of his family, seek to 
 acquire a certain amount of wealth ; but no one should 
 get the idea that material goods are the most important 
 thing of life, for he would thereby lose out of his life 
 those things that really make life worth living. It is 
 far more important that one become acquainted with 
 the heroes of American history and be inspired by the 
 lofty ideals of such men as Grant, Washington, and 
 Lincoln, than that he amass an immense fortune. 
 Wealth is of value ; but great wealth, only as it serves 
 the need of society as a whole. 
 
 The aim of every good citizen must be an entire 
 independence of the assistance of others, and all deeds 
 of charity should be directed to that end. It is well to 
 bear in mind that it is sometimes wrong to help people 
 in need. Indiscriminate giving may, and often doubt- 
 less does, help the giver but does the receiver no good. 
 It is a duty which every one owes to the society in 
 which he lives to help the one who has fallen, to place 
 him upon his feet ; but it is equally important that aid 
 be not extended bevond the actual need, and must cease 
 when it is seen that the man does not want to help him- 
 self. Every act of charity should be directed to mak- 
 ing charity unnecessary, and any form of giving which 
 
 * From "The Strenuous Life," by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright, The Century Co., New York. 
 
 [230] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 does not do that is a detriment rather than a help to 
 society. For that reason, the free soup counters are 
 demoralizing; they encourage shiftlessness. It is true 
 that they may be necessary as a temporary measure in 
 time of a great disaster, as an earthquake, but as a per- 
 manent method of distributing aid they are to be dis- 
 couraged as evils but little less demoralizing than vice 
 itself. With the exception of aid in behalf of little 
 children, widows, and cripples, naked charity is not 
 desirable. All help should be so given that it will be 
 rendered thereby unsought and unnecessary in the 
 future. 
 
 Just as all charitable institutions should be regu- 
 lated in such a way that they will contribute to the de- 
 velopment of a strong, self-respecting independence in 
 men and women, the State also should aid in that 
 respect by seeing to it that all classes of citizens enjoy 
 equal rights and privileges before the law, and that 
 those who are powerful or evilly inclined are re- 
 strained from doing violence to those who are for any 
 reason unable to protect themselves. It is inevitable, 
 though unfortunate, that, in a government to which 
 millions of people belong, evil and designing men will 
 occasionally get into office, and the sacred power of the 
 State be prostituted to the interest of greed and self- 
 ishness. But as the State is what the people as a 
 whole make it, the responsibility rests upon the voters 
 to place in control only those men who are above the 
 tricks of the demagogue and the narrowness of short- 
 
 [231] 
 
. FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 sighted politicians. In no other way can the State be 
 made to serve the legitimate interest of the people. 
 
 One of the most prolific causes of the failure of the 
 government to serve the interest of the people is the 
 misunderstanding of the two great classes of our peo- 
 ple. Only when the rich and the poor, the employer 
 and the employee, understand each other and look at 
 things each from the standpoint of the other, will the 
 State become the obedient servant of the highest inter- 
 est of the people. There is more good in either class 
 than the other dreams of, or will dream of until they 
 come in personal contact with each other. Everything 
 that tends to bring about a better understanding 
 between the employer and the laboring classes, be it 
 the press, the platform, or the pulpit, will render a 
 lasting benefit to the State and to every citizen in it. 
 
 Though the State should grant individual liberty in 
 the largest measure consistent with the general wel- 
 fare, it should never hesitate to interfere when anv 
 man or any class of men use that liberty in a way sub- 
 versive of the common welfare. Naturally no general 
 rule can be laid down as to when the State should and 
 when it should not intervene in citizens' private affairs. 
 Each case must be handled on its own merit, but the 
 fact should never be lost sight of that the interest of 
 the community, which the State must serve, should 
 always take precedence over that of any man or class 
 of men. "We have exactly the same right to regulate 
 the conditions of life and work in factories and 
 
 [ 232 ] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 tenement houses that we have to regulate fire-escapes 
 and the like in other houses. In certain communities 
 the existence of a thoroughly efficient department of 
 factory inspection is just as essential as the establish- 
 ment of a fire department. How far we shall go in 
 regulating the hours of labor, or the liabilities of 
 employers, is a matter of expediency, and each case 
 must be determined on its own merits, exactly as it is 
 a matter of expediency to determine what so-called 
 'public utilities' the community shall itself own and 
 what ones it shall leave to private or corporate owner- 
 ship, securing to itself merely the right to regulate. 
 Sometimes one course is expedient, sometimes the 
 other." 
 
 An example of what an intelligent and cautious 
 intervention of the State can do in labor difficulties 
 was seen in the State of New York while Mr. Roosevelt 
 was governor. The matter was dealt with in a two- 
 fold way by making a distinction between laborers in 
 the service of the State and those in the employment 
 of private individuals. That the State might set an 
 example for private business concerns to follow, it was 
 enacted that eight hours should constitute a day for all 
 laborers in the service of the State and that decent 
 wages should be paid. The general result of the 
 measure has been good. "Poor work is always dear, 
 whether poorly paid or not, and good work is always 
 well worth having; and as a mere question of expe- 
 diency, aside even from the question of humanity, we 
 
 [233] 
 
FROM KOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 find that we can obtain the best work by paying fair 
 wages and permitting the work to go on only for a 
 reasonable time. ' ' * 
 
 For the benefit of the laboring men who were not 
 in the service of the commonwealth, Mr. Roosevelt did 
 something in an indirect way. He was instrumental 
 in establishing the bureau of workingmen's statistics, 
 of popularizing arbitration, and of securing more rigid 
 inspection of factories. The Bureau of Statistics has 
 not only collected data but it has directed the attention 
 of the people to many things of importance to the 
 State. Through arbitration many strikes have been 
 brought to a satisfactory close, and by timely inter- 
 vention an even greater number. On account of rigid 
 factory inspection the disgraceful sweat-shops are dis- 
 appearing and the condition of tenement houses is 
 becoming better. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt always believed in applying the same 
 high code of honor in intercourse with foreign nations 
 that he advocated and practised in private and public 
 life at home. He sought the advantage of no nation 
 nor would he permit any nation to take the advantage 
 of his. Believing, however, that the relation between 
 the nations of the world should be that of neighbors, 
 he conducted his negotiations with foreign powers on 
 that basis. His sincere and frank way introduced a 
 new method into diplomacy. He made the nations of 
 
 ♦From "The Strenuous Life," by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Copyright, The Century Co., New York. 
 
 [234] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the world feel that the United States was a great and 
 powerful but friendly neighbor with whom it was easy 
 to live on terms of peace and with whom it was danger- 
 ous to live any other way. The dreadful Monroe Doc- 
 trine was in his hands none the less effective but less 
 obnoxious to European powers, because he showed 
 them the United States held to the Monroe Doctrine 
 not for a selfish reason but on the broad ground of 
 international peace, that this country was willing and 
 ready to accord to every other nation equal commer- 
 cial privileges on this continent and expected from the 
 nations of Europe a similar consideration there. 
 
 [235] 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PRACTICAL POLITICS 
 
 fin HERE are two ever-living problems before the 
 JL American statesmen : the problem of the relation 
 between capital and labor with its attendant prob- 
 lem, the trust, and the negro problem. Other prob- 
 lems are important for a time; a presidential cam- 
 paign may even be made upon them, as Free Silver in 
 1896 and Imperialism in 1900 : but the other two prob- 
 lems are ever present. No final solution seems possi- 
 ble, because the problems arise out of conditions of 
 society, which is constantly changing but in a way to 
 make the solution more difficult rather than less diffi- 
 cult. As the parties to the quarrel become more sensi- 
 tive upon the subject, a higher and higher degree of 
 statesmanship is required. The problems are a stand- 
 ing challenge to the legislative and executive acumen 
 of the American statesman. 
 
 Without prejudice, as far as that is possible for any 
 man, Mr. Roosevelt faced these two great problems, 
 for every president of the United States has some- 
 thing to do with them and must either help the country 
 to a final solution of the problems or hinder it. Capi- 
 talism has experienced in no other country such phe- 
 
 [236] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 nomenal development as in the United States. Untold 
 millions have been piled up in a few years by men who 
 in boyhood were day-laborers. Such men deserve 
 the respect of their fellow citizens on account of their 
 business sagacity and the material prosperity which 
 they bring to their country. It is equally important, 
 however, and right that they recognize the additional 
 responsibility which their wealth places upon them, 
 that they consider their less fortunate brothers. Oth- 
 erwise their great wealth becomes a menace to the 
 country at large. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, great wealth is more dan- 
 gerous in the United States than almost anywhere 
 else, because money gives power, political power. In 
 spite of the fact that America is a republic that boasts 
 of its democratic spirit, the millionaire can, if he 
 wishes, control almost every election: he can buy 
 judges, State legislatures, and even congressmen — 
 and, what is even worse, may at times be compelled to 
 do it to protect himself against the narrowness and 
 cupidity of the men who make the laws. The blame 
 for the political corruption rests not with any one 
 particular class. Every time that a legislative vote or 
 judicial decision is bought, there is the seller, but back 
 of the seller are the electors who put the man in a 
 place where he could sell himself to the money-power. 
 
 If the managers of great industries unite, their 
 power becomes even greater, and because greater more 
 detrimental to the masses of the people. By crushing 
 
 [2371 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 out competition, they set the prices for the entire 
 country on the products which they control, and at the 
 same time dictate the wage scale to their employees. 
 If the laborers rebel, they close their shops, sell their 
 products in stock at still more exorbitant prices, and 
 appeal to the government for protection against the 
 starving and infuriated workingmen. 
 
 The laboring classes, realizing the futility of fight- 
 ing the battle single-handed, protect themselves by the 
 formation of unions. Though one man can do noth- 
 ing against corporate wealth, the union is a force to 
 be reckoned with, not only by the employers of labor 
 but by the government as well. The unions exercise 
 over their members just as tyrannical a power as the 
 members of the trust. The trusts freeze out their 
 competitors by lowering prices to a level at which no 
 independent industry could live, and as soon as their 
 object is accomplished, they raise the prices higher 
 than they were before, in order to reimburse them- 
 selves for the loss under the low prices; the unions 
 refuse to allow their men to work with non-union men, 
 or " scabs," as they are called in derision, dictate 
 terms to the employer, and if their demands are 
 rejected go on a strike, and sometimes resort to vio- 
 lence to prevent the employment of non-union men in 
 their places. 
 
 In the lockouts and strikes, the workingmen suffer 
 most, because they are poor and depend in a large 
 measure at least upon their labor for their daily 
 
 [238] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 bread ; but the employers are also injured by the stop- 
 ping of their factories and by actual destruction of 
 property. The country, however, is hurt the worst, 
 perhaps, by strikes and lockouts, for they always 
 engender class hatred, which renders the settlement of 
 the trouble all the more difficult, as well as lays the 
 ground for future disputes. 
 
 " The question of the relation between capital and 
 labor is a vital one," Mr. Roosevelt once remarked 
 to his friend, Jacob Riis. " Whether your children 
 and my children shall be happy or unhappy in this 
 country in the year 1950, depends upon whether every 
 man of honor is a firm friend to every other man of 
 honor, be he working-man or capitalist. 'I am for 
 the workingman,' or ' I am for the capitalist,' fails to 
 place the emphasis where it belongs, upon the un- 
 changeable law of right. This class spirit is the cancer 
 that is eating away the life of our republic. I am for 
 neither capital nor labor, but I am for honesty against 
 dishonesty, for patriotism against selfishness, for right 
 against wrong. ' ' 
 
 In May, 1902, a strike broke out in the mining dis- 
 tricts of Pennsylvania. About one hundred and forty- 
 five thousand men threw down their shovels. The 
 mine owners refused to yield, and the strike dragged 
 on into October. A dire calamity stared the country 
 in the face. Winter was coming on with no coal in 
 sight — at least very little, and that little sold at exces- 
 sive prices. Neither schools nor hospitals could be 
 
 [239] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 heated, and many factories closed their doors. The 
 president was flooded with letters and telegrams urg- 
 ing him to interfere. The mayors of the coast cities 
 protested and entreated: they pictured the awful sit- 
 uation in which millions of people were placed by the 
 strike, with winter coming on and with coal at twelve 
 dollars per ton. In the meantime, the mine owners 
 had rather cautiously but firmly intimated to the presi- 
 dent that they expected him ' ' to keep his hands off ' ' 
 and went so far even as to suggest that, if he wished 
 to be elected president in 1904, he had better steer clear 
 of the whole thing — which proves quite conclusively 
 that the mine owners were not acquainted with the 
 man to whom they were dictating. 
 
 Mr. Eoosevelt had just met with an accident. In 
 Massachusetts, his coach had collided with a street car ; 
 the detective who sat beside him had been killed and 
 he had received a painful injury in the leg, which pre- 
 vented him from using the leg for several days. Dur- 
 ing the time, Secretary Moody of the Navy Depart- 
 ment visited him, and relates the following: 
 
 " I found him sitting with the injured leg lying on 
 a chair while the surgeon adjusted the bandage. Sev- 
 eral times while I was there he gave visible signs of 
 acute pain, though he said nothing about it. He spoke 
 of the strike and the requests that became more urgent 
 every hour. The outlook was serious. It seemed that 
 the strike could not be brought to a close without his 
 intervention, and intervention might mean political 
 
 [240] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 death. I could see that it worried him. It was natural 
 that he should hesitate in such a crisis. He waited 
 long enough to learn everything of the suffering of the 
 coast cities, of the closing of schools and hospitals, of 
 the poor shivering in their rude homes without coal. 
 He then gritted his teeth and said, ' Yes, I shall do it, 
 I believe that it will prove my ruin politically, but it 
 is right and I will do it. ' ' ' 
 
 And he did do it. In spite of the threats of the mine 
 owners, he intervened by calling a meeting of the rep- 
 resentatives of both parties at the White House, at 
 which he gave them to understand that something had 
 to be done or else the government itself would take 
 control. An agreement was reached, and the miners 
 went to work. 
 
 There was rejoicing throughout the country. The 
 governor of Massachusetts wrote the president a let- 
 ter expressing to him " the thanks of every man, 
 woman, and child in the commonwealth." To which 
 Mr. Roosevelt replied, ' ' Yes, we have won, but heaven 
 and earth! it has been a hard fight! " And it had 
 been a hard fight, and the mutterings were not yet 
 over. The mine owners complained bitterly of what 
 they termed his meddling in affairs of private persons. 
 They said that the strike would have ended soon any- 
 way by the miners going to work, compelled by want 
 and misery. And, of course, on terms more favorable 
 to them. 
 
 Frequently during the time the strike was in prog- 
 
 [ 241 ] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 ress, disorders broke out in the mining districts. The 
 State militia was sent to keep peace, and finally the 
 president ordered a detachment of the regular army 
 into the region. The workingmen resented that action 
 and accused the president of partiality to the wealthy 
 classes, though his purpose was to protect public prop- 
 erty and to see to it that every one, rich and poor alike, 
 was treated fairly, honestly. 
 
 One day when he had invited a number of working- 
 men to a dinner, a representative of labor remarked 
 that at last his co-workers had found an open ear in the 
 White House. 
 
 "Yes," replied the president, "the door of the 
 White House will open for workingmen as easily as 
 for capitalists, as long as I am here, but no easier." 
 
 The conclusion was hardly to their liking. They did 
 not want the same treatment as the capitalists but a 
 preferential treatment. Some times the laboring 
 men expected too much of the president, and seemed to 
 think that he should put himself at their service and 
 make their cause his. They forgot that he was the 
 servant of all classes, and that he was not an advo- 
 cate to plead the cause of any one, but a judge whose 
 duty it was to use his power to bring about peace and 
 justice between man and man. 
 
 For instance, a non-union man was employed in the 
 government printing office at Washington. The union 
 asked that he be dismissed and the manager yielded in 
 order to avoid trouble. When Mr. Eoosevelt heard of 
 
 [242] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 it, however, lie ordered the man to be reinstated imme- 
 diately. The labor leaders at once called upon the 
 president and remonstrated against his action. They 
 finally declared that the man could not meet the 
 requirements expected of him. 
 
 " That is another question entirely," replied Mr. 
 Roosevelt. " I shall investigate that matter. But as 
 to the fact of his being a non-union man, the oath of 
 office under which I serve does not recognize that at all. 
 I am president of the United States and it is my duty 
 to see that justice is done without regard to creed, 
 color, occupation, or social standing. Whether a per- 
 son is a union or non-union man will have no more 
 weight with me in determining his fitness for a gov- 
 ernment office than whether he is a Protestant or 
 Catholic, Jew or agnostic." 
 
 Though he did not take sides with the laboring men, 
 he did not espouse the cause of the capitalists. He 
 deemed it his duty to stand above both in order that he 
 might do his duty to both. The capitalists declared 
 that he was in league with the workingmen against 
 them, but the charge was false. He was in league with 
 no one, he fought against no one. He is himself a rich 
 man and knows the value of wealth to a country, to all 
 classes of people. Nor was he ever the sworn enemy of 
 trusts, as is sometimes declared. He has been and is 
 the enemy of dishonest practices of the trusts, as he 
 has been and is the enemy of the dishonest practices of 
 workingmen. As long as corporate wealth stayed 
 
 [243] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 within its legitimate bounds, he was its friend; but, 
 whenever it encroached upon the rights of others, he 
 brought it to the bar of justice. 
 
 One reason, said Mr. Roosevelt, why the people hate 
 the trusts so much is that such an air of mystery sur- 
 rounds all they do. People are naturally suspicious of 
 what they can not understand. As long as trusts 
 guard their business methods as if they had a reprov- 
 ing conscience, the people will suspect that something 
 crooked is being done. If, on the other hand, they would 
 accustom themselves to acting frankly, openly in the 
 eye of the public and give all the information desired 
 freely to the Department of Commerce and Labor, 
 they would not only win the respect of the people at 
 large but they would also secure greater efficiency in 
 the administrative details of their business. No hon- 
 est business can suffer, but may be greatly helped by 
 doing every thing in an open and frank manner. 
 
 Often the trusts had ample reason for fearing pub- 
 licity. The Beef Trust, for instance, had increased 
 prices one-third, all of which they put into their own 
 pockets, for investigation showed that cattle had 
 neither increased in price nor decreased in numbers. 
 It was a clear case of fraud and Mr. Roosevelt had 
 charges preferred against the trust. Though the mem- 
 bers were shrewd enough to escape by the dissolution 
 of the trust, the main purpose had been attained, the 
 putting an end to the nefarious practices. Even more 
 had been accomplished : a precedent had been set. 
 
 [244] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Later when the conditions existing in the meat mar- 
 kets of Chicago became known, President Roosevelt 
 without hesitation sent a committee to investigate. On 
 the basis of evidence secured by the committee, he sent 
 an urgent recommendation to Congress for some kind 
 of a law for regulating the quality of manufactured 
 food products. For seventeen years such a measure 
 had been before Congress, but each time that it was 
 brought up for passage it was chloroformed into a 
 long and quiet sleep through the influence of favored 
 interests. But after the investigation and the disclos- 
 ures in Chicago, Congress dared not ignore the wishes 
 of the president and the demands of the country, for 
 press, pulpit, and platform were back of the president 
 to a remarkable degree. The law reached final pas- 
 sage in the early days of 1907. It compelled manufac- 
 turers of food products to label their goods in such a 
 way that people could tell readily the quality of the 
 foods bought. A severe penalty for violations of the 
 law was provided, and manufacturing establishments 
 generally fell in with the spirit of the law, for it was a 
 help to the trade itself, inasmuch as it enabled the pub- 
 lic to distinguish between reputable and disreputable 
 brands. 
 
 Disinterested, however, as had been Mr. Roosevelt's 
 proceedings against the trusts, he was accused by some 
 people of favoritism. It was charged that he played 
 continually for popularity by prosecuting enough of 
 the trusts to win the support of the masses, who would 
 
 [245] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDEE TO PRESIDENT 
 
 not see through his designs, but he was always careful 
 to stop short, in his prosecutions, of losing the politi- 
 cal favor of great corporations. " Of course, " said 
 his enemies, " he had to prosecute the Beef Trust, for 
 its methods were so flagrant that the people demanded 
 that something be done. You will notice, however, 
 that he has not touched the Steel Trust, which is 
 acknowledged to be one of the worst. ' ' And it is true 
 that he did not institute proceedings against the Steel 
 Trust, but for reasons very different from those as- 
 signed to him. The attorney-general, whom he had 
 instructed to investigate the Steel Trust, said that 
 there would be no possibility of winning before the 
 courts, and advised that the matter be allowed to rest 
 till a more favorable time. Mr. Roosevelt's conclu- 
 sion not to begin proceedings against the Steel Trust 
 was dictated by sound statesmanship. He did not care 
 to take up a fight in which he was sure to be defeated : 
 it would not only do the cause no good but it would 
 work actual harm to the government itself. Had Mr. 
 Roosevelt been seeking political favor, he could have 
 indicted the trust and have thrown the responsibility 
 for defeat upon the law and the courts ; but he never 
 sought favor in that way. 
 
 With the same earnestness and impartiality which 
 he had used in dealing with the problem of capital and 
 labor, he tried to do something in the way of a solu- 
 tion of the negro problem. The negro problem in the 
 United States is a serious one. The Emancipation 
 
 [ 246 ] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Proclamation (January 1, 1863) declared the freedom 
 of the slaves in the seceded States, and the Thirteenth 
 Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
 (December 18, 1865) extended the provisions to all 
 parts of the federal union. The number of free Amer- 
 icans was increased four millions. The negroes, how- 
 ever, did not know how to use the newly acquired free- 
 dom and remained for the most part in the service of 
 their old masters. 
 
 To-day, after more than forty years since the shack- 
 les of servitude were stricken from them, they are free 
 only in name. Their constantly increasing numbers — 
 there were, according to the census of 1900, more than 
 ten million negroes in the United States — fill the white 
 population with ever-deepening apprehension of a 
 possible negro uprising with all of its attendant hor- 
 rors. What to do with the negro is a question that 
 every statesman has to face, but one that has not yet 
 been met successfully. To transport the negroes to 
 Africa is now impossible, whatever might have been 
 the case at the close of the Civil War, and the problem 
 becomes one of how the white population can absorb 
 the colored race with the least harm to itself. 
 
 It is always difficult enough to make two races live 
 side by side in peace, and the difficulty is intensified in 
 the United States by the fact that the negroes were 
 once slaves. The Southern people are accustomed to 
 intercourse with the negroes, but in a manner not very 
 helpful to either the negro or the white man. They 
 
 [247] 
 
FROM EOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 are treated as an inferior race, as a people whose duty 
 it is to be the " hewer of wood and carrier of water " 
 for their more favored brothers. In spite of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States to the contrary, in the 
 Southern States, color, or rather the lack of it, is the 
 badge of power. In many places, the negroes have vir- 
 tually been reenslaved by laws which enable the 
 whites to keep in their service negroes to whom they 
 have advanced loans. The white people are not as 
 careful as they should be, perhaps, of the education of 
 the negro, for the very obvious reason that he could 
 not be kept long in a condition of dependency. Of 
 course, the Constitution of the United States gives the 
 negro the right to vote, but the Southern States have 
 found a way of disfranchising the majoriy of the negro 
 population by educational qualifications which apply 
 to ignorant blacks but not to equally ignorant whites. 
 In many parts of the South, the negro population is 
 greater than the white and the whites resort to these 
 indirect methods to retain political control. 
 
 Nor is the hatred against the negro confined wholly 
 to the Southern States. The people of the North and 
 West have no particular love for the negro. They do 
 not wish to stay all night at the same hotels that 
 the negro patronizes ; they object to him as an official ; 
 they even dislike a colored postman. In some places 
 in the North and "West, certain people are insisting 
 that railroads provide separate coaches for negroes as 
 is done in the South — a demand which is not likely to 
 
 [248] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 be complied with for the reason that there are not 
 enough negroes to justify the additional expense. 
 
 Furthermore, no opportunity is lost anywhere to 
 punish the negro for violations of the law. The per- 
 centage of convictions among the negroes is far higher 
 than among the whites, but it is only fair to add that 
 the court record is not an altogether just standard for 
 determining the comparative criminal tendencies of 
 the two races, though it is used by those who are op- 
 posed to the black man to prove his natural depravity. 
 The truth of the matter is, negroes are frequently pun- 
 ished for offences for which whites are allowed to go 
 free. 
 
 It might also be said that the court records do not 
 show all the offences of the negroes. The white people 
 only too often take the law into their own hands and 
 mete out justice, more frequently injustice, to colored 
 offenders. A very small offence is all that is necessary 
 to inflame a race riot in which hundreds of innocent 
 negroes are sure to fall victims to the insane passion of 
 white men. For instance, in September, 1906, a riot 
 broke out in Atlanta, Georgia. Men, women, and chil- 
 dren were stoned and shot; they were pulled out of 
 street cars and beaten to death. Thousands of infuri- 
 ated white people searched for negroes who hid in cel- 
 lars and attics ; and not till eight companies of infan- 
 try and one piece of field artillery appeared could the 
 authorities stop the wholesale slaughter. 
 
 It must be admitted that the negroes sometimes 
 
 [249 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 strike back in revenge, but this does not justify the 
 cruelties of the white people. A few years ago the 
 Evening Post of Vicksburg, Mississippi, reported a 
 lynching which outdid the annals of the American 
 Indian for cruelty. A negro was under the suspicion 
 of having murdered a white man; when he learned 
 that he was suspected, he fled with his surely innocent 
 wife. They were both captured and tied to a tree. 
 Then the angry mob began its devilish work : they cut 
 off finger after finger and distributed them as keep- 
 sakes to the crowd; they cut off their ears; they pulled 
 out pieces of flesh with cork-screws ; and at last they 
 burned them at the stake. 
 
 Mr. Eoosevelt condemned such atrocities against 
 the negro without hesitation, without mincing words. 
 " A mob," said he, August 6, 1903, in a letter to the 
 governor of Indiana, ' ' is simply a form of anarchy, 
 and anarchy to-day is just what it has always been : 
 the servant and forerunner of tyranny. . . . All 
 thinking men must be filled with direful apprehensions 
 on account of the more and more frequent occurrence 
 of lynching throughout our country, especially the 
 revolting forms which the cruelties of the mob often 
 take if a negro is the victim. In some cases, the mob 
 seems to be concerned more about the color of the 
 guilty one than about the crime itself. . . . 
 Lynching itself is terrible even when it is restricted to 
 those who are guilty of the inhuman crime of rape, but 
 in fact it is never so limited nor indeed can be. Every 
 
 [250 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 man inclined to use force to accomplish an illegitimate 
 purpose is encouraged by every case of lynching, in 
 which the mob goes unpunished, to take the law into 
 his own hands as he sees fit. The inhuman tortures 
 resorted to by mobs at times will inevitably spread to 
 others; a mob makes no distinction in crimes. The 
 spirit of lawlessness grows with the form in which it 
 receives nourishment ; and, if the mob lynch criminals 
 for certain reasons, they will, sooner or later, be ready 
 to lynch real or would-be criminals for other reasons. 
 . . . No patriotic citizen can be blind to the hide- 
 ousness of mob violence nor to the ultimate result to 
 which it must inevitably lead. All men and women in 
 public life, editors, writers, ministers, teachers, law- 
 yers, doctors, all who have any opportunity of appeal- 
 ing to the public conscience, should unite to stigmatize 
 energetically such crimes and to support those whose 
 duty it is to suppress them. We must as a people stand 
 up for the liberty and decent treatment of every 
 human being without regard to creed or color. We 
 shall lose our own right to freedom if we tolerate 
 crimes like those of which I am speaking." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt regards the negroes as citizens of the 
 United States the same as white men, and holds that 
 they should, therefore, enjoy the same rights and priv- 
 ileges and be subjected to no exceptional laws. If the 
 white man would do that and see to it that the negro 
 had an opportunity to educate himself in the same way 
 as his former masters, he would gradually acquire that 
 
 [251] 
 
FKOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 self-reliance and independence which would make him 
 feel as an American citizen. With education of the 
 right sort would disappear, too, all ground for fear on 
 the part of the white man of negro revenge, for, if both 
 races were protected and rewarded alike according to 
 merit without distinction of color, the negroes would 
 not think of taking bloody revenge but would work 
 shoulder to shoulder with their white brothers in up- 
 holding the national honor and promoting the wel- 
 fare of the whole people. 
 
 In his dealings with the negroes, Mr. Roosevelt has 
 always been guided by general principles of right and 
 justice. When he led his "Bough. Biders " up San 
 Juan Hill, the Tenth Begiment of cavalry (colored) 
 joined him. All their white officers were killed and the 
 command devolved upon Mr. Boosevelt. He treated 
 them with the same respect that he treated his own 
 men, and they reciprocated, obeyed him willingly and 
 were as proud of their leader as the ' ' Bough Biders ' ' 
 themselves. And the example of Mr. Boosevelt at that 
 time was not without good effect. Though the major- 
 ity of the ' ' Bough Biders ' ' were from the West where 
 the sentiment against the negro is strong, they were on 
 the best of terms with their colored companions and 
 drank with them out of the same canteen. 
 
 How receptive and grateful the negro is for kind- 
 ness at the hand of Colonel Boosevelt and his men is 
 shown by an incident that happened shortly before the 
 storming of San Juan Hill. As the "Bough Biders" 
 
 [252] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 passed the Tenth Regiment to the attack, some of the 
 men saw a negro on the ground whose neck artery 
 had been cut by an enemy's bullet, and who would 
 have bled to death in a short time. A cowboy seeing 
 the situation went to his relief ; he stopped the flow of 
 blood by pressing his finger upon the wound. He 
 looked around for a surgeon but none was in sight. 
 He threw his gun aside, sat down by the wounded man 
 and sorrowfully watched his companions work their 
 way up the hill ; but not till a surgeon relieved him did 
 he join his friends at the front. At the hospital to 
 which the negro was taken, he told with tearful eyes 
 how a ' ' Rough Rider ' ' had saved his life, and con- 
 cluded, " Yes, he did that — and yet I am only a ' nig- 
 ger' ! " 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt has often given offence, especially to 
 Southern people, by his treatment of the negro. When, 
 in October, 1907, he invited Booker T. Washington, a 
 man who has done more for his race than all white men 
 combined, to the White House and dined with him, a 
 storm of indignation arose. Mr. Roosevelt, however, 
 did not care. To him the black man who had risen 
 from slavery to a position of such power and influence 
 among his people was worthy of the highest honor. 
 He had built for himself a lasting monument in the 
 great institution which he established at Tuskegee. 
 He had done things and was still doing things and the 
 president of the United States felt that he should like 
 to hear from his own lips the opinions of the greatest 
 
 [253] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 of his race on the vexed negro question. That the man 
 was black, mattered not at all to him; he was a loyal 
 citizen and an honorable man and, therefore, worthy 
 to sit at the first table of the land. 
 
 In many Southern States, the negro population is 
 far greater than the white. In South Carolina the col- 
 ored vote exceeds the white by twenty thousand. Mr. 
 Eoosevelt, therefore, thought it nothing but right that 
 the negroes should have at least one of the important 
 federal offices of the State, provided a suitable man 
 could be found. He accordingly appointed Dr. Crum, 
 the negro physician, collector of customs at Charles- 
 ton. In spite of the fact that Dr. Crum was a man of 
 irreproachable character and excellent education, a 
 man highly respected not only by his own people but 
 by white men as well, President Roosevelt was bitterly 
 criticised by a number of newspapers and accused of 
 trying to introduce negro dominance in the South. 
 They threatened that, if he ever visited the South, the 
 people would show him how little they thought of him 
 and his pro-negro sentiments. 
 
 Fortunately, however, the people of the South were 
 far more noble and patriotic than the press would 
 have the country think, for when Mr. Eoosevelt did 
 visit the South on one of his tours of the United States, 
 he was accorded the highest respect everywhere and 
 thousands of people came out to hear what he had to 
 say. At Springfield, Illinois, at the tomb of Lincoln, 
 where a detachment of colored militia was drawn up, 
 
 [254] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt took occasion to express his opinion in 
 regard to the negro. He said, remembering the brav- 
 ery of the negro regiment in the Cuban campaign, 
 that " men who had been good enough to shed their 
 blood for their country were good enough to deserve 
 decent treatment from that country and its people." 
 
 During his administration, Mr. Roosevelt was 
 especially solicitous for the welfare of the army and 
 navy. In his " Life of Thomas H. Benton," in speak- 
 ing of the Civil War, he says that the unprepared- 
 ness of the United States government for war is pro- 
 verbial and then adds that there is always more danger 
 of spending too little than of spending too much for 
 protection against a possible war. He had himself 
 seen how inefficient the army and navy were during the 
 Cuban war. As soon, therefore, as the opportunity 
 was given him, he set about with characteristic zeal to 
 raise the standard of efficiency of the fighting forces. 
 
 According to the law of February 2, 1901, the army 
 shall consist of — besides the staff of administration 
 and technical troops, such as the railroad and field- 
 telegraph corps — fifteen regiments of cavalry, thirty 
 regiments of infantry, and one artillery corps. A regi- 
 ment of infantry is divided into three battalions of 
 four companies each; a cavalry regiment into three 
 detachments of four troops each. Every regiment, 
 infantry and cavalry, has a colonel, a lieutenant-col- 
 onel, three majors, fifteen captains, fifteen first-lieuten- 
 ants, and fifteen lieutenants. The artillery corps is 
 
 [255] 
 
FROM EOUGH EIDEE TO PRESIDENT 
 
 divided into field artillery, to which also belong the 
 occupation-artillery, mountain-artillery, and machine- 
 gun batteries, together with thirty battalions ; and into 
 the coast artillery, to which belong those having charge 
 of submarine mines and torpedoes, together with one 
 hundred and twenty-six battalions. 
 
 Another interesting feature of the law is the clause 
 which gives volunteer officers of the Spanish- American 
 War the right to retain the titles they held at the close 
 of the war and to wear on solemn occasions the uni- 
 forms of their rank. According to this, Mr. Eoosevelt 
 will be entitled to wear the uniform of a brigadier- 
 general, for he was brevetted brigadier-general after 
 the battle of San Juan. As president he is comman- 
 der-in-chief of all the forces on land and sea. 
 
 As a supplement to the law of 1901, another was 
 passed, January 23, 1903, known as the " Law for the 
 Increase of the Efficiency of the Militia. ' ' All able- 
 bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five 
 belong to the militia. The militia is divided into two 
 classes, the organized, or National Guard, and the 
 Reserve. The organized militia is drilled in the same 
 manner as the standing army. The president has the 
 right to call the militia to the colors whenever he 
 deems it advisable, and he may keep them under arms 
 as much as nine months in a year. The militia when in 
 service get the same pay as members of the standing 
 army, and are court-martialled for failure to report 
 when called into service. 
 
 [256] 
 
FEOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The militia in the various States is under the super- 
 vision of the adjutant-general, who in turn is respon- 
 sible to the secretary of war. The militia is drilled in 
 companies and regiments. Special attention is given 
 to long marches, camp life (at least five days in succes- 
 sion), as well as to firing tactics and target practice. 
 
 Article 23 of the law deals in detail with the candi- 
 dates for commissioned officers. The applicants must 
 pass an examination in order to prove that they have 
 the practical qualifications. Another clause is espe- 
 cially interesting: it provides that no one shall be 
 appointed lieutenant after he has reached the age of 
 thirty, first lieutenant after thirty-five, captain after 
 forty, major after forty-five, lieutenant-colonel after 
 fifty, and colonel after fifty-five. 
 
 The limited extent of this little book forbids our 
 going deeper into details of Roosevelt's army reforms. 
 His influence extended to every department of govern- 
 ment. Commerce and industry, agriculture and for- 
 estry, every branch of the government service received 
 his earnest attention. He wiped out abuses that had 
 crept into the post-office department ; he reformed the 
 diplomatic and consular service by sending able men 
 to foreign countries; he compelled the courts to be 
 more punctual in the discharge of their duties; he 
 introduced system and fairness into the pension bureau 
 and saw to it that the old soldier, the widow, and the 
 orphan were cared for; he set the whole executive 
 machinery into more regular and quicker motion ; and 
 
 [257] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 he even dared to reform the English spelling. But not 
 only did he make the executive department more effici- 
 ent than it had ever been before (at least for years), 
 but he spurred Congress to such unusual activity that 
 the sessions under his administration are looked upon 
 as the most important in the life of the Republic. He 
 accomplished much and lasting good, but he did not 
 accomplish all that he wished to do. 
 
 As far as administrative measures were concerned 
 he succeeded, for there he had a free hand, but when- 
 ever new legislation was needed to make any reform 
 effective, he was handicapped, for Congress is the law- 
 making body in the American republic. The president 
 can not get the most popular measure enacted into law 
 unless the members of Congress are willing, excepting 
 in war times, when Congress is to all intents and pur- 
 poses the servant of the president, who has almost 
 unlimited powers. 
 
 Had Mr. Roosevelt done nothing more than what we 
 have thus far mentioned, he would have had a just 
 claim upon every American citizen as a benefactor of 
 mankind. Whether his name would have extended to 
 foreign nations and whether the United States would 
 to-day hold the place which she holds in the council of 
 Nations, is more than doubtful. The course of Ameri- 
 can politics usually runs smoothly without disturbing 
 in the least the great stream of world affairs ; but un- 
 der Mr. Roosevelt the Stars and Stripes became known 
 and respected in all civilized countries. As never 
 
 [ 258] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 before, America played her part in the great game of 
 world politics. 
 
 Under the leadership of President McKinley, Cuba 
 and the Philippines had been freed from the Spanish 
 yoke, but it was under the direction of him who led his 
 " Rough Riders" up San Juan Hill that Cuba came 
 into possession of real liberty and peace and that the 
 Philippines passed from a state of chaos to that of 
 order through American discipline and education. 
 
 It is true that a permanent occupation of the Philip- 
 pine Islands would be in every way contradictory to 
 the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, of which Mr. Roose- 
 velt is a firm adherent, for, if America belongs to 
 Americans, the same doctrines teach that the Philip- 
 pines belong to the Filipinos. If the Americans will 
 not acknowledge the right of the Filipinos to self-gov- 
 ernment, they can not consistently support the Monroe 
 Doctrine as interpreted and advocated by Mr. Roose- 
 velt and his adherents. Of course, the full and ulti- 
 mate conclusions of the Monroe Doctrine have never 
 been insisted on. Canada still belongs to England, 
 and the United States has frequently interfered in 
 European affairs, for instance in Turkey and Rou- 
 mania. When, on the other hand, Germany, England, 
 and Italy blockaded, in the year 1901, some ports of 
 Venezuela, Mr. Roosevelt, pointing to the Monroe Doc- 
 trine as a precedent, at once asked for an assurance 
 that a permanent occupation of the region was not 
 intended. 
 
 [259] 
 
FROM ROUGH' EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Though the doctrine, as enunciated by James Mon- 
 roe in 1823, originally provided only that no European 
 power should acquire territory on the American con- 
 tinent nor should interfere at all in American 
 affairs, and that the American would not meddle with 
 European matters, the United States has advanced 
 step by step till now she asserts the right to act as a 
 protector over the Central and South American States. 
 Venezuela could, therefore, hide behind her " big 
 brother " of the North, who had assumed the task of 
 protecting her as well as other American States. The 
 Monroe Doctrine makes it possible for the United 
 States to build the Panama Canal with American 
 money, under her own exclusive supervision and con- 
 trol. 
 
 By a treaty bearing the date of November 18, 1903, 
 the newly formed Republic of Panama ceded to the 
 United States a strip of land ten miles wide, five miles 
 each side of the proposed canal, and granted to the 
 United States the right to erect fortifications thereon 
 at her own discretion. The United States paid to the 
 old Panama Company for certain material and work 
 done forty million dollars and has pledged herself to 
 pay to the government of Panama ten million dollars 
 when the canal shall have been completed, and an 
 annual dividend of one-fourth million dollars there- 
 after, and has guaranteed the independence of the 
 Eepublic of Panama and bound herself to preserve 
 peace in the Isthmus. That Mr. Roosevelt has assured 
 
 [260] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the building of the canal and of keeping it under the 
 jurisdiction of the United States is a task the value of 
 which only future generations can appreciate. Not 
 only will the nations of the Western Hemisphere be 
 benefited by it, but the nations of the world will share in 
 the advantages of the great canal. 
 
 As with the Panama Canal, so with the Hague Tri- 
 bunal, the name of Theodore Roosevelt is inseparably 
 linked. Though Mr. Roosevelt is not a blatant advo- 
 cate of peace, though he does not believe in peace at all 
 hazards, he sees in an international court of arbitra- 
 tion, such as the Hague Tribunal, a far-reaching power 
 for good in settling in a peaceful way difficulties 
 between nations. To strengthen its authority, he 
 declined, in 1902, the role of arbitrator of the Vene- 
 zuela trouble and suggested that the matter be laid 
 before the Hague Court for decision. 
 
 It is still fresh in the memory of men how he brought 
 the Russian-Japanese war to a close. After the war 
 had been in progress for sixteen months, he took it 
 upon himself to inform the hostile governments that 
 war had continued long enough, that enough blood 
 had been shed, and that the interests of mankind de- 
 manded that they come to some agreement whereby 
 hostilities might cease. His note to the respective 
 powers was as follows : 
 
 " The president feels that the time has come when in the 
 interest of all mankind he must endeavor to see if it is not 
 possible to bring to an end the terrible and lamentable con- 
 
 '[ 261 ] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 flict now being waged. With both Russia and Japan the 
 United States has inherited ties of friendship and good will. 
 It hopes for the prosperity and welfare of each, and it feels 
 that the progress of the world is set back by the war between 
 these two great nations. The president accordingly urges the 
 Russian and Japanese governments, not only for their own 
 sakes, but in the interest of the whole civilized world, to 
 open direct negotiations for peace with each other. The pres- 
 ident suggests that these peace negotiations be conducted 
 directly and exclusively between the belligerents. . . . 
 While the president does not feel that any intermediary 
 should be called in in respect to peace negotiations them- 
 selves, he is entirely willing to do what he properly can if 
 the two powers concerned feel that his services will be of 
 aid in arranging the preliminaries as to the time and place 
 of meeting. But even if these preliminaries can be arranged 
 directly between the two powers, or in any other way, the 
 president will be glad, as his sole purpose is to bring about a 
 meeting which the whole civilized world will pray may result 
 in peace." 
 
 The earnest, manly appeal bore fruit. On August 
 5, Mr. Roosevelt had the pleasure of introducing the 
 representatives of Japan and Eussia on board the 
 Mayflower, and on August 12, the peace preliminaries 
 began at Portsmouth, the American war port in New 
 Hampshire. The negotiations between Witte and 
 Komura progressed nicely till the question of indem- 
 nity was reached. Japan asked a money indemnity 
 and the cession of the island of Saghalien, both of 
 which the Russian commissioners refused to grant. 
 It seemed for a time as if the negotiations would be 
 broken off without having accomplished anything. Mr. 
 
 [262] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Roosevelt again exerted himself to prevent such a 
 break, and was successful. On September 5, the pleni- 
 potentiaries reached an agreement and peace was 
 secured. Continuously from the time that he sent his 
 first note to the powers in June till peace was declared 
 on September 5, Mr. Roosevelt used his great influence 
 to further the cause of peace, and deserves the thanks 
 of the civilized world for what he accomplished. 
 
 Many other things might yet be mentioned that Mr. 
 Roosevelt did, during his administration, to the lasting 
 benefit of his country : the law against anarchists, his 
 financial policy, his attempt to suppress the use of 
 opium, the termination of border difficulties in 
 Alaska, the purchase of the Danish Antilles, his inter- 
 position in behalf of the Roumanian and Russian Jews, 
 his tariff reciprocity with the German Empire, his al- 
 laying of the ' ' yellow peril ' ' scare in California, and 
 others too numerous to mention. Space forbids, for 
 to go into all these things in detail would be to give a 
 history of the United States at the beginning of the 
 twentieth century. 
 
 The spirit that moved Mr. Roosevelt to the perform- 
 ance of these manifold duties was always the same : a 
 pure and lofty love for his country and the desire to 
 help his fellow citizens, and as far as in him lay his 
 fellow beings, to the full attainment and the just 
 appreciation of their rights, these were the guiding 
 motives of his life as president of the United States. 
 
 Nor have his methods of attaining his ends ever 
 
 [263] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 changed. He is not an advocate of the doctrine that 
 the end will justify the means ; but he has always stu- 
 diously avoided crooked paths to his goal. His often 
 almost baffling sincerity and frankness has made its 
 impression upon his people. They had too often seen 
 a president at the head of their nation who would hide 
 his purposes behind a smiling exterior and cover his 
 actions with a veil of secrecy. But no secrecy with 
 Roosevelt ! All the people know what he wishes to do 
 and why he wants to do it. 
 
 That the people were satisfied with his politics and 
 grateful for his success is shown by his election in 
 1904. At the Republican National Convention of that 
 year in Chicago, the speeches were one long song of 
 praise of his administration and his character. Ex- 
 Governor Black of New York said, among other things : 
 
 " He is no slender flower swaying in the wind, but that 
 heroic fibre which is best nurtured by the mountains and 
 snow. He spends little time in review, for that he knows 
 can be done by the schools. A statesman grappling with the 
 living problems of the hour he gropes but little in the past. 
 He believes in going ahead. He believes that in shaping the 
 destinies of this great republic, hope is a higher impulse than 
 regret. He believes that preparation for future triumphs is 
 a more important duty than an inventory of past mistakes. 
 A profound student of history, he is to-day the greatest his- 
 tory maker in the world The fate of nations is 
 
 still decided by their wars. You may talk of orderly tribunals 
 and learned referees ; you may sing in your schools the gen- 
 tle praises of the quiet life ; you may strike from your books 
 the last note of every martial anthem, and yet out in the 
 
 [264] 
 
FROM HOUGH' EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 smoke and thunder will always be the tramp of horses and 
 the silent, rigid, upturned face. Men may prophesy and 
 women pray, but peace will come here to abide forever on this 
 earth only when the dreams of childhood are the accepted 
 charts to guide the destinies of men. Events are numberless 
 and mighty, and no man can tell which wire runs around the 
 world. The nation basking to-day in the quiet of contentment 
 and repose may still be on the deadly circuit and to-morrow 
 writhing in the toils of war. This is the time when great 
 figures must be kept in front. If the pressure is great the 
 material to resist it must be granite and iron. Whether we 
 wish it or not, America is abroad in this world. Her inter- 
 ests are in every street, her name is on every tongue. Those 
 interests so sacred and stupendous should be trusted only to 
 the care of those whose power, skill, and courage have been 
 tested and approved. And in the man whom you will choose, 
 the highest sense of every nation in the world beholds a man 
 who typifies as no other living American does, the spirit and 
 the purposes of the twentieth century. He does not claim to 
 be the Solomon of his time. There are many things he may 
 not know, but this is sure, that above all things else he stands 
 for progress, courage, and fair play, which are the synonyms 
 of the American name. 
 
 ' ' There are times when great fitness is hardly less than des- 
 tiny, when the elements so come together that they select the 
 agent they will use. Events sometimes select the strongest 
 man, as lightning goes down the highest rod. And so it is 
 with those events which for many months with unerring sight 
 have led you to a single name which I am chosen only to 
 pronounce: Gentlemen, I nominate for president of the 
 United States the highest living type of the youth, the vigor, 
 and the promise of a great country and a great age, Theodore 
 Roosevelt of New York." 
 
 Immense and long was the applause which greeted 
 Mr. Black as he closed his speech. Senator Beveridge 
 
 [265] 
 
FROM BOUGH EIDEE TO PRESIDENT 
 
 of Indiana then stepped forward, and addressed the 
 convention as follows: 
 
 " Gentlemen of the Convention: — One difference between 
 the opposition and ourselves is this: They select their can- 
 didate for the people, and the people select our candidate for 
 us. . . . Theodore Roosevelt is a leader who leads 
 . . . While he is president no wrong-doer in the service 
 of the Government will go unwhipped of justice. . . . 
 The American people will elect him because, in a word, they 
 know that he does things the people want done; does things, 
 not merely discusses them — does things only after discussing 
 them — but does things; and does only those things the 
 people would have him do. . . . And so the people trust 
 him as a statesman. Better than that, they love him as a 
 man. He wins admiration in vain who wins not affection 
 also. In the American home — that temple of happiness and 
 virtue where dwell the wives and mothers of the Republic, 
 cherishing the beautiful in life and guarding the morality 
 of the Nation — in the American home the name of Theodore 
 Roosevelt is not only honored but beloved. And that is a 
 greater triumph than the victory of battlefields, greater 
 credit than successful statesmanship, greater honor than the 
 presidency itself would be without it. Life holds no re- 
 ward so noble as the confidence and love of the American 
 people. . . . Full of the old-time faith in the Republic 
 and its destiny; charged with the energy of the Republic's 
 full manhood; cherishing the ordinances of the Republic's 
 fathers and having in his heart the fear of God ; inspired by 
 the sure knowledge that the Republic's splendid day is only 
 in its dawn, Theodore Roosevelt will lead the American peo- 
 ple in paths of safety to still greater welfare for themselves, 
 still broader betterment of the race and to the added honor of 
 the American name." 
 
 [266] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 Then a delegate from Georgia arose and voiced the 
 sentiment of the State that was going to show contempt 
 for him, according to the report of newspapers. 
 
 " We of the South believe in Roosevelt, and in his ability 
 to meet every issue at home and abroad, triumphantly. We 
 believe that he is animated by a spirit of patriotism as broad 
 and as bright as has ever streamed from the White House over 
 our beloved country; and we believe that when he has ful- 
 filled his mission, he, the son of the North and South, will 
 carry with him the .consciousness that Fatherland and 
 Motherland, once divorced in sadness, through him and be- 
 cause of him have been drawn together again in the bonds 
 of the old affection. And we believe that when he goes at 
 length into the retirement of private life, he will go beloved 
 of all patriotic Americans, from Canada to the Gulf and from 
 Ocean to Ocean." 
 
 When the speeches were ended, the chairman of the 
 convention said: " The total number of votes in the 
 convention is 994. Theodore Roosevelt has received 
 994 votes ; and it only remains for me to announce that 
 Theodore Roosevelt, of the State of New York, is your 
 candidate for the presidency for the term commence- 
 ing on the fourth of March, 1905." 
 
 What the representatives of the various States had 
 promised, the people made good at the polls in Novem- 
 ber. States and districts which had never before gone 
 Republican voted for Roosevelt, so that he was elected 
 with a majority of more than two millions. His was 
 the most overwhelming victory in the history of the 
 United States. A statement of a Democrat and, 
 therefore, a man who opposed Mr. Roosevelt, may fitly 
 
 [267] 
 
FKOM EOUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 close this chapter. In "Success Magazine" (May, 
 1907), he says: 
 
 ' ' The blind belief which the people of the farming 
 districts place in Roosevelt is almost pitiful. The peo- 
 ple believe that he represents them at Washington and 
 for that reason they are beginning to expect from him 
 and the national administration a law against every- 
 thing that oppresses them. On account of this belief 
 in Roosevelt, they think that his power is unlimited. 
 They are of the opinion that every session of Congress 
 is a conflict between the president on one hand and the 
 Senate and the House on the other in which the presi- 
 dent is always the champion of their cause. In fact, 
 even the most ardent Democratic orator begins his 
 speeches with compliments to Roosevelt, for in no 
 other way can he get the attention of those present." 
 This is sufficient testimony to the popularity of Mr. 
 Roosevelt with the great masses of the American 
 people. 
 
 [268] 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PEKSONALITY AND PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 IN HIS excellent book, "The Americans," * Pro- 
 fessor Miinsterberg gives the following character- 
 istics of Theodore Roosevelt : 
 
 " There have been differences of opinion, and, as was to 
 be expected, complaints and criticisms have come from the 
 midst of his own party. Yet any one who looks at his whole 
 administration will see that in those first years Roosevelt won 
 a more difficult and brilliant victory than he had won over 
 the Spanish troops. 
 
 " He had three virtues which especially overcame all small 
 criticism. The people felt, in the first place, that a moral 
 force was here at work which was more powerful than any 
 mere political address or diplomatic subtlery. An immediate 
 ethical force was here felt which owned to ideas above any 
 party, and set inner ideals above merely outward success. 
 Roosevelt's second virtue was courage. A certain purely 
 ethical ideal exalted above all petty expediencies was for him 
 not only the nucleus of his own creed, but was also his spring 
 of action ; and he took no account of personal dangers. Here 
 was the key-note of all his speeches — it is not enough to ap- 
 prove of what is right, it is equally necessary to act for it 
 fearlessly and unequivocally. Then he went on to his work, 
 and if, indeed, in complicated political situations the president 
 has had at times to clinch some points by aid of compromise, 
 nevertheless the nation has felt with growing confidence that 
 
 *"The Americans" by Hugo Miinsterberg. Copyright 
 Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. 
 
 [269] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 at no serious moment has he wavered a hair's breadth from 
 the straight line of his convictions, and that he has had the 
 courage to disregard everything but what he held to be right. 
 And, thirdly, Roosevelt had the virtue of being sincere. 
 
 " McKinley also had purposed to do right, but he had 
 hardly an occasion for displaying great courage since so 
 incomparably discreet a politician as he was could avoid 
 every conflict with his associates, and he was ever the leader 
 on highways which the popular humor had indicated. Thus 
 the masses never felt that he was at bottom lacking in courage 
 or that he always put off responsibility on others. The masses 
 did, however, instinctively feel that McKinley 's astute and 
 kindly words were not always sincere; his words were often 
 to conceal something which was locked up behind his Napo- 
 leonic forehead. And now there succeeded him an enthusiast 
 who brimmed over plain expressions of what he felt, and 
 whose words were so convincingly candid and so without 
 reservation that every one had the feeling of being in the 
 personal confidence of the president. 
 
 " There was a good deal more beside his moral earnestness, 
 his courage, and his frank honesty which contributed to 
 Roosevelt's entire success. His lack of prejudice won the 
 lower classes, and his aristocratic breeding and education won 
 the upper, while the middle classes were enthusiastic over 
 his sportsmanship. No president had been more unprejudiced 
 or more truly democratic. He met the poor miner on the 
 same footing as he met the mine owner ; he invited the negro 
 to the White House ; he sat down and broke bread with the 
 cow-boys ; and when he travelled he first shook the sooty hand 
 of the locomotive engineer before he greeted the gentlemen 
 who had gathered about in their silk hats! And, nevertheless, 
 he was in many years the first real aristocrat to become 
 president. 
 
 " Roosevelt was the first to lift himself from these circles 
 and become a great leader. Not alone the nobility of his 
 
 [270] 
 
FKOM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 character but also of his culture and traditions was shown in 
 his entire habit of mind. Never in his speeches or writings 
 has he cited that socially equalizing Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, and while his speeches at banquets and small 
 gatherings of scholarly men have been incomparably more 
 fascinating than his strenuous utterances to the voters, which 
 he has made on his public tours, it has been often less the 
 originality of his thoughts and still less the peculiarly taking 
 quality of his delivery, than the evidences of ripe culture, 
 which seem to pervade his political thought. Thus the smaller 
 the circle to which he speaks the greater is his advantage ; 
 and in speaking with him personally on serious problems one 
 feels that distinction of thought, breadth of historical outlook, 
 and confidence in self have united in him to create a person- 
 ality after the grand manner. 
 
 " The impression which Roosevelt has made on his own 
 country has not been more profound than his influence on 
 the galaxy of nations. At the very hour when the United 
 States by their economic and territorial expansion stepped 
 into the circle of world powers, they had at their head a 
 personality who, for the first time in decades, had been able 
 to make a great, characteristic, and, most of all, a dramatic 
 impression on the peoples of Europe. And if this hour was 
 to be made the most of it was not enough that this leader 
 should by his impulsiveness and self-will, by his picturesque 
 gestures and effective utterance, chain the attention of the 
 masses and excite all newspaper readers, but he must also 
 win the sympathies of the keener and finer minds, and excite 
 some sympathetic response in the heads of monarchies. A 
 Becond Lincoln would never have been able to do this, and 
 just this was what the moment demanded. The nation's 
 world-wide position in politics needed some comparable ex- 
 pansion in the social sphere. Other peoples were to welcome 
 their new comrades not only in the official bureau but also 
 in the reception-room, and this young president had always 
 at his command a graceful word, a tactful expedient, and a 
 
 [Ml] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 distinguished and hospitable address. He was, in short, 
 quite the right man. 
 
 " Any new person taking hold so firmly has to disturb a 
 good many things; busied with so much, he must overturn 
 a good deal which would prefer to be left as it was. The 
 honest man has his goodly share of enemies. And it is not to 
 be denied that Roosevelt has the failings of his virtues, and 
 these have borne their consequences. Many national dangers, 
 which are always to be feared from officials of Roosevelt's 
 type, are largely obviated by the democratic customs of the 
 country. He lives amid a people not afraid to tell him the 
 whole truth, and every criticism reaches his ear. And there 
 is another thing not less important: democracy forces every 
 man into that line of activity for which the nation has 
 elected him. 
 
 " A somewhat overactive mind like Roosevelt's has opinions 
 on many problems, and his exceptional political position easily 
 betrays one at first into laying exceptional weight on one's 
 own opinions about every subject. But here the traditions 
 of the country have been decisive ; it knows no president for 
 general enlightenment, but only a political leader whose pri- 
 vate opinions outside politics are of no special importance. 
 In this as in other respects Roosevelt has profited by experi- 
 ence. There is no doubt that when he came to the White 
 House he underestimated the power of senators and party 
 leaders. The invisible obstructions, which were somehow 
 hidden behind the scenes, have no doubt given him many 
 painful lessons. In his endeavor to realize so many heartfelt 
 convictions, he has often met with arbitrary opposition made 
 simply to let the new leader feel that obstructions can be 
 put in his way unless he takes account of all sorts of factors. 
 But these warnings have really done him no harm, for 
 Roosevelt was not the man to be brought by them into that 
 party subserviency which had satisfied McKinley. They merely 
 held him back from that reckless independence which is so 
 foreign to the American party spirit, and which in the later 
 
 [272] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 years of Cleveland's administration had worked so badly. 
 Indeed, one might say that the outcome has been an ideal 
 synthesis of Cleveland 's consistency and McKinley 's power of 
 adaptation. 
 
 " For the fanatics of party Roosevelt has been, of course, 
 too independent, while to the opponents of party he has 
 seemed too yielding. Both of these criticisms have been made, 
 in many different connections, since everywhere he has stood 
 on a watch tower above the fighting lines of any party. When 
 in the struggles between capital and labor he seriously took 
 into account the just grievances of the working-man he was 
 denounced as a socialist. And when he did not at once 
 stretch out his hand to demolish all corporations he was called 
 a servant of the stock exchange. When he appointed officials 
 in the South without reference to their party allegiance, the 
 Republicans bellowed loudly; and when he did not sanction 
 the Southern outrages against the negro the Democrats be- 
 came furious. When everything is considered, however, he 
 has observed the maxim of President Hayes, ' He best serves 
 his party who serves his country best.' 
 
 ' ' In this there has been another factor at work. Roosevelt 
 may not have had McKinley 's broad experience in legislative 
 matters, nor have known the reefs and bars in the Congres- 
 sional sea, but for the executive office, for the administration 
 of civil service and the army and navy, for the solution of 
 federal, civil, and municipal problems his years of study and 
 travel have been an ideal preparation. Behind his practical 
 training he has had the clear eye of the historian. The 
 United States had their proverbial good luck when the 
 Mephistos of the Republican party prevailed on the formid- 
 able governor of New York to undertake the thankless office 
 of vice-president. If this nomination had gone as the better 
 politicians wished it to go, the death of McKinley would have 
 placed a typical politician at the helm instead of the best 
 president which the country has had for many years. ' ' 
 
 [273] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 The American citizen claims for himself the right to 
 come in contact with the president at any time. Con- 
 sequently admission to the White House is allowed to 
 every one. If the secret service men who are always 
 on duty there do not put out a visitor from time to 
 time, the president receives every one who reaches the 
 waiting room. On four days in the week from 10:00 
 a.m.. to 1 :30 p.m., he can hardly think of doing any 
 serious work, for he is constantly interrupted by peo- 
 ple who have come to see him, to exchange a few words 
 with him or quietly to shake his hand. On New Year 's 
 Day, a grand reception is held at the White House. 
 The visitors file past the president in a long line, who 
 stands at one end of the reception hall with his wife. 
 The president shakes hands with every one, man, 
 woman, and child, but his wife merely nods a greeting. 
 Nor can one blame her for not offering her hand, for 
 the number of visitors usually mounts up to five or 
 seven thousand. 
 
 These public office hours are a severe strain upon 
 the physical strength of the president as well as a 
 drain upon the necessarily limited time for the busi- 
 ness of State. The president seldom has time for 
 proper recreation ; he must take it if he gets it at all. 
 
 Mr. Eoosevelt generally retires* at between 11:00 
 and 12:00 p.m., and arises promptly at 7:00 a.m. 
 
 * As before stated, the translator has not thought best to 
 change the author's form of statement, even though the incidents 
 are now in the past. — Translator. 
 
 [274] 
 
FEOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 In the West, he acquired the habit of shaving himself 
 and he generally shaves himself to-day. At 8:30 he 
 takes breakfast — oatmeal, eggs, bacon, coffee, and 
 rolls — and is in his office invariably at 9 :45 to go over 
 the mail with his private secretary, Mr. Loeb. Of 
 course, only the most important letters are placed 
 before him, for, as he receives about 1200 letters daily, 
 it would be manifestly impossible for him to answer 
 them all. 
 
 Between 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., he receives all 
 kinds of people, dictates letters, and attends to public 
 affairs as far as possible in the intervals. At 1 :30, he 
 has his lunch with his family, to which meal he often 
 takes, without formal invitation, one or more visitors 
 in order to attend, during the conversation at the table, 
 to the business that brought the visitors to him. 
 
 At 2 :00 p.m., the official receptions are given in the 
 Blue Room of the White House. At this time, ambas- 
 sadors, or other eminent representatives of foreign 
 countries see him. The reception usually lasts till 
 3 :00 p.m., after which he goes again to his office to 
 attend once^more to his mail and to sign papers that 
 need his signature. The number of such papers is 
 immense, for he must sign every promotion in the 
 army and navy, every appointment of a postmaster, 
 official of the treasury, of every federal judge and of 
 the entire personnel of the diplomatic and consular 
 service, all pardons, laws and proclamations relating 
 to public lands and many other things. 
 
 [275 1 
 
FROM ROUGH* EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 If at all possible, he leaves his work at 6:00 p.m., 
 in order to get some recreation before dinner at 8 :00 
 p.m. He takes his time at dinner and often spends a 
 whole hour with his family at the table. He informs 
 himself in regard to the most important events of the 
 day from newspapers, magazines, and books. He 
 reads rapidly and much, and his reading is as varied 
 as it is extensive. He reads books in most of the lead- 
 ing languages of the world and is conversant with their 
 literature from the earliest to the most recent times. 
 In the stillness of his library after dinner, he dictates, 
 before retiring, his important official documents, such 
 as messages to Congress. He seldom writes himself, 
 but dictates while walking up and down the room in 
 order to collect his thoughts. His mind seems to be 
 more active when his body is moving. 
 
 In personal habits, he is almost Puritanic: he does 
 not smoke and drinks little. 
 
 President Roosevelt finds his recreation in horse- 
 back riding, walking, boxing, and tennis. In the city 
 he can not walk on the streets without being stopped 
 by numerous people who wish to shake hands with him. 
 He, therefore, prefers to ride into the country, some- 
 times accompanied by his wife or some of his children. 
 At times he delights to take daring rides through 
 woods and fields, over fallen logs and fences. The 
 German ambassador, Baron von Sternberg, who is on 
 familiar terms with the president, frequently is his 
 companion on these hard and fearless rides. 
 
 [276] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 His walks are really something to be dreaded by one 
 who is not toughened to the exercise. He steps out at 
 such a quick pace that the one who keeps up with him 
 is soon covered with perspiration and thanks his stars 
 when the walk is over. It is jocosely said in "Washing- 
 ton that there are those who can not sleep at night for 
 fear that President Roosevelt might invite them for a 
 walk. 
 
 Although Mr. Roosevelt is passionately fond of ten- 
 nis and is considered a good player, boxing is his great- 
 est delight. He keeps a professional boxer for that 
 purpose and measures his strength with him in long 
 and energetic bouts. During the Winter and Spring of 
 1904, a famous Japanese boxer was his daily opponent. 
 
 If one looks at President Roosevelt only from the 
 official side, as is likely to be the case with people from 
 foreign countries, one's impression of him is likely to 
 take on a certain austerity and rigidity which the 
 man's nature does not justify. To many who see him 
 only in the performance of some official duty, he may 
 appear a hard-headed, imperious man in whose heart 
 there is no room for the finer things of the affections, 
 who always comes down with an iron fist and who, as 
 the Witzblatter at one time put it, occupies the 
 position of a ''World-policeman." But such is the 
 rankest folly. WTioever has come in personal contact 
 with him has been delighted with the amiableness of 
 his cordiality. He knows no stiff formality and con- 
 descending smile; but his animated conversation, and 
 
 [277] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 the contagious cheerfulness which usually breaks 
 through it, give him the right of way to the heart of 
 every visitor. 
 
 Many a countryman of ours has seen Mr. Roosevelt 
 at the White House and has carried home with him a 
 lasting impression of a strong personality. For 
 instance, Hermann Knauer tells us in his book, 
 " Deutschland am Mississippi," of his meeting with 
 Mr. Roosevelt: 
 
 "The reception room of the president to which we entered 
 from the lower floor is used, also, as a session room. The ceil- 
 ing, walls, and doors are kept spotlessly white; the mahogany 
 furniture shows the unmistakable marks of age; the arm chairs 
 are very comfortable; book-shelves with reference works, bronze 
 lights, and some pictures of the navy make the outfit complete. 
 For those who are thirsty, a big silver reservoir with ice-water 
 and glasses is in readiness. 
 
 " But I had not long to examine the room : the door of the ad- 
 joining office opened and with a firm, quick step President 
 Roosevelt entered with outstretched hand and kindly words of 
 greeting. Energy and vivacity was expressed in his every move- 
 ment no less than in his lithe and well-built frame. His keen 
 eyes look out from his gold-rimmed spectacles with an open and 
 penetrating gaze. On his strongly masculine and expressive 
 face, there is the faintest trace of a winning smile, which baf- 
 fles the skill of the photographer to catch. When he smiles — 
 and the president seems fond of smiling — he shows a splendid 
 set of teeth. A man through and through, that is the impres- 
 sion made upon the observer by Theodore Roosevelt ! 
 
 " The conversation was carried on at first in German. ' You 
 must excuse me/ said the president, ' for it has been thirty years 
 since I have spoken any German to amount to anything, though 
 I read German fairly well and delight in German books. When 
 I was at Dresden, I understood your language very well and at 
 
 [278] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 one time knew the " Nibelungenlied " by heart ; but to-day, if I 
 wished to repeat it, it would be more the " Nibelungen Noth " for 
 me.' In a very considerate manner, the president then inquired 
 about my impressions of America and expressed the hope that 
 my visit to the United States might prove pleasant and profit- 
 able. The great St. Louis Exposition was then mentioned and 
 the president spoke of the German exhibit and the large number 
 of German visitors, which was shown by the fact that every 
 steamer for New York from Germany was loaded to its full 
 capacity. He spoke with great warmth of a well-known 
 German scientist then in Chicago and added that he was de- 
 lighted to be able to greet so many distinguished men of Ger- 
 many. When the name of a certain German historian was 
 brought up, the president casually remarked, ' I am something 
 of an historian myself,' having doubtless in mind his ' Naval War 
 of 1812 ' and ' History of New York.' During the entire con- 
 versation, it was evident that President Roosevelt entertains the 
 kindliest of feelings for Germany, and when I left, he expressed 
 the hope of a Wiedersehen in the most cordial manner, repeat- 
 edly shaking hands with me. I was delighted to receive a few 
 days later a photograph of the president with the friendly in- 
 scription, A Remembrance of the Hour." 
 
 It is often said that the words of President Roose- 
 velt to the Germans are no more than polite phrases, 
 that he addresses Englishmen and Frenchmen in the 
 same way. We can not expect the head of a great 
 nation to treat the citizens of one country more cor- 
 dially than those of another; yet it is quite evident 
 that Mr. Roosevelt is personally more kindly disposed 
 toward Germany than to any other European country, 
 though he would be the last man to show favoritism 
 in an official way. As a boy, he longed to visit Ger- 
 many, and to-day he looks back with pleasure to the 
 
 [279] 
 
FROM ROUGH) RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 few months spent upon our shore. In recent years, he 
 has even expressed a desire to visit us once more, but, 
 of course, he can not do it as long as he is president, 
 for the Constitution forbids the president to leave the 
 territory of United States. 
 
 Often in his speeches and books, Mr. Eoosevelt has 
 mentioned the Germans in terms of highest respect. 
 In his "Winning of the West," he speaks of the Ger- 
 mans as composing a part of that pioneer band that 
 broke up the wilderness tract and spread civilization 
 into the domain of the red man, and in a speech before 
 the students of Clark University (June 22, 1905), he 
 held up Germany as a model. He wished, he said, that 
 the Americans could make the German idealism their 
 own, and also that sharp, practical, healthy German 
 intelligence which enables them to transmute that 
 idealism into the most perfect military and commercial 
 organizations that the world has ever seen. 
 
 We all know how highly our emperor esteems Mr. 
 Eoosevelt. The visit of Prince Henry, the christening 
 of the yacht, Meteor, by Alice Roosevelt, the presenta- 
 tion of the statue of Frederick the Great, the exchange 
 of professors, and the recent visit of the German war- 
 ships to the Naval Review at Charleston under com- 
 mand of Von Reuben Paschwitz, who, as a military 
 attache, took part in the Cuban war — these are a few 
 of many proofs of the good relationship existing 
 between the two countries. 
 
 And Mr. Roosevelt esteems our emperor highly. He 
 
 [280] 
 
FROM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 m 
 
 once said that, if Emperor William had been born in 
 America, even in the lowest social position, he would 
 surely have become the leader of his district. When 
 he sent Generals Young and Corbin to Germany on the 
 invitation of the emperor, he concluded his orders to 
 them in these words : ' ' Tell the emperor that I would 
 like to see him ride at the head of his troops. By 
 George, I would! And give him my hearty regards. 
 Some day we shall have a spin together. ' ' 
 
 The generals carried out their instructions to the 
 letter, and the emperor was delighted. The emperor 
 then inquired of General Corbin if he had ever been in 
 Germany before. 
 
 " Not in this part," replied the general. 
 
 "In which part?" queried the emperor. 
 
 " In Cincinnati and St. Louis," came the quick 
 response ; and the emperor broke into a hearty laugh. 
 
 Emperor William and President Roosevelt have 
 often been compared, and in many ways they resemble 
 each other. They are very nearly the same age ; they 
 are both men of strong physique and passionately fond 
 of sports. They are both devoted to the interest of 
 their respective countries : the one stands for Greater 
 Germany, the other for Greater America. They are 
 both men of lofty ideals of the optimistic type: they 
 believe firmly in man and in the ultimate progress of 
 humanity. They are alike good speakers and excel- 
 lent soldiers who advocate peace by a strong army and 
 a navy always ready for duty. Their love of work, 
 
 [281] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 their many-sidedness, their power of endurance are 
 equally admirable. The family life of each is exem- 
 plary and inspiring to the youths upon whom the future 
 of the countries rests. Emperor William met the chil- 
 dren on the play-grounds and parade fields ; President 
 Roosevelt invited them to the White House and enter- 
 tained more than six hundred of them at one time. 
 Both are reckless horsemen: the emperor posts over 
 the Bornstedter field at the head of his Garde-Hussars; 
 and the president places himself at the head of the cav- 
 alry drawn up at the railroad station in his honor and 
 rides with a detachment in a charge over the old field 
 of Chickamauga where the whole line is soon lost in a 
 cloud of dust. Emperor William, when on board the 
 Hohenzollem, conducts religious services; and Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt occasionally speaks in the Dutch Re- 
 formed church, of which he is a member, on biblical 
 themes. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt's Christianity is practical. He once 
 preached in a church in Chicago from the text, " Be ye 
 doers of the word and not hearers only." He said, 
 "We must be doers, not simply hearers. Every one 
 who is really a Christian must feel a deep shame on 
 seeing a hypocrite who disgraces his Christianity and 
 his manhood. He who performs all the ceremonies of 
 the church and does not follow its teaching in his daily 
 life is not a Christian. Church attendance alone is not 
 enough. We must study the Bible and take its teach- 
 ings to our hearts; we must apply them to our daily 
 
 [282] 
 
FKOM ROUGH EIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 life. Man's first duty is to his home. The necessity 
 for heroic actions comes seldom, but the ever monoto- 
 nous life surrounds us on every hand, and it takes 
 hearts of heroic courage to live it well." 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt is a model preacher because he prac- 
 tises what he preaches. Wherever he can make a sad 
 heart happy, he does it gladly. Thousands have been 
 helped by his kindness. Innumerable almost, are the 
 stories which are told of his kindness and tenderness 
 of heart, typical of which are the following : 
 
 As the guerilla warfare dragged on in the Philip- 
 pines, the order was given out from the Department of 
 War that only the names of officers killed should be 
 reported by cable to Washington and just the number 
 of privates fallen. As soon as it was announced 
 through the press of the country that a certain regi- 
 ment had been engaged, the parents and relatives of 
 the soldiers besieged the Department of War for infor- 
 mation, but they were kept waiting an anxious six 
 weeks till the news was brought by mail. 
 
 The order had been promulgated without the knowl- 
 edge of President Roosevelt, and when the facts were 
 reported to him at Oyster Bay, his summer home, Gen- 
 eral Corbin was present. He asked the general what 
 the order meant. To which the general replied that it 
 had been given for purposes of economy, that every 
 officer had a symbol in the telegraphic code, but to give 
 the full name and regiment of every private would cost 
 upwards of twenty-five dollars. 
 
 [283 1 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 When Mr. Eoosevelt heard the explanation, he said, 
 "Corbin, can you telegraph from here to the Philip- 
 pines ! ' ' 
 
 The general thought he might wait till he got to 
 Washington; he was going in an hour. 
 
 " No, " said the president; " no, we will not wait. 
 Send the order to have the names telegraphed, now. 
 Those mothers gave the best they had to their country. 
 We will not have them breaking their hearts for 
 twenty-five dollars, or for fifty. Save the money some- 
 where else." 
 
 The office of President Roosevelt, when he is at his 
 summer home, is at Oyster Bay, but the president him- 
 self lives at Sagamore Hill and hardly ever goes to 
 Oyster Bay. One day an old lady called at the office 
 in Oyster Bay and sat down on the stairs to wait for 
 Mr. Roosevelt. She was the widow of an officer who 
 had distinguished himself in the Civil War and she 
 wished to speak with the president about her pension. 
 She waited for hours, till told that the president would 
 not be there. She could not be persuaded to leave, 
 however, without seeing him ; and she waited. 
 
 When President Roosevelt learned incidentally of 
 his patient visitor, he telegraphed to his office to send 
 the woman to Sagamore Hill. When the carriage 
 drove to the door, Mr. Roosevelt himself helped her 
 from her carriage and greeted her with : " It is an 
 honor to have the pleasure of meeting you. I have 
 heard of your husband; he was a hero, but I will tell 
 
 [284] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 you what I think of heroes. I do not believe that a 
 man can be a real hero unless he has a good wife." 
 
 It is needless to say that the pension claim was set- 
 tled in a manner satisfactory to the visitor. 
 
 The family life of Mr. Roosevelt is most happy. He 
 is on the most endearing and familiar terms with his 
 children, and when he takes his vacation at Sagamore 
 Hill, they are delighted beyond measure, for they can 
 then have him to themselves for a few days. In his 
 wife, he has a companion of the most helpful sort, a 
 most efficient wife and mother. Four boys and one 
 girl have been born to the union : the oldest Theodore, 
 1887, and the youngest Quentin, 1897. The daughter 
 of his first marriage, Alice, was married a short time 
 ago.- The children all have attended the public schools 
 at Oyster Bay and some of them are still attending 
 them. Not until they have finished the grades are they 
 sent to a higher private school to prepare them for the 
 university. 
 
 The great secret of Roosevelt's popularity with his 
 children and of his success in rearing them consists in 
 his always being a child with them, a secret of which 
 his father was a past master, as the readers of this 
 biography will recall. He shares their sports with 
 them, patiently entering into any innocent play that 
 they may suggest. He himself teaches his boys to 
 shoot and has erected a target at Sagamore Hill for 
 that purpose. He goes swimming with them or rides 
 with them and the neighbor boys through the country, 
 
 [285 1 
 
FKOM BOUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 or rows them all to a secluded nook on the shore, 
 where, hidden from the view of too curious photog- 
 raphers, they can enjoy themselves as they wish. 
 
 It is a great event in the life of the children when 
 Mr. Roosevelt makes a camping trip of a few days 
 with his own boys and those of the neighbors. When 
 the place of destination is reached, the boys carry wood 
 and water and make ready to fish. On such trips, Mr. 
 Eoosevelt himself acts as cook and receives high praise 
 from his companions for his ability with pot and skil- 
 let. When the day is done, he sits around the camp- 
 fire with the boys and entertains them with stories. 
 They then wrap themselves in their blankets and lie 
 down under the open sky to sleep, and the boys to 
 dream themselves mighty hunters. When they return 
 home, they live for weeks in memory of the good times 
 they have had and look forward with the eagerness of 
 boys to a similar experience another year. 
 
 But Mr. Eoosevelt 's love for children is not confined 
 to those of his own family. His heart goes out to the 
 unfortunate children of the slums whose childhood is 
 one dull day of penury and want, who have never seen 
 the sun except through a cloud of smoke, who have 
 never seen the flowers grow and inhaled the air sweet 
 with the perfume of countless meadows. And he has 
 done all in his power to make life happier for such 
 children by using his influence for the establishment of 
 public play-grounds and parks. 
 
 On his journeys through the different parts of the 
 
 [286] 
 
FROM ROUGB RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 country, President Roosevelt receives the greatest joy 
 from the greeting given him by the children. As they 
 stand by the roadside waving their flags while joy 
 beams from their sparkling, innocent eyes, he not only 
 loves them but sees in them the future American citi- 
 zens. To visit places where children are gathered in 
 large numbers is always a source of real joy to him. 
 Once when he visited a school for boys, he told them of 
 his Italian bugler who gave the order for the " Rough 
 Riders" to charge up San Juan Hill. He blew till 
 Spanish bullets tore away the two middle fingers of the 
 hand which held the instrument. He then went to the 
 rear, had his hand bandaged, returned to the battle- 
 field and helped to bear away the wounded. He told 
 them of his color-bearer who bore the flag through 
 such a hail of bullets that the emblem hung in rags. 
 He told them, too, that all his men were brave, that 
 they marched boldly against the enemy, though they 
 left the fourth of their number on the ground, killed or 
 wounded. Nor did he forget to tell them how, when 
 the battle was over, the tired and hungry soldiers 
 divided their rations with the starving women and chil- 
 dren who came out from the beleaguered city of Santi- 
 ago, and to impress upon them that true manhood and 
 sympathy for the weak always go hand in hand, that 
 the boy who is obedient to mother and kind to smaller 
 brothers and sisters and playmates will grow into a 
 worthy and respected citizen. On such occasions, the 
 children listen to him with breathless interest. 
 
 [ 287 1 
 
 IM^ ■ -<*»■ 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 At another time, he visited the Children's Home, 
 established by Jacob Riis on Twin Island. As soon as 
 the children heard that the Sylph was in sight, they 
 quit their dinner and ran down to the shore to greet 
 him. Hardly had the president set foot on land when 
 he was surrounded by children, each vying with the 
 others to do him the greatest honor. They danced 
 about him ; they hung to his hands and to his coat-tail ; 
 they ran backwards in front of him and talked as they 
 went. When the president had seen how happy the 
 children were, he remarked feelingly to his companion, 
 " Jacob, what is a monument of stone or bronze com- 
 pared with the happiness of these children and 
 mothers? " 
 
 President Roosevelt is the hero of the growing gen- 
 eration, and he is an example worthy of emulation, 
 because he has alway s had high ideals and has to 
 the best of frail human power lived up to them. As a 
 boy, he made up his mind to develop his body that he 
 might do the work of a man, and he succeeded. He 
 was ever ambitious to stand for the right and he has 
 never given way a hair's breadth from that course. 
 " Better to be true than famous," he is fond of saying, 
 and he has remained true to his ideals under every cir- 
 cumstance of life. And fame has come to him un- 
 sought because he deserved it. No one can say that 
 he has not made mistakes; he is only a man with a 
 man's fallible judgment. " Only he who does nothing 
 makes no mistakes," he says himself. 
 
 [288] 
 
FROM ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT 
 
 But in spite of his mistakes, which are few compared 
 with his noble deeds of statesmanship and kindness, he 
 stands before us not only as the recognized leader of 
 one of the greatest nations of the world but as one of 
 the strongest personalities of the nations of the world. 
 He is feared by the Dunkelmanner (evil men) of 
 his own land and loved by the great American people 
 as a whole. And now in the words of a member of 
 Congress from Pennsylvania we shall take leave of 
 him: 
 
 ' ' We admire the courage which spurs him to do jus- 
 tice to all men without regard to race, color, or social 
 standing. We hope that God may spare him many 
 years as an example of American manhood, as a man 
 who fears nothing except that he might fail to do his 
 duty to God and man." 
 
 THE END 
 
 T 289 1 
 
MAY 3 1911 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 2 19H 
 
lip 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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