ilggfliaiPM^^ ':\:^^;:\s:hlhsm^ * "„ V ^.7C LIBRARY OF CONGRESS D0DQ43flHDlS <^ "^AO^ <0 Q^ :s^^o^ <. ^^. r V 7^ d< 0-, ^ % \> ^v *o --7 .,#■ s >■ r^ ' » * s ^ -. •0 ^-^^ rO- AL^ ^ ^ ^ 9<> "^Ad< ^7 7' % ^^ r *^^. .-■ . %..^^ ^ -^ .^^ V ^^l\"'^^ i5 O^ ^^ c^ 7 ^^''- ^'^ ' ^ ^^"^ ■-: ^ ^' ' .^-^ '7-i ■ r.^^ j.O 6 Q. ,# ^^0^ "^^d^ 0- r ,3 5l " -r* #^ P\-^ ,^}^ '^ c«- 0^^ ^o<^ "^^O^ >x .N^^ ^- ,^^ °- ^o %. ■ 9^. // , ' ^ "^/.n^ ,1^ aO^ .^ 9^ " V ?^^ ^ -/ ,^H O,. % r$- ^;#,. ^c ■o. '^. & ^^ ^0^ :& cP' %, %. ,^^ o^. ?5 Q^. -f & 0,^ i ^- ^o. ^% - -<^^ r-> % .?J^ c- ^ .J^^ ^ 9? .^^ \^\ %. z/ v^^ ^^' ^- %>,/ % v>\ Vr- .^^ J ■V :^ ,^^^^ ^Q. "^. '/, ^ •^ TALKS WITH T. R. THE ROOSEVELT OF THE PREPAREDNESS CAMPAIGN TALKS WITH 1 . IV. FROM THE DIARIES OF JOHN J. LEARY, JR. With Illustrations BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1919 AND I92O, BY THE MoCLURE PUBLICATIONS, INCORPORATED COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY JOHN J. LEARY, JR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED .6~^' ©CI.A570329 m -8 1920 TO THE MEMORY OF MY PARENTS JOHN JOSEPH AND MARY CRONIN LEARY NATIVES OF IRELAND, WHO LIVED AND DIED lOO PER CENT AMERICANS THIS LITTLE BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED "^ PREFACE RIDING across Indiana shortly before his death, _ Colonel Roosevelt began a brief discussion of the manner in which tradition and some historians had treated Washington and Lincoln. The talk was predicated on Barnard's statue of the emancipator, then the subject of much discus- sion. The paper he held in his hand referred to the controversy and he voiced annoyance that any person could think of portraying "Lincoln as a clod." "Lincoln to me," said he, "has always been a liv- ing person, an inspiration and a help. I have always felt that if I could do as he would have done were he in my place, I would not be far from right. And at times when I have been troubled by some public question, I have tried to imagine Lincoln in my posi- tion and to do as he would have done. "I do not understand," he went on, "why some persons like to portray Lincoln as rude and uncouth — to suggest that he was a lineal descendant of the Pithecanthropus, always telling funny stories. It is as bad as the refining process Washington has gone viii PREFACE through. Washington was a very human sort of per- son with a fair share of the weakness of man. He is presented to us as possessing all of the virtues and lacking all suggestion of sin, original and acquired. As a matter of fact, he was a strong man, with all of a strong man's virtues and many of a strong man's faults, who lived in an age when it was not bad form to offer the minister a drink. "Lincoln was not a handsome man — -he did not have very much on me in that respect — but he was by no means first cousin to the cave man in appear- ance any more than he was always slapping stran- gers on the back and telling them funny stories. He did have the saving grace of humor, but he was no clown. " In my office in the White House there was a splen- did portrait of Lincoln. Ofttimes, when I had some matter to decide, something involved and difficult to dispose of, where there were conflicting rights and all that sort of thing, I would look up at that splendid face and try to imagine him in my place and try to figure out what he would do in the cir- cumstances. " It may sound odd to you, but, frankly, it seemed to make my troubles easier of solution. Yes, to me, Lincoln has ever been a living person, an inspiration and a help. If I ever envied any man, it was John PREFACE ix Hay, who had the wonderful privilege of knowing Lincoln so intimately. "Lincoln must be — will be always — a living thing to our people, an inspiration and a landmark, to the living and to those yet to live. Our danger lies in the fact that at times our public men are inclined to stray from the path he blazed, if, indeed, some of them ever trod it." It had been my habit to transcribe carefully in my notebooks these informal talks with the Colonel. Un- til this little talk, through which ran a note almost wistful and that all but expressed the hope that he, in turn, would not be caricatured or whitewashed, my idea as to what I would do with them was vague. Eventually, I half thought, the notebooks and their contents might find a resting-place, perhaps, in Har- vard College Library, where in after years the stu- dent, seeking material for theme or thesis, might find something of value. After Colonel Roosevelt's death a year ago, in the days that followed, my thoughts recurred to that day in the Pullman diner riding across Indiana. It then became clear that, instead of trusting to chance and the years that these talks might be given the public after the Roosevelt tradition had become fixed, the time is now while the tradition is in a state of flux. X PREFACE Hence this little book, offered to the public in the hope that it will help those who were not privileged above their fellows in knowing him in the flesh, to visualize and know the real Theodore Roosevelt. John J. Leary, Jr. New York City January I, 1920 CONTENTS Roosevelt AND 1920 i Dewey and Fighting Bob u Why Alger escaped Criticism i^ The Charley Thompson Club 16 How I LOST My Eye 19 The Drink Story 22 The Break with Taft 25 The Attempt on his Life 30 Why Two Politicians failed 32 Clashes with the Kaiser 40 That Gary Dinner 45 The Colonel and Judge Hughes 52 His a Simple Creed 65 His Hold on the Public That Golden Special On Election Eve, 1916 76 Perkins and T. R. 79 A Cabinet that never was 86 Senator Lodge's Fist Fight 88 Roosevelt's One Talk with Mr. Wilson 93 "The Division" 100 The Colonel AND John L. Sullivan 118 The Newspaper Cabinet 123 Children of the Crucible 143 Roosevelt on Labor 151 "One Purple Night" 160 Devil-Fishing 166 A Varied Reading Diet 173 "Trying to kill me" 175 70 75 xii CONTENTS Loyalty i77 Germans in America i8o Playing the Game I94 Making up with Taft 198 Money-Grubbers 206 New Blood in the G. O. P. 210 Speed on the Trigger 214 Root, Most Valued of Counsellors 217 With the Allies' Envoys 222 Police and Citizenship 226 Colonel Roosevelt on Boys 233 His Boys' Critics 239 Our Soldier Dead in France 246 Making Peace with Gompers 251 Henry Ford and Mark Hanna 256 A Tribute to Nurses 259 Woman in Office 263 The New York Fight of 1918 267 Home Folk 270 The Value of Masonry 275 Hitting the Back Trail 278 On Heredity 280 On Remembering Friend and Foe 283 " Well-Meaning Fools " 287 On College Life 289 On Prohibition 291 Pershing and Wood 296 Fondness for the Khaki Lad 300 On Being Sixty 3^4 The Colonel and the Treaty 3^7 England AND THE Rest OF the World 311 Mr. Wilson's "Ideals" 323 ILLUSTRATIONS The Roosevelt of the Preparedness Campaign Frontispiece A Chicago snapshot. Friends of Roosevelt have called this the best picture of him taken in the closing years of his life. Facsimile of a Letter of Roosevelt's recommending the Author to the Military Intelligence Sec- tion, U.S.A. I A Weighty Matter 36 In the Supreme Court at Syracuse 60 En Route for the Tropics 88 Prominent Members of the "Newspaper Cabinet" 124 Photograph taken at Sagamore Hill, June, 1916, showing Charles Divine, New York Sun; Rodney Bean, New York Times; Edward Moier, Associated Press; John W. Slaght, New York World; Napoleon A. Jennings, New York Herald; William Hoster, New York American. Of these, Jennings was associated with the Colonel from his daj/s in the Assembly, while Slaght dated from the Police Com- mission days. The latter has an interesting explanation as to how the Colonel and his Rough Riders came to receive the news- paper attention they got in the Spanish War. "While the army was assembling in Tampa," he says, "we all sent reams of stuff to our papers, telling of the arrival of troops, the generals, and all that sort of thing. When the papers arrived back we found the blue pencil of the censor had deleted about everything except the date lines. In this emergency a confer- ence was called. It had degenerated into a lodge of sorrow, when Jimmy Hare, the war photographer, who was sitting on a table swinging his legs, had a happy thought. ' ' ' You are up against it and you might as well realize it now as any other time. I know censors. If you want copy, why don't you take up this Roosevelt outfit? He's a New Yorker, he's got a picturesque crowd that will make good copy, and the censor will let you go as far as you like.' "It was a life-saver. That night the wires were loaded with Rough Rider copy. Thus, by a strange kink of fate, regular army officers, who have always protested against the prominence given Roosevelt in the war, were themselves directly responsible for that prominence." — J. J. L., Jr. xiv ILLUSTRATIONS Scientists at Work and on Parade: Colonel Roose- velt AND Dr. Russell J. Coles dressed for Devil- Fishing AND in Academic Gowns i68 By courtesy of Dr. Russell J. Coles In Barbados 200 The Colonel and his Son Kermit 234 Colonel Roosevelt and Dr. Mason examining Shrapnel which wounded Archie Roosevelt 244 With his Secretary, William Loeb, Jr., on the Mayflower at a Naval Review 264 Photograph by N. W. Penfield, New York. " Billy," as the Colonel called him, filled a very large place in the Roosevelt term in the White House. In after years this intimacy continued, Colonel Roosevelt placing large value on his judgment of men and things and his unselfish loyalty. — J. J. L., Jr. In Utah 292 Thinking it Over 324 Except as otherwise indicated, the illustrations, including the frontispiece, are from photographs supplied by the Sun and New York Herald. TALKS WITH T. R. [ FACSIMILE ] SAGAMORE HILL. /^"^tX^ /O *^ / ^ / /^ 'SZ>^.^cA i^ , 7 ^ ^ Like the rest of us, they have assumed that once in, the immigrant would be automatically taken care of by our admirable institutions and have neglected him and left him to his own resources. What has been the consequence? The immigrant has been and is being exploited. First it was the sweat- shop. That is largely done away with. Now it is by these political agitators — the Berkmans, Goldnians, and I know not who, including some persons with American names and some claim to social position. 148 TALKS WITH T. R. "What we should have done, what we must do, is see to it that the immigrant is taken in hand and given a square deal. We must see to it that a real effort is made to Americanize him — he should have the opportunity to become Americanized. He should be given an opportunity, should be compelled to learn the English language, and if at the end of a stated period he has failed to do so, he should be sent back to the place from which he came. He must not be left to the agitator and the demagogue to exploit. "It is foolish to imagine that the immigrant will automatically and of his own will be converted into an American by his mere presence among us, so long as he comes here in masses, and settles down among his own kind, as ignorant of our ways, our customs, and our institutions as he is. "Nor is it right to criticize the immigrant because he forms what we call * foreign ' colonies in our cities. It is natural that he should seek his kind. He does exactly what Americans do when they go abroad and settle in London, Paris, Berlin. Do they scatter? They do not. They form colonies just as distinct as do the Russian Jew, the Greek, the Armenian, the Irish, or the Germans, or, if you please, the Chinese; they seek their kind. We should see to it that their kind becomes our kind. We won't do it by calling CHILDREN OF THE CRUCIBLE 149 them names, we won't do it by maltreating them, and we won't do it by neglecting them. "Of course, while the war lasts we will have no immigration to speak of. Automatically the war has restricted it. For a time after the war ends there may be, probably will be, little immigration. " Immigration, however, will be one of our recon- struction problems. It will have to be handled in a big way, but with the idea that America comes first, and that the time has arrived when we must and will be more particular as to whom we admit into our house, bearing always in mind that we owe it to the alien as well as to ourselves to see to it that he has ample opportunity of becoming a real American. "All Americans, of whatever stock, should take the position toward the country from which they sprang that Washington and his associates took toward England. They were English, but they did not hesitate to fight England. Against them were the Tories, the first pacifists the country knew. They were against fighting England just as the man of German blood, who is not with us, is against fight- ing Germany, and of a piece with the Irishman whose hatred of England is greater than his love for America. " To be sure, only a part of these people are on the wrong course. They are trying to mislead the rest. I50 TALKS WITH T. R. Some are honest, but misguided. Some are palpably dishonest. The effect is the same in each instance. It must be our job to curb them, and in the future so conduct ourselves toward the immigrant that others of their kind that may arise later will have less fertile fields to work in." Shortly after "Children of the Crucible " appeared. The first name appended to it was that of Theodore Roosevelt. ROOSEVELT ON LABOR COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S position on labor was peculiar in that in some respects he was more radical than Samuel Gompers. Like Gompers he had no use for a "Labor Party" as such, and to the extent that he favored old age and health insur- ance he went farther than Mr. Gompers had ever done. To the extent that he believed labor would get the best results by working with the existing parties, he and Gompers were agreed. "The difficulty with the Labor-Party idea," he declared, "is that it is based upon a false premise. It is based on the theory that the interests of so- called labor are different from the interests of the community as a whole. That is a foolish doctrine, just as foolish as it would be to try and maintain that the interests of the manufacturer or other employer are different from those of the rest of the community. It is entirely a selfish and wicked doc- trine, and, if successful, would work hardships on labor more than on any other group in the com- munity." Colonel Roosevelt made this observation while he was "mulling over" a speech on after-the-war preparedness he proposed to deliver in Bridgeport 152 TALKS WITH T. R. at a " bye" Congressional election in the fall of 191 7. The death of Ebenezer J. Hill, long in Congress from that district, a likable old "stand-patter," had left a vacancy for which the Republicans had nominated Schuyler Merritt, a banker and manufacturer of Stamford. The Colonel was asked to speak there and he accepted, with the idea that the speech might be the "keynote" or a "keynote" for the Congressional elections a year later. "We have got to get ready for after the war," he told me. "We might as well begin now. I am going to speak up there on industrial preparedness as much as anything else. I may shock some persons up there, but we might just as well recognize now as at some later time that something must be done for labor. "There are a great many business men who seem to be of the opinion that once peace arrives, pre-war conditions will return overnight as it were. These are as short-sighted as the labor radicals who are declaring that abnormal wages, to be expected in time of war, will have to prevail when peace comes. Both are wrong, and are paving the way for some very serious misunderstandings. The employers must be fair and reasonable; the reactionary em- ployer is no better than the extreme radical among the union men." "The shrewdest of the labor men," I told him. ROOSEVELT ON LABOR 153 "are now preparing against that sort of thing. For example, Wilham H. Johnson, head of the machin- ists, one of the ablest of them, whose trade has prob- ably been affected more than any other by the war, is privately bending every effort to get his organi- zation into as good shape as possible for the recon- struction period." "Johnson is right. He has keener foresight than a lot of employers. "There are going to be disturbances, but these will be minimized if we can get what is commonly called labor and what is commonly called capital together in a realizing sense that their interests are identical, and that the problems of one are the prob- lems of all. The employer has no more right to hog all the profits than the union has a right to insist upon wages that will permit of no profits. Unless the business man does well, the laborer won't, because there won't be labor for the laborer to do. "Sooner or later we have got to come to some sys- tem of old-age pensions, proper protection against accident and disease, more particularly the occupa- tional disease, and we have got to insure good living conditions. So far as these are arranged by common consent of both sides and the community, well and good. Where they cannot be thus arranged, the State will have to do it. This will not appeal to some 154 TALKS WITH T. R. of our friends among the so-called employing classes, but we may as well face the facts squarely "Unless all history is valueless as a guide, we are going, sooner or later, to have to pay for the enor- mous destructions of capital in this war. We cannot hope to evade some period of depression. How severe that will be depends largely upon ourselves. We can- not avoid it, but we can make it less severe than it otherwise might be. In this labor and capital must work together — must realize that their problems are alike, and that unless the employer is prosper- ous, the employee cannot be. Equally so, unless the employee is treated fairly, the employer and the community cannot be prosperous. The partners in .the enterprise must realize their responsibilities to each other and act accordingly." Developing this thought, Colonel Roosevelt went to Bridgeport where the local reporters were mysti- fied by his failure to say very much about the candi- date. Some tried to read into this lack of interest in Merritt. A few of the New York papers spoke of it as a "national speech," or as "the opening gun in the 1918 campaign." "That," he said, "is reasonably accurate." Later, when the speech was taken up in discussion, I said my talks with labor men had shown it was rather favorably received, at the same time ex- ROOSEVELT ON LABOR 155 pressing doubt as to how some employers, largely in Merritt's district (he being elected meantime) would like it on mature thought. "Well," he said, "Gompers will not quarrel with anything I said there, and the others cannot. Most men not directly interested will approve of all I said. "Here is the speech sent out. Except for what I said about Merritt in opening, I followed this closely as you know. Who can quarrel with this or deny my accuracy? 'The conditions [of business] must be such that the business man prospers or else nobody will prosper; and yet, unless the prosperity is in a reason- able degree shared by the men who work with him and by the public for which he works, it is of little or no worth to the community. In other words, we must insist upon business prosperity, because other- wise there will be no prosperity at all, and we must insist upon reasonable equity in passing the pros- perity around, or it will not be worth having. '"The demagogue who inveighs against and seeks to interfere with business prosperity is really the same kind of an enemy to the common weal as his nominal foe, the reactionary, who refuses to acknowledge the duty of the Government to see that there is measur- able equity in the distribution of the fruits of this prosperity. Our aim must be not to damage success- ful business, but to insure good conduct in business. 156 TALKS WITH T. R. *"We wish to secure as a matter of right for the worker among other things permanency of employ- ment, pensions that will permit the worker to look forward to old age with dignity and security; insur- ance against accident and disease, proper working and living conditions, reasonable leisure, and as high wages as are compatible with giving to capital the return necessary to induce it to invest and giving the public proper service. " 'So far as these needs can be obtained by private agreement, well and good; it is preferable that they should, where possible, come in this manner; for the most important thing is to secure a mental attitude that will secure a hearty recognition by all engaged in a business that each must treat all the others as partners, that all should render the very best service of which each is capable and that both the obliga- tion and the reward shall be mutual. '"In addition to this good-will, there must be the sanction of law. The State must require and guar- antee the well-being of the workers as the essential part of its policy in promoting the welfare of the business. What the individual can do by himself or in connection with others should be left to him or them; the State should deal with what cannot thus be left to private individuals. "'But the welfare of the workers cannot be ob- ROOSEVELT ON LABOR 157 tained unless the welfare of the business is assured and the Government should work steadily toward that end. The demagogic effort to break up or de- stroy a business, merely because it is big or because it is prosperous, is mischievous from every stand- point. The aim should be to encourage business and control it, to secure cooperation among all engaged in business so far as is possible, and to supervise large-scale business so as to insure its good behavior, but not to penalize it while it renders proper serv- » ice. "Do you see anything to quarrel with in that?" he demanded. I explained that I did not, but added that he went farther in some respects than Mr. Gompers had, notably in the matter of old-age insurance or pen- sions. ''I understand that the unions are not in agree- ment on the desirability of this," he said, "but I am inclined to think they will come to it eventually. It is, perhaps, as well that they make haste slowly in this respect. As I understand it, their position is that it will interfere with their progress in other ways. "I have heard since I saw you last that some of Mr. Merritt's friends regret that I brought labor into this thing. I do not. I told one man who spoke of this 158 TALKS WITH T. R. that I am not at all concerned in pleasing everybody. That is something I have never tried to do. I do not propose to do it now. I am too old to make that change. "The greatest liberty in doing all these things I have advocated should, within due limits, having regard for all interests, be left to the employer and employee. There is a limit, however. ''One of the greatest dangers I can imagine, how- ever, is a combination, an agreement of short- sighted employers and unscrupulous union leaders, to fleece the public between them. This is possible in highly organized trades. In such an event both sides should be punished with the greatest severity. y "I have always been for labor within reason and the law. I have had many friends since my days in the Assembly among the cigarmakers. I have always been for healthy working conditions, just as when I was Police Commissioner I believed the unions should be allowed to picket, so long as they did not use their fists or clubs to pound home their argu- ments. Where they tried that I was for locking them up. That was fair play and a sane way of looking at the matter. That is all I advocate now." I raised a question as to what he meant by per- manency of employment — if by that he meant a worker should have a vested interest in his position. ROOSEVELT ON LABOR 159 Before he could answer, the Chinese gong hanging in the hallway sounded the signal for him to prepare for dinner. " No," said he rising, "not exactly that. I will take the matter up with you some other time. There is too much of that to dispose of it in a minute. But we can say this: a good deal of consideration should be given before any old employee, whether he be super- intendent or day laborer, is thrown out of employ- ment." This phase of his labor programme, I regret to state, we never took up again. "ONE PURPLE NIGHT" THIS was Colonel Roosevelt's description of a party he gave at a Westchester roadhouse early one Sunday morning in the fall of 191 7. The Colonel's guests were a half-score of Bridgeport, Connecticut, policemen and some New York news- paper men; the party followed a speech by the Colonel in Bridgeport, The night train service from Bridgeport to New York is not attractive, and whenever the Colonel spoke there he would return to New York by motor, guarded by police. First, however, there would be a little supper at the Stratfield, where a few of the local leaders would meet the Colonel. On the night in question the supper had been dis- posed of, and the start was about to be made for New York, when the Colonel asked if the men who were to accompany him were those who had been with him during the day. John King said they were. "That must not be," said the Colonel. "These men have been on duty all day. It will be all hours before they can get back. Send them home. We'll get back all right without them." "Nothing doing," replied King. "The men will ONE PURPLE NIGHT 161 insist on going. They can sleep to-morrow. It's their day off." "Very well, then," said the Colonel. "Of course it will be all right for me to give them a little money for breakfast." "No, sir," said King; "you must not give it, and they must not take it. That would never do." "Well," said the Colonel, "it will be all right for me to take them to breakfast with me?" "That cannot be done," I suggested. "So," concluded the Colonel, "between you and King I seem unable to do anything. Now, why can't I take them to breakfast?" "Because Mayor Mitchel closed everything except 'one-arm' lunch-rooms at one o'clock." "By Jove, there is an advantage to a Broadway education, is n't there? It's so long since I've been uptown late I had quite overlooked that change. But is n't there some good place between here and New York?" There were several. Mr. King recommended the Post Road Inn in New Rochelle, and it was decided to stop there. It was two in the morning when we reached the place in three automobiles — the policemen in full uniform, the Colonel, the late N. A. Jennings of the New York Herald, A. Leonard Smith of the New York i62 TALKS WITH T. R. Times, and myself. It was the practice, I should state, to use three cars, a pilot car loaded with police, the Colonel's car with two policemen on the box, and a trailer carrying four more. Regardless of speed laws, the party usually made fast time. As the crowd unloaded at the Inn, the proprietor, naturally swarthy, looked out and turned pale. Alarm, fear of a raid, and arrest were written on every feature. Before he could say or do anything I assured him. "Don't be scared," I said, as I led the police in; "it's not a raid — only some folks after something to eat." With a sigh of relief he asked, "How many?" and started to arrange the table. Halfway to the dining-room he espied the Colonel and retraced his steps. "Beg pardon," said he, "but is n't that El Presi- dente, President Roosevelt?" "It is Colonel Roosevelt, all right," I said. And again he started for the dining-room, this time regis- tering something like a cross between surprise and elation. A moment later the band suddenly switched from rag- time to the national anthem, and before the surprised dancers had a chance to adjust their steps the Colonel at the head of the party was halfway across the room. ONE PURPLE NIGHT 163 Instantly the dancers broke into applause, the few who had been seated rising to cheer. Then, in a confused sort of way, as though doubtful of what to do next, all hands took their seats and watched the Colonel's party. The dance-hall crowd, it may be stated, was just such a crowd as one would expect in a country road- house at an early hour Sunday morning — men of the "tired business" or salesman type; girls young, a bit inclined to be flashy, but not conspicuously so — something between the "flapper" and the chorus- girl type. Probably all had worked hard during the week and were having their weekly "blow- out." After some discussion of the bill-of-fare, lobster was ordered — that and champagne, the latter by Colonel Roosevelt without any suggestion from others in the group. During the meal most of the talking was done by Colonel Roosevelt, among it some on John L. Sullivan, who had been in Bridge- port the preceding day. He also discussed some of his Spanish War experiences. These latter followed an interruption by a man wearing the Maltese cross of the Spanish War veteran. "No apology needed," the Colonel assured this man when he apologized for "butting in." "I am always glad to meet any of my old comrades in arms. i64 TALKS WITH T. R. We did not have much of a war, but it was the best to be had, and we did the best we could." " A lot of the old boys have gone from around here, Colonel," said the veteran in a tone suggesting re- gret that he, too, could not go. "I know it, and I am proud of them for having gone," answered the Colonel. "If I had been per- mitted to go, to take my division across, I'd have had whole camps with me. The boys are right." "The boys are all strong for you, Colonel; they were all rooting for you to get a chance. They knew you'd make good." "And they would have made good, they will make good, those of them that are permitted to go, and their sons will make good. They're the make-good kind." Others, emboldened by the fact that the Spanish War vet had not been rebuffed, then came up to pay their respects. When the last had gone, some one remarked that the "ex-soldier was feeling pretty good." "Yes," said the Colonel, "I noticed that. I have noticed before this that all Spanish War veterans are not teetotallers. In fact, I have known some of my own men to get rather drunk, to put it mildly — but they were all good fellows, just the same. " I remember on one of my trips West, one of my ONE PURPLE NIGHT 165 old men rode many miles to see me. He 'd told every- body what he was going to say and what a good time he'd have when he saw me. When I arrived, how- ever, I think he can best be described as having been too full for utterance. The boys had had to tie him up and lay him away to recuperate. It was his first lapse, I was told, in several years. Of course I did n't see him. "Later on I had a letter from him full of contrition, apologies, and regrets, and a rather naive explana- tion. If he could n't celebrate when he was to see his old Colonel, when could he celebrate? However, he added, he was back on the water-wagon. Recently I heard he was still on it. I hope he stays there for life, for he is a good fellow and that's his one weakness." The curious may wish to know if the Colonel drank anything that morning. He did — part of a glass of wine. DEVIL-FISHING GOOD sport, but not exactly the thing to recom- mend to a weakling, or one at all nervous of a little danger," was Colonel Roosevelt's opinion of devil-fishing. He had one try at this, in the spring of 191 7, when the declaration of war against Germany made it seem advisable to call off a visit to the West Indies for which he had made all of his plans. He thought so well of the sport that just before he died he wrote his friend, Russell J. Coles, of Dan- ville, Virginia, accepting an invitation to join him in an expedition on March l, and thanking him for having included Captain Archie, then practically recovered from his wounds, in the invitation. "The devil fish," said the Colonel describing the sport in his library at Oyster Bay, "is the big game of the sea. There is nothing else quite like it that I know of, though I doubt if it will ever become a very popular sport. It is good sport, but not exactly the kind to recommend to a weakling, or one at all nerv- ous of a little danger. I do not know that careful physicians will agree in recommending it to gentle- men of advanced years, for, as you may imagine, it is hard work. "I became interested in devil-fishing through DEVIL-FISHING 167 Russell Coles, of Danville, Virginia. Coles is rather an extraordinary sort of person, the unusual com- bination of good business man and high-class scien- tist. Most of his year he devotes to his tobacco busi- ness in Virginia. The rest of it he puts in hunting devil fish and sharks, and by way of diversion at odd moments writes scientific articles, or prepares papers to be read before scientific societies. He takes a very practical interest in public affairs, and is in every sense of the word a mighty fine citizen. "I became interested in him through something he did for the American Museum of Natural History. That was some years ago. Since then I have had much correspondence with him, and when I found that I could not go South as I had arranged, I de- cided to accept one of his many invitations to go fishing. His proposal was that I should spend a month. We compromised on about a week. " In devil-fishing you camp in a house built on a scow that is anchored off a Florida key. Your fishing you do from a launch. Coles, who is a whale of a man himself, has a crew that is as good as he is. His cap- tain, Charley Willis, is a powerful, two-handed sort of a man who has been with him many years. An- other of his outfit is Captain Jack McCann. He's unusual, too, a good seaman and a naturalist, who habitually describes plants by their scientific names. 1 68 TALKS WITH T. R. The others of his crew — he usually has four men — are of the same high type of intelHgence. "It is some considerable journey to the 'camp.' There you get up at sunrise, get into rough clothes, and after you ' ve made sure that the gear is all right, make off in a launch for the fishing grounds. The weapons used are harpoons, which the real fishermen call 'irons,' just as I have heard some whalers call their weapons, and a lance. Sometimes the old- fashioned whaling lance is used. Coles has had some made on designs of his own. New Bedford, by the way, is the best place to get these things if you ever wish them. "The iron is a business-like weapon. It has a head of the finest tempered steel, on a shaft of soft iron. There is one there, minus the wooden handle. When you see the way that is bent, you will see why it is necessary to make the shaft of comparatively soft metal." The instrument, somewhat rusted, was bent to an angle of almost forty-five degrees and occupied a place of honor on the mantel on which rested the bronze presented to him by the famous "tennis cabinet." "That's one I used on the big fish I got with Coles's assistance. You see it is so built that once in, the struggles of the beast release the barb and usu- ^ ^"T. DEVIL-FISHING 169 ally, though not always, prevents your prey escap- ing. The iron is attached to a rope which is either run out of the boat or made fast to what they call a drogue — a sort of sea anchor, or drag. This is a powerful brake, but one of these creatures will pull a heavy launch almost unbelievable distances with one of these drogues fastened to it with another harpoon. "I missed my first fish through inexperience in gauging the speed at which it was moving. The second one, I got square in the middle of the body. When we came to take my iron out we found I had driven it through bone, muscle, and hide more than two feet — two feet four inches to be exact — and the thing had gone through the beast's heart. After I got my iron into it, Coles also put one in. With these two in its body, the thing dragged the boat a full half-mile before it became exhausted enough for us to get it alongside. Then it was necessary to use the lance on it twice. " I should say that before I went to Florida, Coles had coached me a great deal — so that I knew how I was expected to handle myself, where to aim for with the harpoon, and how to use the lance. He drilled and drilled me so that while it was my first * appearance on any stage * as a devil-fisher, I was by no means ignorant of the art. lyo TALKS WITH T. R. "On the second fish we struck, Coles's iron pulled out. He got it a second time. This one towed us two miles. "One of our specimens when we came to measure it proved to be the second largest of which there is any record of being killed. Coles has the record fish. "We did not have such good luck on the second day, the one fish we struck being lost. In this respect it is like every other kind of sport; you must figure on having good luck and bad, and on days when you will get nothing as well as the rare days when you will get a big bag." "You call this fish the 'big game of the sea.' How does killing it compare with 'big-game' kilHng ashore," I asked. "It is difficult of comparison because all of the circumstances are so different. Both are good, but I think I prefer the land game. I am too much of a landlubber not to have a preference for solid earth under my feet. But it is great sport, and I am going back when I have more time to spare, just as I hope to get another chance at lions in Africa. I have no desire for the bigger game, elephants and that sort of thing, but I would like a few more lions. "Like all big-game hunting, in devil-fishing you have to depend very much on your guides and you must expect some considerable danger of being hurt. DEVIL-FISHING 171 The fish will not attack any one, but when attacked they will fight back. At the risk of being called a nature fakir I '11 add that the male of the species has been known to attack a boat which had made fast to a female. At least, that is what veterans at the sport tell. Like everything else of this sort, this is something one would like to verify. However, Coles, who like most scientists is sceptical of many things, is inclined to credit these stories. "Coles, by the way, got into this thing in a rather unusual way. He had the groundwork of a good edu- cation when he went into devil-fishing and shark- hunting because he had become wearied of other fishing. The scientific side of the thing appealed to him, and when he began to look things up, he found that ver>^ little work had been done. Now he is prob- ably the world's best authority in this line. He has also gone to the point where he has made shark- fishing attractive from a commercial standpoint. He has no interest in the commercial side of the thing — he has passed that up to others after spend- ing quite a lot of money in pioneer work. That, of course, is the scientist of it." Colonel Roosevelt's last college degree — that of Doctor of Science — was awarded him by Trinity College, at the same time Coles received a similar honor. To be invested in the degree they journeyed 172 TALKS WITH T. R. together to Hartford. On their return, the Colonel said he had had a "bully" time. "Jack Morgan was there to get a degree, too," he said, "and he was very much interested in Coles. Coles invited him to go fishing. It would not surprise me if he went, for Morgan, you know, is a husky chap who knows a thing or two on handling a boat himself — much more than I do." A VARIED READING DIET IN his travels Colonel Roosevelt's reading was catholic in scope. It ranged from a volume of "Plutarch's Lives," he may have taken from his library, a bulletin of some learned society picked up from a desk as he was about to leave home, or a popular magazine filled with detective stories or tales of adventure. "I wish," he would say as we were arriving in a town, "that you would try and get me a copy of the Red Book', there's a detective story in that I want to finish"; or, "see if you cannot pick up a copy of Adventure. I am somewhat of an adventurer myself and want to know what the rest of the tribe may be interested in just now." Once I remarked that this was "rather low-brow diet." "True," he said, "but why feed entirely on the heavier stufT? I get all the 'high-brow' magazines at home. Lord! I don't read one half of them. This low- brow stuff, as you call it, is good for a change. I like a good detective story when I can get it. These things may not be literature, but they interest and rest me. They make up the salads of my reading. "You remember old Senator Hoar from your 174 TALKS WITH T. R. State? Do you remember that he was addicted to dime novels? That used to be a shock to some very good people who imagined the Senator lived on the Transcript and the Congressional Record when he was not devouring law books and even heavier things. Some saw in this evidence of total depravity on the old man's part — an evil example to the young. It was merely his way of relaxing and resting up between times. " I was very fond of Hoar, though I did not know him as well as I would have liked to. I have often laughed at that mot of his on 'Ben' Butler's funeral. You remember some one asked the Senator if he were going to attend it. "'No,' he is said to have replied, 'but I approve of it.'" I "TRYING TO KILL ME" T sometimes seems that some of my admiring friends wish to work me to death. The idea of most committees seems to be to pass me on to the next place as nearly dead as possible." Most considerate of the comfort of others, Colonel Roosevelt at times complained of the lack of con- sideration for him. "It is queer," he said on another occasion, this time when he was reported recovered from a serious illness, "that people should hail my discharge from the hospital as the signal to pile invitations to work on me. Really it seems as though one half of the let- ters congratulating me on my recovery conclude with an invitation to speak here, there, anywhere. There are hundreds of them." Returning from his last extensive tour of the West, the Colonel spoke of this demand of speeches from him. He had been ill on this trip, and as we neared New York, I ventured to advise that he spend the summer quietly at Oyster Bay. "I hope," I said, "that if I may say so, this ex- perience has taught you something. It is a result of your not following Dr. James's orders and taking a rest. It is a warning. You must take things easy." 176 TALKS WITH T. R. "I shall do that; I shall have to do that. But I shall have to do some things." "Colonel, you simply will have to rest. There are two hot months ahead, there's good boating and fishing at Oyster Bay, you have n't cut your winter's wood yet. I am presuming, I know, but you must rest, for there's hard work ahead and you will be needed. In saying this I do not mean to be offensive." "You are not; you are perfectly right, and I shall take things easier. You simply say what all my real friends say. But I must go to Passaic July 4. I must do that." "You should not accept any more invitations. It is asking too much." " I know it is. The usual committee idea is to pass me along to the next town as nearly dead as possible, always taking pains to see that I do not die on their hands." "And don't yield to any 'just one speech' appeal." "I won't. You are saying what those who really have my interest at heart say. The others say to me, 'Save yourself,' and then ask me to come out and speak for them. Jim Goodrich wants me to return to Indiana for another speech. I'll see him in hell first." LOYALTY THE longer I live the more I am inclined to think of clan loyalty. I am afraid of those superior persons who are so good they can long stand by nobody, not even themselves." Colonel Roosevelt had in mind some members of the old Progressive party who did not fully approve of his war attitude. These were the more respectable of what he had been known to call the "lunatic fringe." "The spirit of the clan," he went on, "is what we as Americans lack. We need one big American clan, with its members always for the clan. I must confess that I have never been able to get the viewpoint of those very excellent persons who object to the old navy toast: 'My country right, my country wrong; but right or wrong, my country.' There are other versions, and I may not have it exact, but that is the thought. " I suppose it is another manifestation of my gen- eral bloodthirsty, swashbuckling frame of mind, my fondness for the big stick and violence of all kinds. I know it is most reprehensible for me to talk to a youth of your tender years — you are n't much over forty, are you? — and I should know better, but I 178 TALKS WITH T. R. don't. I cannot bring myself to that point where I can disagree with that sentiment. "I want my country to be right; I hope she al- ways will be right; but right or wrong, whatever she gets into I am going to be with her until she gets out. Then if there is any correcting to do, I'll try and do my share. And I am not prepared to concede the possibility of error in that doctrine by agreeing to debate it with anybody. " It is said to be bad ethics, just as it is said to be bad ethics to teach a boy to defend himself, or his baby brother or his sister or his mother. Some good people hold that a boy who gets into a fight, whether he be right or wrong, should be punished. I do not. If one of my boys was a bully, I 'd try to thrash it out of him. If he would not defend himself against a bully, I 'd thrash him until I had some degree of man- hood in him. He'd require but one thrashing. "The clan, of course, is one of the oldest forms of organization — it is a crude manifestation of the organizing spirit. At bottom there is no real differ- ence between the spirit that makes possible great corporations and that responsible for our New York gangs. It is the clan spirit — the organizing spirit. The difference is that in one instance the organizing spirit is developed along good lines, is used in a proper direction, and in the other it is not. Organi- LOYALTY 179 zation per se is bad only when it is used for bad ends. "The New York street gang is but a form of clan. The gang leader comes to the top because of the same general qualities that makes another, born into hap- pier surroundings, a society leader. Both have to fight their way up through. I do not like gangs, and I do not admire gang leaders, but this much is to be said for them — they do stand for something and you know where they stand. They have in them the essence of loyalty." GERMANS IN AMERICA THERE is nothing in sound Americanism that will not be endorsed by the preponderating majority of the men and women of German blood in America." This sentiment Colonel Roosevelt expressed again and again to all who would listen to him before, dur- ing, and after hostilities. He was most emphatic in declaring it after leaving Milwaukee, and again on leaving St. Louis. After a meeting in Toledo, largely made up of Germans, he declared they resented only "pseudo- Americanism." "It is," said he, "only the pseudo- Americanism of Wilson that they object to." With this declaration went a call for fair play for the Germans in this country and he went out of his way to practice what he preached. A notable example of this was in St. Louis, which in addition to a large German population also has a Mayor of German blood — Henry Kiel. When the Colonel paid his last visit to St. Louis, he was very sick with erysipelas. He was insistent on keeping the dates made for him by the National Security League, and, by following his physician's GERMANS IN AMERICA i8i orders to get all possible rest, managed to do so. In St. Louis, however, conditions made it necessary that he take a hand in arranging the details of his meeting, lest injustice be done somebody and a bad matter made worse. This condition, partly political and partly hys- terical, arose from the fact that the local committee was not in sympathy with Mayor Kiel, who, accord- ing to some of its members, was pro-German. For this reason Kiel had been overlooked to a large extent in making the arrangements for the Colonel's reception and meeting. To this meeting the Colonel insisted upon being introduced by the Mayor. The active members of the committee did not wish any- thing of the sort, the Mayor was not on hand to speak for himself, and there was no one to speak for him. In this muddle the Colonel insisted that courtesy and fair play demanded that Kiel be given an oppor- tunity to decline to take part in the meeting, and that every other consideration supported this de- mand. If the Mayor declined, it would, he said, be another story. "Then I'll hang his hide on the barn door," he declared to me; "but I'll not attack him nor any other man until I am sure of my grounds for attacking." 1 8a TALKS WITH T. R. After much backing and filling, Judge Dyer, whom the Colonel, as President, had placed on the Federal Bench, called to leave a card. "I understand the Colonel is not well, so I won't ask to disturb him," he said. I asked him to wait until I could learn the Colo- nel's wishes in the matter. "By all means," he exclaimed. "He is the one man in St. Louis I do want to see." "The Judge," he told me after the visit, "says Kiel is all right. He knows. I 'd rather have that old hardshell's opinion than that of any other man here. These young men on this committee are nice boys, but they don't know. If they were residents of New York, they would be members of the Citizens' Union, and strong for reform, but they would not know the names of their Assemblymen." It was, however, not easy to locate Mr. Kiel; he was not, in fact, located until the Colonel reached the barnlike Auditorium where the meeting was to be held. Just before we left for the hall, I asked what would be done about Kiel. "We will do nothing until we find whether or not the Mayor shows up," he said. " If he does, all right. If he does n't, well, I '11 preside myself if I have to." Mayor Kiel was, however, waiting at the hall, a bit nervous, but glad to do the honors. His brief, GERMANS IN AMERICA 183 clean-cut speech was satisfactory even to the Colonel, who was mightily pleased with the way the matter turned out. "Don't you see," he asked, on the way back to the hotel, " that it was far better to do as we did do? Had we proceeded on the theory that Kiel was all he was said to be, an injustice would be done to the man, the cause for which we all stand would be in- jured, and we should have gone far toward setting up such another situation as exists in Chicago. Kiel is not another Mayor Thompson; he is entirely of another type, and he is making the best of a condi- tion that at times must be very difficult for him. " It is always best to be fair in the extreme in such matters; best to go slow until you have all the facts. Then if the man is wrong hit him, and hit him hard; show him no mercy. Had Kiel justified what they had said about him and not taken part in that meeting, I'd have pilloried him. I'm glad I did not have to. "Just think how it would have heartened the enemy abroad and the enemy at home if it had gone broadcast: 'Roosevelt denounces St. Louis Mayor as Pro-German'; or, 'St. Louis Mayor refuses to speak at Loyalty Meeting.' "Did you notice how well the crowd took what I had to say about Germany and straight American- 1 84 TALKS WITH T. R. ism? That audience was very largely German — it was full of German types — but they all seemed to like it. There was one chap there — I wonder if you noticed him, he sat well down front and looked like the German bandsman the funny papers print — he enjoyed it every minute. If I had time and it were possible I 'd like to meet that old fellow and talk with him. Without knowing a thing about him, I '11 wager that he is one of those Germans who left Germany to escape the * Kultur ' we are now fighting to escape." " I watched Kiel closely during your speech," I said, "and he seemed as well pleased as your German down front did." " Probably, though he is in rather a different posi- tion. But the old Judge was all right. Depend upon men of his type. He's an old hardshell Republican, on the bench and out of politics, but he knows more than all the nice boys on the committee ever will. Steve Connell, whom you met to-day, is another shrewd fellow. He was with me when I was in the White House — secret service, you know. He's a fine fellow and I 'm glad to have you meet him.You '11 find him dependable and straightforward." This visit to St. Louis was part of an "invasion of the enemy's country," including Milwaukee, and Springfield, Ohio, the latter the seat of Wittenberg College, one of the oldest Lutheran institutions in GERMANS IN AMERICA 185 the country, and Madison, Wisconsin, seat of the State University, which Dr. Robert M. McElroy, of Princeton, had reported, after rather an unpleasant experience, "was not one hundred per cent loyal." Proceeding to these places, the Colonel declared it to be his intention to "give them all that is in me." " In Milwaukee," said he, " I shall give them every- thing I have said anywhere else and, if I can think of it, something more. Being in what Bryan might call the 'enemy's country' will make no difference with me. I do not anticipate any bother, but if there is any, we shall have to make the best of it.'* Anticipating "bother," secret service men de- tailed by the management of the St. Paul road, the Colonel's ever-faithful colored valet, James Amos, to whom his last words, "Please turn off the light," were spoken, and I grouped ourselves about him as he left the train. He broke away from the group to greet a white-whiskered old man who walked with a cane. "General," he exclaimed, "this is almighty good of you to come and see me ! I wanted to have a talk with you. I was going to call at your home. May I call there or will I see you at the hotel? Which is the more convenient to you?" "I am surprised you remember me," said the old man. "It is many years since you have seen me. I will see you at the hotel." 1 86 TALKS WITH T. R. "Come right up now. Yes, indeed, come right up with me. I am glad to see you and you must come to the meeting. I want you on the platform." The old man, the Colonel introduced as General Mueller. "He lost a leg in the Union Army," he told me at the hotel. "He's the kind of man that has saved the mass of Germans in this country from the infamy some of their number would put upon all : men like him and Adolph Vogel whom you just met. The General tells me that his grandsons are all in the army and all but one of Vogel's boys are there too. That one goes next month. "Vogel tells me they have the largest hall in town and that it 's already packed with Germans. He has no doubt as to my reception. Neither have I. But I am going to talk straight at them." He did. Among the new notes struck was a hard drive on the teaching of German in grade schools. To my surprise this was the "hit" of the speech. I mentioned this surprise to the Colonel. "That has been a big issue here," he said. After the meeting a young man, evidently a grad- uate of some German university to judge by the duelling scars on his cheeks, told me the Colonel's talk was "the sort needed." "What the Germans here have had, in private GERMANS IN AMERICA 187 talk at least, has been abuse," he said. "Loyal men have been abused as much as those openly disloyal. This has tended to increase disloyalt}^ The Colonel's talk will weaken the Bergers and strengthen men like Vogel. Milwaukee is all right." "The young man is not entirely accurate," the Colonel commented when I repeated his remarks. "He is quite correct on the matter of abuse. But he is wrong in saying that Milwaukee is all right. There is a big element here that is all wrong. Milwaukee to-day may be sixty per cent all right, fifteen per cent in the shadow zone, and twenty-five per cent dead wrong. It cannot be all right with a Socialist Mayor, a Socialist Chief of Police, and a Socialist Sheriff. Remember, the Socialist Party which elected these men is not an American institution." Springfield, Ohio, hke Milwaukee, is largely popu- lated by persons of German birth or blood. In addi- tion to Wittenberg College, which, in the commonly used term, is a German school, it had thirteen churches in which German was the only language used and four where both German and English pre- vailed. The school had suffered because of its sup- posed German leanings, and Springfield as a whole was not pleased with the reputation that it was in- clined to be pro-German. Dr. Hecker, an aggressive type of college presi- 1 88 TALKS WITH T. R. dent, more the able administrator than the great teacher, was very anxious to overcome the feeHng that had been aroused, and as one way to accom- phsh the desired result invited the Colonel to address the school. Other interests joined in the invitation. "I have," said the Colonel, speaking of his deci- sion to accept, "no delusions as to Dr. Hecker's self- interest in inviting me to address the school. It is natural and proper on his part. But I won't toe down one bit. "It is just the sort of place I want to speak, but I am not going to temper my remarks to please any- body. Of course they say there is no pro-Germanism in that country and that they are poor, much- abused, little woolly lambs. That fools nobody. They are now trying to run straight. Very well. I will help them by giving them the cleanest-cut Americanism that is in me. They have agreed to this and they will get it. "They have also agreed to my terms as to arrange- ments. I will be introduced by the President, who is a Lutheran minister of German blood, and the prayer will be by a Roman Catholic priest of German birth, Father Vottman. He is a major in the regular army, an old chaplain, and a Monsignor in the Church. He helped immensely in adjusting the Philippine church troubles. GERMANS IN AMERICA 189 " I propose also to say a word to them on the wis- dom of the Lutheran Church making English the church language in this country. Otherwise, the Lutheran Church, powerful as it now is, must go the way of the Dutch Reformed Church to which I have the honor to belong. Had it changed to English, it would in all probability be one of the leading churches in New York at least. But it stuck to Dutch too long; the younger people drifted away until, too late, English was made the church lan- guage. I would very much regret a like fate for the Lutheran Church. I want it to continue, as it is to-day, a permanent and powerful factor in American life." Returning East, Colonel Roosevelt spoke regret- fully of the changed position the German found himself in in this country. "I was," he said, "very sorry at the changes in Milwaukee. This was my first visit there, you know, since that madman shot me. Before, when I went to Milwaukee, my German friends were a happy lot. After a meeting I would go to their club, there would be light refreshments, singing, real good-fellowship. Now all this is changed. Men like Vogel, real Ameri- cans, who are doing their full duty, are saddened by the position some Germans would put all of their kind in America in. They have no doubt of the out- I90 TALKS WITH T. R. come of the war — they know it must end in Ger- many's defeat; but, naturally, they fear the reaction on the Germans in this country. Some of them in Milwaukee have behaved very badly. I do not refer to Berger and his class. I mean a higher, and sup- posedly more respectable, type. "Some few of the wealthier and more influential ones have been foolish enough to start a sort of boy- cott. Take Willett Spooner. Spooner had a splendid law practice, largely with Germans here. Overnight almost, I am told, it fell away. Spooner had given offence by taking a strong American position. That, of course, is rough on Spooner, but he will survive it. The very people who tried to hurt him will be glad to go back to him and ask his help when this thing is over. They will suffer, not he. "The German in this country has been a good citi- zen. He has been thrifty and hard-working as a very general rule; he has contributed to the welfare of every community in which he lived. He has been law-abiding — in a word, has met his obligations squarely. This is particularly true of the older Ger- mans. Properly handled there would have been very little difficulty with them. If, from the start, it had been made clear to them that we were at war, not with them, but with the Germans in France and Belgium with guns in their hands trying to impose GERMANS IN AMERICA 191 upon the world the things they left Germany to escape, and that they were expected and relied upon to do their full part just as any other group of citi- zens were expected to do theirs, there would have been little misunderstanding and very little of this feeling. "I have absolutely no sympathy with the over- zealous patriot who would persecute everybody here with a German name. It is all wrong. It is like the case of an old German waiter, Emil — huh, the last name has escaped me. I knew him when I was Police Commissioner. Not long since I met him as I was leaving the Metropolitan ofhce. He spoke and I remembered him. I asked him how he was getting along. '"Oh, purty veil,* he said ; * my two boys are gone, one in the army and one in the navy, my son-in-law is gone, and I have his wife and the grandchildren home with me, but still some people call me *'dot damn Cherman." ' "I told him he was a pretty good American and that I was proud to know him, and that he should be proud of his two fine sons and his son-in-law. "Now nothing is made by mistreating men like that poor waiter. A real American would not do it. Instead, he'd devote his attention to the men on soap boxes, no matter who they may be, that are 192 TALKS WITH T. R. preaching peace without victory or praying for the defeat of one of our brave aUies." The question of German immigration after the war coming up, Colonel Roosevelt expressed doubt as to how extensive it might be. " I am not as sure as some persons seem to be that there will be any great migration of Germans to this country," he said. "It will all depend, I suppose, on the condition Germany is left in by the war. For one thing, I would not oppose such immigration, pro- vided the immigrants were of the kind that come here prepared to w^ork. Most Germans, I have found, have some trade. Very frequently they are highly skilled along special lines. Such men should be wel- comed. The other kind should be barred." Again, in Toledo, this time before we entered the war, and while the Colonel was talking politics, he found that there were many Germans in his audi- ence. As in every other place his talk was mainly preparedness, emphasized, I thought, because one of the committee expressed the hope that many Germans in it would not take offence at what he might say. "My dear fellow," said he, "they will not take offence because I am going to talk straight Ameri- canism to them. They will not object to that. Why, one of the most wonderful books of the war was GERMANS IN AMERICA 193 written by a German in your town — at least he is of German blood. It is called 'Their True Alle- giance.' His name is Ohlinger. I'll be obliged to you if you will have him located for me." "Did you notice that I offended anybody in that audience?" he asked after the meeting. I assured him I had not. "I did not think you would," he replied, adding: "Oh, for a little courage and plain horse sense in the handling of this whole German question! It would make things so much easier." PLAYING THE GAME JULIUS KAHN, Member of Congress from Cali- fornia, did yeoman work in forcing through the draft and other war measures, when Mr. Wilson's party leaders in the House chose to refuse their aid. None were more appreciative of this work than Colonel Roosevelt. In private and in public he ex- tolled the Calif ornian as typical of those of German blood and birth in the United States to whom their naturalization decrees were more than "scraps of paper." Imagine, therefore, my surprise when early in April, 191 8, Colonel Roosevelt refused point-blank to take part in the "Julius Kahn day" celebration arranged for April 30 by St. Cecile, New York's far- famed "actors' " lodge of Masons. The surprise was the more complete because I was sure the Colonel approved of the demonstration for the effect it might have in rousing the spirit that demanded "peace through overwhelming victory." "No," said he, after I had repeated the message given me by R. W. George Loesh, who was in charge of the affair, " I will not take part in the celebration, though I wish you'd thank the boys for remembering me. Itisoutof thequestion. On that I am as adamant." PLAYING THE GAME 195 "Colonel," I asked, "will you come if I make it a personal matter? This is the first thing St. Cecile has ever asked me to do, and I 'd like to do it. They do wish you would come. Now, won't you?" "Jack," said he, "I am surprised that you do not see how impossible it is for me to do as you ask. I really am. I am surprised that Bro. Loesh or any one else should ask it. For me to attend would be absolutely unfair to Kahn. Can't you see that?" I confessed that I could not. "I cannot," said I, "conceive how it would be unfair to any man in the world for you to attend a celebration in his honor. Why, at this stage, it's the greatest honor any American could have paid him!" "Jack, your loyalty to me, your affection for me if I may so term it, has destroyed for the moment your perspective. You know I like Kahn, that I have a very high regard for him as a man and as a citizen. I 'd do anything to help Kahn. I won't hurt him. You don't see it now. Let me explain it for you. "On your own statement, Kahn was raised in St. Cecile thirty-odd years ago when, to use your own words, he was a ' ham actor,' and wholly unknown to fame. As such he went West, took up law, and finally landed in Congress. All this time, as you say, he retained his membership in his mother lodge. And 196 TALKS WITH T. R. how a dozen or so years ago, when he happened in town on a lodge day, he almost had to work his way in, so few of the active members knew him. "Now he is about to visit it again, not as an humble, almost unknown member, but, if you please, almost as a hero, as a type of hero, to be received by all of the big men in the Craft, with all the honors the Craft may bestow on a member who's made good in an extraordinary way. That is as it should be. The dramatic values of the contrast will not escape your associates, I 'm sure. It should be a splen- did affair with Kahn in the centre of the stage all the time. That is as it should be, for it is his day. "It would not be that way were I to attend. I know what would happen. So do you. I 'm not im- modest when I say it would be a Kahn-Roosevelt day, or more likely a Roosevelt-Kahn day, with Kahn playing second fiddle part of the time at least. " Don't you see how unfair that would be to Kahn? It would not be square; it would n't be playing the game. It's to be his day, and he's entitled to the whole of it. Furthermore, so far as the effect on the outside public is concerned, there '11 be more inspira- tion to intensive war work if it is what you have planned — a demonstration in honor of an humble Congressman of German birth, but a real American who did his full duty with no truculent ex-President PLAYING THE GAME 197 cluttering up the stage. It would be wrong from every angle. You see it now, I know." "However, Colonel," I said, "you won't mind sending a letter of declination in which you record some of the nice things you've been saying. Kahn, I'm sure, would like that?" "Certainly," he replied, "I'm glad to do that. That won't interfere with the fitness of things; at least it should not detract anything from what should be a great day." In his talk with me Colonel Roosevelt spoke of the values of contrasts, and as I write I cannot but re- cord, for like reason, the excuse given by a public official, then suffering from the sting of the Presiden- tial Bee, for not appearing at the celebration after promising to do so. "Why," he asked, "should I do anything to help boom a man who may be one of my rivals for the Presidential nomination?" The man to whom the explanation was made missed the unconscious jest in the answer. Like the man who made it, he had forgotten Section 5, of Article 2, of the Constitution. This reads: "No person except a natural-born citizen . . . shall be eligible to the office of President." MAKING UP WITH TAFT JACK, I've seen old Taft, and we're in perfect harmony on everything." Colonel Roosevelt fairly beamed the words — if one may be said to beam a word — in his rooms in the Blackstone Hotel one Sunday in May, 191 8. He had just come in from his first real meeting with Judge Taft since the break in 191 2, and he was happy as the proverbial lark. "We're in perfect harmony on everything," he repeated. "Now hurry, for we've got to make a train." I say "real meeting" advisedly, for, while it is true that Mr. Taft and the Colonel met during the 191 6 campaign in the Union League Club, at the request of Mr. Hughes's managers, the "reconcilia- tion meeting" was anything but cordial or friendly. "It was," as the Colonel remarked at one time, "one of those friendly affairs, where each side, be- fore entering the meeting-place, made sure its hard- ware was in good working order." The Union League meeting was arranged solely for the effect it might have on the country; it was as much a staged affair as though Belasco had planned it, though it lacked the Belasco touch. Because it was MAKING UP WITH TAFT 199 so poorly (or so palpably) staged, its only effect on the public was to provoke a rather large grin. The Chicago meeting, on the other hand, was as satisfying as it was unexpected ; there were hearts in the hand-clasps. For this reason, the effect on the country, and more particularly the Republican part of the country, was all the Union League meeting was not. Colonel Roosevelt's serious illness in the early part of 191 8 opened the door to the real reconcilia- tion. Mr. Taft took advantage of the Colonel's re- covery to write him a warm-hearted letter of con- gratulation — a typical Taft letter. On his part the Colonel reciprocated in kind, saying, among other things, in his note to Mr. Taft, that his was the first letter he was answering. This paved the way to other letters, and when, soon after, the Colonel delivered his ''keynote" speech to the Maine Republican Convention, the manuscript was submitted to Mr. Taft for his opinion. Mr. Taft suggested a few changes in its wording, changes the Colonel gladly made. From this point mutual friends helped the situa- tion along by repeating to Colonel Roosevelt kindly things Mr. Taft had said about the Colonel. The Colonel was particularly appreciative of a story told by Governor W. L. Harding of Iowa. aoo TALKS WITH T. R. The Governor, it appeared, had been a guest at dinner with Mr. Taft, where, over the coffee, all hands turned to discussing the conduct of affairs in Washington. "When I see the way things are going in Washing- ton, it makes my blood fairly boil," Mr. Taft was quoted as saying, "but when I think how much mad- der they must make T. R., I feel a whole lot better." "From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry for Roosevelt," he went on after the laugh had subsided. "Here he is, the one man in the country best capable of handling the situation, denied any part in it, and compelled to sit in the bleachers and see the ball booted all over the lot." Some one — I know not who — repeated this story to the Colonel, and in telling of it, the Colonel added that "Taft was not much better off." "Taft," said he, "could do real work in Washing- ton — he could do great work abroad. Think what he could do in Baker's place; what a splendid thing it would be to have him in Paris or London or Rome! Just think of the appeal that would make to the imagination of the people of Europe!" On the morning of the Hotel Blackstone meeting. Colonel Roosevelt arrived in Chicago en route for Des Moines. He planned a quiet day — a meeting with Richard Lloyd Jones, of Madison, Wisconsin, IN BARBADOS MAKING UP WITH TAFT 201 and a private talk to an editorial association in the afternoon, a late dinner, and an early train. After the talk to the editors, he advised me to "take the evening off." "There won't be a thing doing," said he. "I'm going to get into some dry clothing" (he was per- spiring very freely), "have a late dinner, and get ready for the ten-o'clock train. You had better take the evening off, but be back by nine- fifteen sure." My idea of taking the evening off was to stick about the hotel lobby, for travelling with the Colonel, as all newspaper men who have toured with him will testify, was serious business. One never knew what might turn up, and in the months immediately before and after our entry into the war, there was always the chance that some German fanatic might seek to aid the Fatherland by destroying him. The Colonel gave this danger small thought, but it was present nevertheless. Therefore I had my dinner, filed a brief despatch for New York, and was chatting with the Western Union operator in the hotel, when, suddenly, came the sound of cheers from the dining-room. They were not the customary well-bred cheers one looks for at any time in a hotel like the Blackstone — rather were they the kind one hears in a mass meeting in the midst of an exciting campaign. 202 TALKS WITH T. R. Both telegraph operators and the telephone girl paused in their work — cheers in the Blackstone on a Sunday night are so unusual. I made for the dining- room. In the Blackstone the dining-room is some nine or ten steps above the level of the office floor. These steps were crowded by men and women who a mo- ment before were seated in the lobby — all very much excited about something. "What's up?" I asked a man on the lower step. "Nothing; only T. R. and Taft's got together," he replied. "They're in there holding an old-home week." "Old-home week" seemed to describe it perfectly. At the far side of the dining-room at a small table by a window sat the two ex-Presidents. Mr. Taft was beaming, and Colonel Roosevelt, leaning half across the table, was expressing himself very ear- nestly. It was for all the world like two old soldiers met, after many years, at a G.A.R. reunion. I left the crowded stairs to bulletin New York, "Roosevelt and Taft dining together" — for it so appeared from the stairs, and returned to await the end of the meal. On my way I met Mr. Taft. "Judge," I asked, "won't you tell me about your meeting with Colonel Roosevelt? Was it by appoint- ment?" MAKING UP WITH TAFT 203 "Lord, no!" said he. '*I came here from St. Louis on War Labor Board business — we have a session here to-morrow — I was halfway to my room when I heard he was in the dining-room and going to leave in a few minutes, so I just dropped in on him to pay my respects. Is n't he looking splendid? I never saw him looking much better." "Did you talk politics? " "Son," laughed Mr. Taft, "you really do not ex- pect me to answer that question, do you?" "Well, I am safe in assuming you did." "Now don't you assume anything," he com- manded. "You just quote Mr. Taft as saying Colonel Roosevelt and he discussed patriotism and the state and welfare of the Nation. That will cover every- thing." I left Mr. Taft to go to the Colonel's suite, arriving just as he came bouncing in. "Jack," he exclaimed, "did you know I've just met old Taft?" "I have just left him," I replied. "How did it happen?" " I was never so surprised in my life," he answered. "I thought I heard some one call 'Theodore' and I looked up just as he reached the table with his hand stuck out. There was so much noise being made by the people in the room I am not quite sure what he 204 TALKS WITH T. R. said. I think it was, 'Theodore, I am glad to see you.' " I grabbed his hand and told him how glad I was to see him. By Godfrey, I never was so surprised in my life. He was farthest from my thoughts. I no more thought of him being in Chicago than in Timbuctoo. But was n't it a gracious thing for him to do? Now, I don't know what to tell you. What did he say?" I repeated what Mr. Taft had given me for publi- cation. "Taft is right," he said. "That covers it. Let it stand at that. But I am mighty glad to tell you that he agrees with me on everything. He feels exactly as I do about those people in Washington and the way they are carrying on." A few minutes later, still beaming, the Colonel came downstairs to take a cab for the train. "Jack," said he, "I don't mind telling you how delighted I am. I never felt happier over anything in my life. It was splendid of Taft." "It is a big night's work," I said, "and notice to the world that the party is really and truly united. It will be so taken in Washington." " I believe you are right." And then, with a laugh, "It is too bad to spoil Mr. Wilson's breakfast! "But the important thing, Jack, is something more than our meeting. Did I tell you that he is in MAKING UP WITH TAFT 205 perfect harmony with me — that we agree perfectly on the way things are going in Washington? That is important. What did you w^re New York?" "Just a brief despatch, emphasizing the warmth of your meeting. I had no time for more. I think it well to let the fact sink in and follow the story with one bringing out the significance of the meeting. I am also wiring John King a personal message." "Good; John should know, by all means. You will know what to tell him." No more was said on the way to the station — the Colonel was busy with his thoughts and — humming his favorite battle air, "Garry Owen." MONEY-GRUBBERS I FIND I can work best with those people in whom the money sense is not too highly developed," said Colonel Roosevelt one afternoon in the course of a chat on the veranda at Sagamore Hill. He had just come in from a tramp about the estate and he was in a speculative mood. "With the Irishman in whom as a whole it is lack- ing rather than with the Jew in whom as a rule the money sense is dominant, I get the best results," said he. ''Of course there are exceptions on both sides! — Blank [naming a well-known New Yorker] is pure Irish and as keen after money as any man I ever knew, while Oscar Straus, a pure Jew, has the money sense as little developed as is possible in any man — and I would treat every man as an individual. "The weakness of the Jew, however, is in his lack of national spirit. I do not like that any more than I like the Ultramontanes among the Catholics, among whom are some of the friends I think most of. Archbishop John Ireland — what a magnificent American he is! Take Mgr. Cassidy — a bully fellow. "Do you know that I often find the impulsive Irishman, who may be depended upon to throw all caution to the winds when he is speaking for himself, MONEY-GRUBBERS 207 more than likely to be the most cautious of men when speaking for or advising another? Why? I pre- sume it is largely due to his delight in tearing an op- ponent to pieces and his habit of always being on the alert for an opening in the armor of another. Advis- ing you, he is apt to put himself in an opponent's place and do what an opponent would do — pick holes in your argument. It is, I presume, one expression of Irish wit, which, after all, is mental alertness." "Why," I asked, "do you think this type of Irish- man fails to exercise this caution in his own affairs? " "Partly because no man can appraise his own words at exactly the value others may place on them, and partly to the Irishman's proverbial disregard of personal danger. He is, I have found, as careful of his friends as he is reckless of himself. It is a mani- festation of his loyalty. "Take dear old Joe Murray as an example. Joe is frankness itself when it comes to speaking for him- self, in voicing his own opinion. But he's never got over the fear that I, in my rashness, may say some- thing that may injure me. More than once I know I have caused him worr>^ He's been as worried in my later campaigns as he was when he started me in politics, by having me nominated for the Assembly. You know that he called my personal canvass off because he thought I was too rash in telling a liquor 2o8 TALKS WITH T. R. dealer he was not paying taxes enough? He's always been fearful of like outbreaks. "Old Joe lacks the money sense. I can understand that. But I am frank to confess I cannot understand the man who, having enough for all his needs and those of his family, pursues more money for the mere sake of piling it up. "Mind you, I am not referring now to the man who, in work that benefits a whole community, ac- quires a great fortune incidental to his service to the community. With that type of man, money is not all-important — it is not the goal — and he is en- titled to what may fairly come to him. Such men are necessary in great industries — are a natural by- product, so to speak, of productive industry. "The man I refer to is the man who pi^-^^ues money for the sake of piling it up — the money-grubber. For the life of me, I cannot understand what he wants more than enough for. Of course I understand that with this type getting money is a game to be played like chess, but what I do not understand is his mental processes. " Money per se has never meant anything to me. I have never had so much that I did not have to work, and usually I have had to consider carefully and plan my outlays. Otherwise I would have become bank rupt. But I have always had all I needed for real MONEY-GRUBBERS 209 comfort for myself and my family in the modest style we would have preferred to live had we the wealth of Croesus. "In more recent years I have had a comfortable surplus, but it has meant very little to me except for what we may have been able to do with it. "Mind you, I do not undervalue money and I am not talking against thrift. What I mean is that the really wise person is he who tries to see money in its real perspective. The young man who is careful and thrifty — • not miserly, but thrifty — • makes the best citizen. Conversely, the man with a lot more money than he needs who spends it in lavish display is not a good citizen, though he may think he is. His exam- ple to others, not so wealthy as he, is bad; his influ- ence upon others is bad. " It all comes down to the question of service. The man with money, in an industry producing wealth and enriching the community-, is doing real service. The man who having money devotes himself to pub- lic service, not necessarily politics, because he is free from the need of earning a living, is a good citi- zen. His money is a blessing to him and a service to the community. "But the money-grubber — I do not understand him, and I am sorry for him. I 'm Pharisee enough to rejoice that I am not as he is." NEW BLOOD IN THE G. O. P. BY the way, do you know Beekman Winthrop, Governor of Rhode Island?" Colonel Roose- velt asked at Sagamore Hill one afternoon. "Not very well," I said. "I think I've met him but once. He seemed a decent sort." " I met him a few days ago," the Colonel went on, "and I was just a bit surprised to find him a pretty regular sort of a fellow. I had thought he was more of a Newport society chap. "I was pleased to find he is surrounding himself with men of all race stocks that show themselves to be really American. Funny, too, but Colt and Lippett [Senators from Rhode Island] rather oppose that sort of thing. They have gotten where they are willing to admit a French Canadian to full fellowship, but they balk at the Irish. He is gradually working these young men in so that eventually they will hold places of power and responsibility in the party. They seem to feel that the party is a sort of club. " It is so silly to oppose the entrance of new blood into the party. To do so is to fail to recognize that there are new racial elements in the community that are coming to the point where they must be consid- ered politically, for they are political factors. NEW BLOOD IN THE G. O. P. 211 "The wise thing to do is to welcome all that are good in these new elements into the party, make them feel at home, and give them a share of the w^ork that is to be done, and let them, in time, work into the places that belong to them. Othervvase your party is apt to become too exclusive to be of value when it comes to a real test. "Beekman Winthrop has an adjutant on his staff who is a Jew. He's a bright young fellow who's come along on his merit. At dinner the other night two of the most prominent party men there hardly spoke to him. I remarked to Winthrop that it w^as as cad- dish a thing as I had ever seen. He said, ' You ought to be around and see how many petty things of that kind I have to put up with.' "From now on, I am for Beekman Winthrop. Any one who thinks he 's little more than a Newport societ^^ chap is going to be disappointed. " I am strong for the type of Irishman represented by Jimmy Gallivan [Representative James A. Gal- livan of Massachusetts] and Griffin of Rhode Island. I can work with them, for they are Americans. They belong." "Jimmy Gallivan," said I, "is a Roosevelt Demo- crat. He stands for everything you do." " I know it. Do you know he described the recent contest in his district as Roosevelt and Gallivan 212 TALKS WITH T. R. against Burleson and Curley? The day after the pri- mary he wired me that the Roosevelt-Galhvan ticket had won. " I can work with men hke him. GalHvan is better than his part>^ His natural inclinations, his training, and his experience make him better. Had things been managed differently in Massachusetts I have no doubt Gallivan and many others like him would as young men have gone into the Republican Party. As it was, they probably were not welcomed be- cause of a short-sighted policy of exclusiveness. Now that is changing as it should change. It should not be possible to tell a man's politics by his name." Mr. Gallivan, by the way, was the means uncon- sciously used on one occasion by Colonel Roosevelt to show of what little consequence he considered most members of Congress. It was incidental to the fight in the House to put the Harding amendment to the Army Bill, under which the Colonel might have been given a commission. In this fight the Associated Press quoted "Gallivan (Dem. Mass.)" as making a strong plea for the amendment and an attack upon Secretary Baker. "Who is Gallivan?" the Colonel asked. "Gallivan, of Boston — the old Ninth, the South Boston-Dorchester District," I answered. " Youknow him." NEW BLOOD IN THE G. O. P. 213 "No, I'm sure I do not," said the Colonel. "Of course you do," I ventured to contradict. "You certainly know Gallivan, the old Harvard second baseman?" "Know him.?" asked the Colonel. "Why, of course, I know him! But do you know I didn't realize that Jimmy Gallivan, the great second base- man, had become a mere Congressman!" SPEED ON THE TRIGGER OF the many traditions that grew up about Theodore Roosevelt was that of his being in- stant on the trigger. Indeed, enemies have not hesi- tated to accuse him of going off at half-cock. Nothing could be farther from the facts. Of all the men I have known, in and out of public life, I have known none of any consequence whatever who was more careful of his premises before moving than he. Com- pared to him the man who first laid down the prin- ciple, "Be sure you are right, then go ahead," was a speed maniac. The tradition was and is mainly due to the Colo- nel's ability, almost uncanny, to see months in ad- vance of most mortals, to his fondness for work, and his habit of practising the preparedness he preached. In public matters it was not unusual for him to have a speech on some phase of the situation likely to be uppermost ready weeks or months in advance. When the time seemed ripe — pop! and the Colonel had his say in speech, public statement, or letter answering some correspondent. As I write I have before me two typewritten man- uscripts. One, labelled "tentative draft for letter protesting against the establishment of a civilian SPEED ON THE TRIGGER 215 engineer corps in the navy," is incompletely dated, and the salutation is left blank by the typist. In the Colonel's distinctive hand appears the name "Mr. Reuterdahl," and a few words from his pen and his signature are at the end. This was a document pre- sented by one interested in the matter. To help the cause along, the Colonel made the draft his own, and sent the completed letter to his naval artist friend. Another typewritten manuscript left the typist as a statement on a "Naval Training Cruise." As it left the Colonel it was a draft for a complete letter, his hand supplying date line, an address, and a few words in closing before his signature. This went to a Mr. Slocum, after a secretary had typed it, while copies of the letters and a memorandum on the cruise, written by the Colonel, went to the press. At the moment the navy's needs were important and, as usual, he was ready. Yet another instance. While the Colonel was put- ting in his hardest licks for preparedness he one day read the "cabinet" a speech he intended to deliver when opportunity offered. A fortnight passed, then in came a letter from St. Louis. "Here," said the Colonel, "is where I make use of that speech I read you the other day. I will send it to this man in answer to his letter." 2i6 TALKS WITH T. R. Next day, not more than forty-eight hours after he had written Colonel Roosevelt, the man in St. Louis read in his morning paper perhaps a column of a letter answering him. The following day the letter itself, three to four columns long, reached him. It would be difficult to convince that man that Colonel Roosevelt on receipt of his letter did not drop all other business and proceed to answer him. His friends, knowing some of the facts, would think as he did. Sure the Colonel was quick on the trigger ! But only in the sense that the forehanded gunner, waiting with gun in hand for the ducks to rise, is quick. ROOT, MOST VALUED OF COUNSELLORS IN the traditions that have grown up about Colonel Roosevelt, none has been more persist- ently circulated by political foes than that which described him as being headstrong and impatient of advice or criticism. This was the direct opposite of the truth. He wel- comed criticism even when he did not agree with it, and to make this clear to me when I one day apolo- gized for having ventured to criticize something he had prepared for publication, he told why he held Elihu Root to have been the most valuable member of his Cabinet. "That is exactly what I want," said he. "It's exactly what I want. That is why you are more val- uable to me than I am to you, why I talk so freely to you. I want your opinions and I want you to fight me when you think I am wrong. I 'm not omniscient, and no one knows it better than L " It is because Root would not hesitate to express an opinion that he was immensely more valuable to me in the Cabinet than John Hay was. Hay was a splendid character, likable and lovable, but he would never criticize. He would n't fight for an opinion. 21 8 TALKS WITH T. R. Root would, and he'd give persistent battle for his viewpoint. He was a most dogged fighter. "Sometimes I would accept his views, sometimes I would allow his opinion to modify my own; more often, perhaps, I would ignore him altogether and follow my own ideas. But his frankness, his out- spokenness, were of great help in making me see all sides of a question. "It was his practice to analyze everything from the standpoint of the other fellow. If there was a hole in an argument, he'd point it out. If there was a place where the other fellow could kick a hole, he 'd proceed to plug that point if he could. Lord, I wish you could have seen the condition in which State papers came back to me after Root had gone over them! Sometimes I would not recognize my own child, and sometimes I was very thankful I could not. On top of all that Root was honest and absolutely loyal. It was his idea of loyalty to fight if necessary to make his friends see where they were about to err. "John Hay had no such value. He would approve en bloc anything I put before him. "Now, there was, of course, a reason for this. It lay in the different lives they led. Hay, as you know, had led a quiet and rather sheltered life — he had never been in real contact with life, he 'd never had to fight for anything. ROOT, MOST VALUED COUNSELLOR 219 "Root's life, you might say, was one long fight. He had to fight for everything he ever got. All his life he 'd been doing business with big, domineering, strong-bitted men like the elder Morgan, men in the habit of having their own way in all things. With them, Root simply had to stand up and fight to get them to do things the way he saw they ought to be done. "I have n't the slightest doubt that on many an occasion he had to become rather strenuous to make his points stick, but I '11 wager he made them stick and that his employers were glad afterward that he had made them stick. It was his idea of loyalty to give his associates the full benefit of everything he had in view, even if he had to fight to make them take it. "These habits he brought into the Cabinet and these made him, as I 've said, its most valuable member. " I have been fortunate in having had a few such advisers as Root. Leonard Wood is one of them. Wood never took advantage of our friendship to ask for anything he was interested in personally, but in matters that concerned me and my personal fortunes, he has been the frankest of candid critics. Jack Greenaway is another. He was one of the most valu- able men in my regiment. In his own way, old Joe Murray has been invaluable. Joe has always felt a 220 TALKS WITH T. R. paternal interest in me from the fact that he started me in pohtics. He would be the last to presume, but if Joe thought he saw breakers ahead or had some bit of information he thought I should have, he was never bashful about presenting it. " Murray has one trait developed to a remarkable degree — his ability to sense public feeling on any subject. Repeatedly his reports on the drift of things have been right when men, supposed to be experts and who had every facility for getting the facts, were wrong. Joe has only common sense and a faculty of detaching himself from his wishes. More than once he 's shown me where I was mistaken or had made a miscalculation. " I have always been glad to have such men about. I have, however, no use for the man who criticizes everything, who cuts in just because he thinks he has got to or because he wishes to air his superior wisdom. These are as bad, almost, as those cautious souls who are always afraid of saying something that may cost votes. I 've known some who, had they lived in the days of Moses and had access to him, in all probability would have declared against the pub- lication of the Decalogue on the ground that some persons would be offended and votes lost. "The honest and intelligent critic I welcome, al- ways welcomed, and always will welcome. ROOT, MOST VALUED COUNSELLOR 221 "The man who cannot stand to have his plans and ideas criticized is a fool. The wise man will welcome criticism, so long as it is honest and intelligent. I know, and you do, men who want no one about that does not agree with them, men who are afraid of being told unpleasant truths. Such men are fools. In a long journey, as Emerson says, ' The truth, how- ever unpleasant, is the safest travelling companion.' " WITH THE ALLIES' ENVOYS JACK MITCHEL told me it was by directions from Washington that I was not asked to speak at the official welcome at the Waldorf. Apparently it is the idea to keep the visitors free from any pos- sible Roosevelt contagion. It won't succeed." Colonel Roosevelt was speaking of the dinner given by the City of New York to General Joffre and M. Viviani representing France, and Arthur J. Balfour, representing England, shortly after their arrival in this country following our entrance into the war. "That is why I went to the dinner given General Joffre by Mr. Prick," he went on. "You know my antipathy to dinners. I had no desire to meet such a group as I knew Mr. Frick would have there, and, when first invited, I declined. Then Mitchel came to see me. He explained that it was by orders of the State Department, which is really in charge of these visitors, that none but Joe Choate and himself were to be allowed to speak at City Hall or at the banquet. Nominally it is a city affair. Actually it is being di- rected by Mr. Lansing with Frank Polk in immedi- ate charge. "When he told me that and renewed his invita- WITH THE ALLIES' ENVOYS 223 tion to Mr. Frick's dinner, I accepted. I am glad I did. I was seated next to the General, and when he found we could talk to one another — well, he did not talk much to any of the others. He did not tell me anything I did not know, or suspect. France does want our men. She wants them badly, more than she wants supplies. "Joffre has told Washington that. They must have men. Joffre, I find, understands the position we are in. He has no delusions." Next on the list of envoys to hold private confer- ence with the Colonel was Mr. Balfour. This was arranged by General Bridges, of the British Army, who called on the Colonel to ask when it would be convenient for him to receive Mr. Balfour. " I told him," said the Colonel describing the call, "that I would be very glad to see Mr. Balfour at any time, and as Sunday seemed to be his only open time, I suggested that he take tea with us Sunday afternoon. I explained to him, however, that on the hill here we never dine on Sunday. Instead we have what might be called a high tea, a most informal sort of a meal, and he 'd have to take 'pot luck.' "General Bridges replied that it would be to Mr. Balfour's exact liking, and it was agreed that they should come out Sunday." Mr. Balfour was Colonel Roosevelt's guest until 224 TALKS WITH T. R. late into the night. When he had gone, Colonel Roosevelt, evidently much pleased with the visit, said they had canvassed the entire situation. ''The British," said the Colonel, "doubt that Washington even now appreciates the needs of the hour. They still seem, from what these men say, to be of the opinion that we can successfully fight this war with dollars and vegetables — that Uncle Sam's part in it is to be that of a settler." Next the Italian mission, headed by the Prince d'Udine, went to Oyster Bay which was not in the official programme, the Italian Embassy having vetoed a proposal that it be included, on the nom- inal ground that royalty cannot visit a commoner, a decision overruled by the Prince. "The Prince expressed regret that he would not be able to visit the trophy room of which he said he had heard much," said the Colonel. "'I should be very glad to have you call,' I told him, 'but I was told you would find it impossible to do so.' The Prince's answer was something like 'Nonsense,' so he came out." Telling this story at the Harvard Club, Colonel Roosevelt took occasion to read a lesson in manners to a well-known reporter, who resented the idea that an ex-President of the United States was not the equal of any prince. WITH THE ALLIES' ENVOYS 225 "You might have told him," said this man, "that you are as good as he is." "That is exactly what I should not have done," snapped the Colonel. "Whenever you find a man go- ing around declaring he is as good as somebody else, rest assured he does not believe he is and his decla- ration of equality or superiority is, in effect, an ad- mission of inferiority. The man who is as good as the other fellow does not have to advertise the fact." From Mayor Mitchel's explanation as to why he was not asked to speak at the public functions in honor of the Allies' envoys, and from his contact with some of them, Colonel Roosevelt gained the impression that more than ever he was "getting under their skins." "My efforts to make them do something seem to be getting under their skins in Washington," said he. "I am ver3^ glad of that if it only results in making them move in the right direction." Following his long talk with General Joffre, the Colonel was much amused by a report that the great Frenchman had increased his vocabulary by the addition of a single English word. "He pronounces it * bull-lee,'" I told him. "The General, as usual, shows admirable judg- ment," he laughed. "It's a perfectly good word. I ought to know. I've used it years enough." POLICE AND CITIZENSHIP IF you'll promise to mail this promptly," said Colonel Roosevelt one day in 1918, " I '11 let you in on a State secret — our friend Arthur Woods is going to France on a special assignment. This con- tains some letters I am giving him to Clemenceau and others he may wish to meet. He is an excellent fellow, and I'd like to help him." "He made a good Police Commissioner, Colonel," I observed. "The best New York ever had," came the prompt answer. " I used to think that honor belonged to me, but it no longer does — Woods has been a better man than I was. If that letter were not sealed, you 'd find I say so in the enclosures. You like Woods?" "Yes, he's a friend of mine — he tried to help me get into the army." "Did n't you Hke his police work?" "Yes, sir, though until you had spoken I would not have ranked him quite so high. I always felt that niche was permanently filled by you." "I did myself; but to be entirely honest Woods has done everything I did as well as I ever did it, and he's done other things much better. In some POLICE AND CITIZENSHIP 227 respects his work was easier, but this, I think, was more than offset by the changed conditions, the growth of the city, and a large increase in the po- tentially criminal classes. Crime has become more refined — by that I do not mean criminals have be- come cultured — but that, as in other trades, crim- inals have made progress. They have had newer and better tools to work with — the automobile is an example — new implements, and there have been more types of crime and criminals. "The wealth of the city has increased enormously, especially its easily portable wealth; it has spread out more, and more than ever the city has become to America what Paris is to the world — a playground for men and women, particularly men, with more or less money and more or less sense. This has served to bring in a larger number of criminal types of both sexes — you know what I mean — and it has made police work more difficult. "Under Woods's control of the police New York is cleaner than it ever was — infinitely cleaner than I was ever able to make it. New York, with all that has been said about it, has never been as unclean as other great cities of the world. I am not as familiar with vice abroad as I have been with what we have had in New York, but I know we have had less than London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, or other big cities. 228 TALKS WITH T. R. We have been cleaner, too, than Chicago, San Francisco, or other large American cities. "There has, it is true, been a sort of house- cleaning in many of our big cities, and, I believe, a general improvement taking in the cities of the country as a whole, but that does not detract from the credit due Woods. When I was Commissioner a reform wave in other cities usually sent the undesir- ables who were in funds here. Presumably that sort of thing is still the rule. "These changed conditions make it difficult to compare Woods's work with mine, but, on the whole, he did much better than I did, and as the friend of both, you might as well be prepared to concede it." "I won't attempt to argue with you, but did n't he have your work to build on?" I asked. "I'm glad you made that point — mighty glad. To an extent, yes, but so did others — General Bingham, and Waldo, for example. But only to a limited extent. Had he followed immediately after me, that would be wholly true, but he did not and in between much of my work was undone. Could he have come in immediately I left, he would have done even better. You see what I mean? "Woods is the sort of man I have always said should be in that office — he's a non-partisan; no politician had any strings on him. To get the best POLICE AND CITIZENSHIP 229 results the head of the New York Police Department should be as nearly permanent as any public officer ever is, and he should be of the same non-partisan type that Woods has been while in office. The theory that a temporary Commissioner can get the best results from a permanent police force is unsound. It is this condition that was the life of what has been called 'the system.' We've all heard that 'the sys- tem' is dead. I don't believe it. I don't believe Woods believes that. It has not been active, not been visible to the naked eye under Woods, but I think you'll find it has only been asleep. "Woods was a splendid executive. In all his work that I am familiar with he made one error that I consider serious. That was with Enright — now in his place. I told him, and I maintain now, that it was a serious error of judgment on his part, as it was on the part of others, not to give Enright the cap- taincy his place on the civil service list entitled him to. As I told Woods, the just thing to do was to give him his promotion and see what he did with it. If he did not do right, he could then break him. I did not think his activity in department politics, so long as there was nothing else provable against him, should be allowed to keep from him the place that it was admitted he was competent to fill. "That was bad judgment, I think, because it 230 TALKS WITH T. R. tended to make a martyr of him. Woods would have done better to have tried other tactics. However, that was a thing he had to decide for himself. " In all other matters he has done splendidly. You know that, despite my t>^ranny as Commissioner, I still have many good friends in the department. The police, except the crooks I made life miserable for, have always been friendly to me. What I mean is that I have always retained the intimate friendship of men who were under me in the department. These men know what is going on and they have all told me Woods was all right. They had no complaints to make, heard of none. They all rejoiced in the absence of 'pull.' That has been the curse of the department. "Under Woods the men have felt free, they all tell me, to do their work as it should be done. They have not had to consider the politicians. This has made their work easier and it has been better for the city. I am not certain but that the politicians like it. It makes less work for them, you know, less asking favors, less * going to the front ' for some scapegrace in trouble. There have been Tammany leaders who have dropped men from their clubs as soon as they joined the police. This was not done to discourage men from joining the force; these leaders would help men prepare for their civil service examination and POLICE AND CITIZENSHIP 231 that sort of thing, but they quit there. They found poHcemen retainers to be something of a nuisance and at times worse. "The poHce of New York, man for man, have always been a splendid lot. They have been just as honest as the administration and the head of the department wished them to be. There was more truth than poetry in what a captain or inspector — I think it was Herlihy — is said to have told Bing- ham: 'Put all your cards on the table. I'm a cop and I '11 do what I 'm told to do; only let me know whether you mean what you say when you say it.' It was something like that. That is the real spirit of the police — they'll be just as honest as the head of the department wishes them to be. If he's honest and not influenced by dishonest politicians, they will run straight. If dishonesty is favored or expected, the weaker ones most exposed to temptation will be dishonest. "Woods, of course, was honest and he was not tempted or controlled by politicians and others. Temperamentally he was admirably fitted for the place. Mitchel left him a free hand. Hence his suc- cess. "Woods, by the way, was one of the very few of Mitchel's appointments that did not weaken him with the voter. He blundered with Woods in not 232 TALKS WITH T. R. making more of his administration in his campaign for reelection. It could have been made a very- strong point. Woods will do well in the army, but, personally, I would have preferred to have him stay at the head of the police. He would have been of vastly greater value to the country there than in the army. The law, however, made that impossible. "When he comes out of the army I expect he will go into some sort of business. His great executive ability will be in demand. I do not suppose he will ever return to the police department. He would hardly care to, though he never should have been allowed to leave it. "Some day you may be called upon for your opin- ion of police commissioners. If you are, put Arthur Woods first; if you wish, and feel that way, put me second. "And if any one asks your authority, say I told you so." COLONEL ROOSEVELT ON BOYS BETTER a boy you have to rescue from a police station because he whipped a cab driver or a 'cop' than a 'Miss Nancy'" — that was Colonel Roosevelt's idea of the kind of boy one should have. This preference Colonel Roosevelt expressed to me one Sunday afternoon at Oyster Bay, following a question from him as to how my own boy was get- ting along. "All right," I replied, "only a little too much foot- ball and swimming and not enough school-work — almost too much boy." "That's all right," he replied. "Don't let that worry you. Do you know you are fortunate in having a real boy? Some of the most splendid fellows I know have boys that if they were mine I 'd want to choke them — pretty boys who know all of the latest tango steps and the small talk, and the latest things in socks and ties — tame cats, mollycoddles, and their fathers real men, and their mothers most excellent women ! Throw-backs, I suppose. I 'd feel disgraced beyond redemption had I such boys. "Mine, thank God, have been good boys, a bit mischievous at times, all of them, but every boy is. Honestly, if I had to take my choice, I 'd rather have 234 TALKS WITH T. R. a boy that I 'd have to go to the poHce station and bail out for beating a cab driver or a policeman, than one of the mollycoddle type. He might worry me, but he would n't disgrace me." On another occasion when he asked about my boy, I said he was in a bit of trouble. "He has had his first real bump," I said. "He flunked on his examinations, and probably will fail to get promotion. Consequently he feels badly." "Now, see here," advised the Colonel, "just don't be severe with him. Tell him I said, as an indulgent grandparent, that it really is not such a serious thing. You just tell him that for me and just make him feel more than ever that his father is his best friend and understands all about such things." "I have wired him as much," I said. "That's fine," said he. "You are on the right track. Sometimes we fathers do not realize how im- portant such things may be and we do not always do the right thing. We can become excited about some- thing and chastise or severely lecture a boy and make him afraid of us or we can sit down with him, man fashion, and reason the thing out. Sometimes, I grant you, chastisement is exactly what a boy needs most. Then he should have it. But when a boy 's in trouble as your lad is over something that really involves at most only carelessness, it often is a mistake to do COLONEL ROOSEVELT ON BOYS 235 anything more than point out to him what a foohsh fellow he's been and try to plan out some way in which he, not you, can undo the mischief. "In other words, every boy thinks his father is a pretty big man. One of mine told a teacher once his father was ' it.' That confidence is something no man can afford to lose, and if he can make his boy see that the thing to do is to go to his father with his troubles, he has a pretty good guarantee that the boy won't get into any very serious messes. On the other hand, if the boy knows that he is going to get a dressing-down every time his parent hears of some venial sin of omission or commission, boylike, he's going to try and conceal as much as he can. He will, however, get advice abroad if he does not get it at home, and he's mighty lucky if the kind he gets abroad is the kind he should have. "That's why many a boy goes wrong who other- wise would in all probability have gone straight as H. "Yes, sir, it's a mighty bad thing for a boy when he becomes afraid to go to his father with his troubles, and it's mighty bad for a father when he becomes so busy with other affairs, that he has no time for the affairs of his children. "I had a friend lament to me once over the fact that his boy was wild and was constantly getting into scrapes. He was absolutely out of control, the 236 TALKS WITH T. R. father said, and he could do nothing with him. I knew the boy and liked him. He was a clean-cut, up- standing chap — the kind that looks you straight in the eye when he talks to you and shakes hands as though he meant it. I did not believe there was any- thing very wrong about the boy, and said so. Finally, the father asked me if I would n't talk to the boy. I said I would. '" I '11 send him to you to-morrow,' he said. '"No, you won't,' said I. 'You say the boy won't listen to you. Let me handle him in my own way.' "Well, I saw the boy, and asked him what all the reports I was hearing meant. There was n't anything serious, anything involving meanness or unmanli- ness — the trouble was mainly misdirected energy. We talked things over — the boy doing most of the talking — and, well, finally I advised him to make up with his father. I forgot to say he had left home and gone to live with a maternal relative. '"Not much. Colonel,' said he. 'If I go to the Governor, he'll explode. He explodes every time the least thing not on the schedule happens. It's been that way ever since I was a kid. He's never given me a chance to tell my story — no matter what hap- pens, I'm always wrong, I'm always to blame. It's always been that way.' " I told him that might be so, that it probably was COLONEL ROOSEVELT ON BOYS 237 so, but that he should see his father anyway, and try and reach an understanding. * You may not agree with me,' I told him, 'but your father's your best friend. You're more to him than all the rest of the world.' "'You may be right. Colonel,' said the boy, 'but I wish he'd take some other way of showing it.' "Then I sent for the father. I told him what the boy had said. I told him some things on my own account. He did not like them and came back at me — exploded just as the boy said he did with him. We were old friends and I did not mind that; in fact, as I look back, I rather enjoyed it. At any rate, I let him blow off steam. I knew he 'd feel ashamed of himself when he paused for breath. Then I said some things to him. '"If you talk to your boy the way you've been talking here,' said I, ' I don't wonder he's left home. I marvel that he did n't do it before he came of age, that he did n't run away or get into some scrape he'd never get over. He 's got more in him than I thought he had. Now you go and get acquainted with him. Don't think you've got to eat a lot of crow — the boy would n't like that. Meet him halfway, and let him see you are his friend. Go away for a week's fishing with him — it will do you both good. Why, man, all this trouble you've brought on yourself — 238 TALKS WITH T. R. you don't appreciate even now that your boy is a man — you 've been too busy making money to have paid much attention to him.* "It was strong medicine and the old fellow did not like it, though he swallowed it. He never referred to the matter again, but the boy did. "'Colonel,' said he, one day after his father had sort of taken him into partnership, 'you must have talked turkey to the Governor — he has n't been the same man since.' "'Young man,' said I, 'all I told him was to get acquainted with you, just as I told you to get ac- quainted with him. You folks simply did not know one another.' "That," he concluded, "is the advice I'd give evei-y father of a boy — get acquainted with him." HIS BOYS' CRITICS THE important thing," Colonel Roosevelt used to say to those who sought advice on going into the war, " is to get into the game. Get in as you would like to get in if you can, but get in!" One of the Roosevelt boys — Kermit — "got in" via a commission in the British army from which he later transferred to Pershing's forces. Kermit's enter- ing the service of another power aroused some criti- cism from Sinn Fein and pro-German sources. These declared it to be unpatriotic for an ex- President's son to serve under the flag of another country, criticism which aroused the Colonel's ire. "I do not care a hang how or where my boys or any other man's boys fight, so long as they do fight," he declared. "The important thing is that they are fighting and that they are fighting Germany. "Three of my boys are in the American army and in American uniforms. This one is going to fight in a British uniform. It does not make any difference to me what uniform they fight in. The main point is they are fighting, and I don't care a continental whether they fight in Yankee uniforms or British uniforms or in their nightshirts, so long as they are fighting. That's the main point — they are fighting." 240 TALKS WITH T. R. Just the same the departure of the boys had its effect oji the Colonel. He was more thoughtful and at times gave little hints that he dared not hope to see them all again. Better than most men, he realized that war means death, and that modern war justifies Sherman's famous saying. "Those infernal jacks!" he declared one day, "criticizing me for allowing my boy to go into the British army and talking as though I permitted my boys to go to war for the personal glory that might come to me! The infernal jacks do not know what modern war is like! They do not know what shell- fire is like! " It is n't pleasant for me or any other father, who knows the fearful things a high-explosive shell will do, to think of his boys being exposed to them — to think that at the moment they may be lying disem- bowelled in No Man's Land, but that is war. I hope and pray that they '11 all come back, but before God, I 'd rather none came back than one, able to go, had stayed at home. I pray God will send them back to me safe and sound, but in my heart I know it is almost too much for me to hope for. I know my boys. I know they will do their part. That means danger. "I miss them, their mother misses them, their wives miss them. But let me tell you their wives are HIS BOYS' CRITICS 241 bricks — every one of them. They are splendid — just as splendid as their mother. I tell you I have been blessed not only in my boys, but in the young women my boys chose for wives. And that goes for my one son-in-law that is able to fight. Dick Derby is a splendid fellow and I am as fond of him and as proud of him as I am of my blood sons." Again, an Oklahoma editor aroused his ire by charging editorially that "Roosevelt's boys were enjoying soft snaps in safe berths." A rival editor wired the attack to the Colonel with a request for an answer. "The infernal cur!" he snapped when he read the wire; " the infernal cur who dares say that my boys, every one of them in combat service, have shirked their duty with the aid of my supposed influence. The infernal cur — how dare he say that of an American father! That man's a ghoul! I won't dig- nify him by replying to his contemptible attack, but I 'd like to have him here for just three minutes! He 'd wish he was in a front-line trench or some other comfortable place. The infernal cur! " The Colonel was "mad" from "toes to topknot," but in a moment he relaxed a bit. "I'm foolish, I suppose," said he, "to allow a creature like that to annoy me, but — well, God had a reason for ever>' thing he created, and I suppose he 242 TALKS WITH T. R. created fellows like this that we might the better appreciate the decency in the great, big, preponder- ating majority." It was on his boys — and girls — that his mind was in the dark days of February, 191 8, when he was near to death in Roosevelt Hospital. "You had us worried," I told him on my first visit to the convalescent room. "Well," said he, " I was not worried about myself. I was not thinking of myself. I was thinking of my four boys. I tell you I am mighty proud of my boys and" — after a momentary pause — "just as proud of my two fine girls." This pride in the boys became more and more manifest as reports began to come back from the front of their valor. Always affable to strangers, he fairly beamed — that is the best way to describe it — at the visitor who asked, "How's the boys?" Sometimes the question would come from some one in a crowd, as in St. Louis, where, answering it, he made ten thousand laugh. "I met Peter Dunne the other day," he said. "You all know Peter Dunne — Mr. Dooley, you know. Well, Dunne said: 'Colonel, you want to watch out. The first thing you know they '11 be putting the name of Roosevelt on the map.'" He enjoyed the story and the laughs it raised, but HIS BOYS' CRITICS 243 he was never without the thought that the boys were in danger. "Gray was right," he said, when Ted, Jr., was in a hospital. "You remember his Une, 'the paths of glor>^ lead but to the grave'? He is not dangerously hurt, but I cannot expect all will escape, I can only hope." The end of the hope that all would return came to the Colonel one July night at Sagamore Hill. Phil Thompson, the resident correspondent at Oyster Bay, had called to ask about various matters, among them a cable message to the New York Sun from Raymond G. Carroll, one of its men at the front. This, Thompson mentioned last. "I have here," he told him, "a cable message to the Sun. The censor has cut it some, so that it is blind. It reads, 'Watch Oyster Bay for.' Have you any idea what it means?" "Something has happened to one of the boys," he answered. "It cannot be Ted and it cannot be Archie, for both are recovering from wounds. It is not Kermit, for he's not in the danger zone at the moment. So it must be Quentin. However, we must say nothing of this to his mother to-night." Confirmation of his fears came early the next morning. The Colonel took the blow exactly as one would expect him to. 244 TALKS WITH T. R. "I must tell his mother," he said. A few minutes later he gave to Thompson the won- derful comment, expressing the joy of Quentin's parents that he had had his chance to do his bit before he was called to go. The next day the Colonel kept an engagement to speak at the Republican Convention in Saratoga. "It is my duty to go there," he said. To the stranger Colonel Roosevelt gave no sign of his bitter affliction. Those who knew him best saw, however, that the blow had slowed him down. Not that he paraded his grief — even to them. That grief was a secret, sacred thing — to be exhibited to none. Not long after. Captain Archie, crippled in arm and leg, came home. His coming gave the Colonel relief, for the young man was in much better shape than had been anticipated, and the doctors were strong in assurances that his recovery would be nearly if not quite complete. When he was well enough to leave the hospital, he and the Colonel "chummed" about town and Oyster Bay. "Colonel," I said in the Harvard Club one day, "Archie is making splendid progress. I just saw him running down the street. He runs as well as any boy. I congratulate you." "Thank you, Jack," he replied. "The surgeons are working wonders. In the early days of the war COLONEL ROOSEVELT AND DR. MASON EXAMINING SHRAPNEL WHICH WOUNDED ARCHIE ROOSEVELT HIS BOYS' CRITICS 245 he'd have lost arm and leg if not his life. As it is, he's coming around splendidly. "And Ted — I 've just had a letter from a regular army officer who says Ted's as good an officer as there is in the regular establishment. He 's been made a lieutenant-colonel, you know. Is n't that fine? And Kermit's doing well too." But the dead boy — the eagle whose fall had hurt him to the heart — he did not mention. OUR SOLDIER DEAD IN FRANCE EARLY in 191 8 Colonel Roosevelt anticipated propaganda after the war might cease for the return of the bodies of American soldiers who died in France. The idea did not appeal to him, any more than did the policy of the quartermaster's depart- ment of the army in using valuable cargo space to send cofBns abroad to the exclusion of other articles. "They are," said he, "sending coffins over, though they are short of shoes. They have sent twenty thou- sand over. It is all very well to show respect for the dead, but it would be far better to care for the boys while they are alive. This cargo space should have been used for shoes and other suppHes. I know they are short of shoes for I have helped provide fifteen hundred pair myself, for men who have had no shoes issued to them since August. "This shipping of coffins is part of a general scheme to send all our dead home, paving a way for a demand after the war that this be done. It will not be practical, but there probably will be an attempt to play on the heart-strings of relatives. This is prob- ably not in the minds of whoever is responsible for sending these boxes over now — somebody is prob- OUR SOLDIER DEAD IN FRANCE 247 ably following some musty rule in the department — but that will be the effect. "If any of mine are killed over there, I shall op- pose disturbing their graves when peace comes. They should rest, and if I have anything to say about it, they will rest, where they may fall." Months after, Quentin, the Eagle, fell. Not long after his death — about three months — I was asked to give my associates a letter the Colonel had addressed to Major-General Crowder requesting in the name of Mrs. Roosevelt and himself that the body not be sent home. It was in this letter, prompted by a Washington despatch to the effect that all bodies were to be returned, that he quoted the line: "Where the tree falls, there let it lie." The correspondence attracted a great deal of attention. Most of it that came to my notice was favorable to the position he had taken, and I told him so. "It is the course I believe sensible people gener- ally will approve of," he said. "To me it is painful to think that long after death the poor broken body would be taken from what should be its resting-place, and moved thousands of miles. To me it does not seem fitting. Nor does it seem desirable to reopen old wounds of the living. These will never fully heal, they will always hurt, but they should not be torn open. 248 TALKS WITH T. R. "I know that many good people who have lost sons and brothers and husbands will not agree with Mrs. Roosevelt and me. I understand their position and respect their feelings. But I am very much afraid others will not, and will try to play upon those feel- ings for profit in one form or another. "It was to help these good people and others who may be wavering that I asked you to make public my wishes in so far as our boy's body is concerned. I had thought my example might have some influ- ence in the matter, just as I feel that had Mrs. Roose- velt and I taken an opposite position, others would have very properly demanded like action in their own cases. "Personally, I am more concerned in the living than in the dead. We cannot forget our dead, but we must live for the living. We should insist on proper respect for our dead — France will see to that — and if we have any energy to expend, use it caring for the soldier who comes back maimed or for the dependents of those who do not come back at all. "Where the bodies are returned, if they are re- turned, there will be a lot of attention paid to the first returned. There will be public funerals. There will be calls on the purses of relatives, too poor to spare the money, for more elaborate stones than the Government will provide. Then for a time, while OUR SOLDIER DEAD IN FRANCE 249 parents or wife lives, their graves will be well taken care of. After that — comparative neglect. You and I have seen that in the graves of soldiers of other wars — a little attention one day in the year, and no more. It is bound to work out that way as fam- ilies die out and move away. How different in the national cemeteries or in the soldiers' lots in our larger city cemeteries! "Crowder's letter shows what I expected, that in planning as it has the department is following rules laid down at the time of our war with Spain. In that war, and in the Philippine insurrection that followed, we lost fewer men than we have lost in a single day in this war. "I recall one after tragedy of the Philippines I was told about in a Western town. It was a small place, and one of the town boys was killed some- where in Luzon. His body was brought home and the townspeople spent several hundred dollars to erect a monument over his grave. When I was in the town I met his mother, whose support he had been. She was earning her living sewing. How much better it would have been if that boy's body were left where he fell, and the money spent on his monument spent on his mother! "It will be far better to leave our dead in great cemeteries over there, places like beautiful Arlington 2 50 TALKS WITH T. R. or our other national cemeteries at home. There the graves will be well cared for, our dead will sleep, as I believe they would prefer, among their comrades, and these shrines will be, if I might use the expres- sion, not a link, but rivets in the chain that binds us to our allies, and our allies to us. "Rupert Brooke, you will remember, wrote that wherever his body might rest would forever be a bit of England. Just so, wherever our boys sleep will be forever American soil. They willed it so." MAKING PEACE WITH GOMPERS ALL the world knows that soon after the East . St. Louis race riots, Colonel Roosevelt and Samuel Gompers all but came to blows on the stage of Carnegie Hall, New York. Few, however, knew that at the time of Roosevelt's death he and Gom- pers were friends. They shook hands, so to speak, on the ques- tion of Americanism, Colonel Roosevelt making the advances. The peacemaking came about in this way. Gom- pers, at the American Federation of Labor Conven- tion of 191 7 in Buffalo, faced the fight of his life with pro-Germans and pacifists within the labor move- ment who hoped to put the Federation on record as opposing the War and the national programme for prosecuting it to a successful finish. Days before the convention met, "S.O.S." calls were flashing to all who might help hold the fort. Among those who responded, it will be recalled, was President Wilson, but even after his visit, the situation was tense up to the moment the convention adjourned. More than that, adjournment left all hands with a realizing sense that, however emphatic the defeat of the anti-war group had been, it was still an ele- 252 TALKS WITH T. R. ment of great potential danger, and that the situa- tion was anything but pleasant from the standpoint of one hundred per cent Americanism. This I sought to make clear in a long report I submitted to Colonel Roosevelt at his request, accompanying it with an oral explanation. "Gompers," I told the Colonel, "has his back to the wall. He may need help, and need it badly, at any time." "But," said he, "he has been playing Wilson's game." " I know that," I replied, "but just now he's play- ing our game, the one hundred per cent American game. And he may need help." "What can I do to help?" he asked. "Not a thing now," I replied, "but the time may come later when you can help." "Very well. Does Gompers know you were to take this matter up with me? Have you discussed this matter with him?" I replied that I had not. "There was nothing I could say," I replied, "and no occasion for me to say anything, anyway." "All right," said the Colonel. "As you say, Gompers is playing a straight American game. In that he should have every help. I do not take back any word I have ever said about him, and I don't MAKING PEACE WITH GOMPERS 253 care whether he takes back anything he has said about me or not. We can agree and do agree on Americanism. " Now, you go to him and say to him for me that if there is anything I can say or do to help him in this fight, to let me know, and I will do it. Make it clear to him that you have told me the kind of fight that is being made on him because of his Americanism, and say to him that whatever differences we may have had in the past or may have in the future, I am with him in this fight. It won't embarrass you to do that?" "Not at all," said I. "It is what I expected." "All right, go ahead. Now, make it clear to Gompers that it is not going to be necessary for him to come to me or to write to me. You can see where that might be impossible, might embarrass him. If he wishes to come, all right, let him come; but if he prefers, let him send any message he wishes through you or somebody else we both know and I will attend to the matter." It was ten days before I had an opportunity to deliver my message to Gompers. When I did deliver it, he was as pleased a man as I have ever seen. "Did Mr. Roosevelt really say that?" he inter- rupted, when I had given him but part of the mes- sage. 254 TALKS WITH T. R. "He certainly did," I replied. "Furthermore, when you want him, write direct if you wish, or, if you prefer, send for me and I will arrange a meeting. If that is not advisable, send some one else the Colonel knows, or you may, if you wish, send any message through me. These are the Colonel's in- structions — he wants you to feel free to call on him for any help he may be able to give." "That certainly is very fine of the old man," said Gompers. "You may go to him and tell him for me that I thank him from the bottom of my heart, that I do appreciate his offer and why it is made and that I shall not forget his offer if the occasion requires. Is it all right to tell this to Perham?" Perham (H. B.), a vice-president of the A. F. of L. and chief of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, was standing near. I saw no reason why he and others in Gompers's confidence should not be told, and said so. "The men on whom you rely to help you make your fight should know," I said. "The Colonel said nothing about secrecy, and would, I think, prefer that they should know." "Henry," called Gompers to Perham, "this young man has just given me a most pleasing message. Colonel Roosevelt offers any help he may be able to give in fighting these scoundrels; we're to call on him any time. Is n't that fine?" MAKING PEACE WITH GOMPERS 255 Perham, slow of speech, agreed that it was, adding: "But why should n't he? — you are both in the same fight." "Yes, Henry," said Gompers, "but you must remember Roosevelt and I have not been very friendly. You must know that men — and I include the big ones — do not always do exactly what they should do." So ended the Gompers-Roosevelt feud — if feud it could be called. HENRY FORD AND MARK HANNA MARK HANNA died long before Henry Ford arose above the horizon of obscurity. This did not prevent the Colonel from telling a Hanna story to illustrate an opinion he held of the man made famous and wealthy by the "flivver." "Hanna," said the Colonel, "sent Bunau-Varilla, the French engineer, to see me about the Panama Canal. Later I saw Hanna and told him I could do nothing with the man. "'Why,' said I, 'that man would instruct Cos- mos.' "'Never mind Cosmos,' said Hanna. 'Cromwell's the man for you to listen to.' He meant William Nelson Cromwell, the New York lawyer. "Now Ford is a pretty good man for making cheap automobiles. He makes a good car for the money, and in his sphere has done a very good work. But he won't stick to his sphere. He would instruct Cosmos. " It would not be so bad if he knew anything about the matters outside of automobiles that he attempts to manage and direct. He does not seem to have the faintest idea of American history, or any history for that matter; he knows nothing of world politics, yet he sets himself up, with the aid of an army of press HENRY FORD AND MARK HANNA 257 agents, as the man who must teach everybody. He has no conception of what we mean by Americanism and has an extreme idea of the importance and power of his money. He is ignorant, yet because he has been so successful in motors, many, many per- sons, hardly as ignorant as himself, think him wise in all things and allow him to influence their views. ''Henry, like Barnum, has been a great advertiser. I do not say his peace ship was an advertising dodge — I will give him credit for being sincere there — but I won't say that he has not been given credit for a lot of philanthropy that was merely good business. Other of his schemes given much publicity are imag- inings that in others would attract no attention. "He and his son Edsoll make a precious pair. The exempting of that young man was a glaring bit of injustice. Had I had my way, he'd have gone into the trenches and taken his chances just as any poor man's son had to go and take his chances. Instead, he is safe in Detroit. Cases like his make fine material for demagogues who try to tell the ignorant this is a government for rich men. "Most rich men's sons are doing their duty. You see that around the clubs. The only young men you see there are in uniform. "By the way, I saw two things the other after- noon that made me proud of New York. I had been 258 TALKS WITH T. R. up Westchester way. Motoring in, I saw a little service flag on a very poor house — more of a shack. A colored woman was in the doorway — it was ap- parently a negro home. Coming down the avenue I saw another little flag hanging out of the window of one of the finest houses in New York. It signified that its owner, one of America's wealthiest young men, had gone to the front and was doing his bit, man fashion, just as the colored lad out of that poor home was doing. "That kind of young man is worth a million Edsoll Fords in peace as well as in war, for the man who does his duty in war is not likely to shirk in peace." The Fifth Avenue home to which the Colonel re- ferred was that of Vincent Astor. A TRIBUTE TO NURSES MORE so than any other man I have ever known, Colonel Roosevelt was capable of adjusting himself to circumstances and seeing good in places where most humans would see naught of value. He was a philosopher at all times. When he was recovering from the serious opera- tion of February, 1918, I commented on the fact that his surroundings in Roosevelt Hospital were comfortable. "Indeed they are," said he, ''and every one here is splendid. It is almost worth while being sick to meet such people and realize the work that is done in such places. "Take the nurses — clean, healthy young women, full of animal life and youth and spirit, at just that age when they might be excused if their thoughts and their time were devoted to pleasure, in here doing the hardest kind of work, much of it unpleas- ant, nearly all of it depressing, not for pay, but be- cause they wish to be of service, to fit themselves for serv^ice. "Thank God, I'm not a cynic; I've always be- lieved in and respected American womanhood, but I tell you. Jack Leary, that I leave here with more 26o TALKS WITH T. R. respect and a better appreciation of what our girls really are. We are all apt to take some things for granted. Most of us, until we are forced into a place like this, never give a thought to the women who give up so much to serve. "These girls here are all from good families. Some, I am told, are from what, for want of a better term, we call our best families. All have education enough to qualify in easier, pleasanter work, where hours are regular and there 's ample time for theatres, par- ties, and all that sort of thing young folks love. They serve a hard apprenticeship and when they graduate, go out to do work that more often than not is as un- pleasant as any in the training period. They are not well paid, and are about as casual in their employ- ment, many of them, as a day laborer. I suppose I always knew that, but, as I have said, I took it for granted as we take many things, until I came in here and had a chance to think. Honestly I feel as though I had had a mental bath. "After what I Ve seen here I 'm tempted, the next time some half-baked jack of a preacher who cannot fill his church any other way cuts loose with an attack on American women, picturing them as brain- less butterflies with never a thought of anything but cocktails, cabarets, and dress, who are ' dooming the race ' — that 's one of their favorite declarations — A TRIBUTE TO NURSES 261 I 'm tempted to take him by the scruff of the neck and drop him in some first-class hospital. He'll leave with his soul cleaner and in better working order than when he entered ; that is, if he has a soul bigger than a mustard seed, and the girls won't be damaged any by his cluttering up the place for a few days. "You did not go to church to-day? I thought not. Well, there's your sermon. — I 'm in a sermonizing mood to-day, so you see I am getting better. Seri- ously, though, it does one good to get down to brass tacks once in a while, and if any one ever asks you what I think of the nursing profession, you just tell them I said — no, they're not angels, they are too practical for that, but trumps every one of them." The respect the Colonel had for the nurses was reciprocated. In his stays at Roosevelt Hospital on more than one occasion something as close to a row as one would expect in such a place developed over the question as to who should serve him. All agreed he was a model patient and good in obeying orders, except that he had all of a strong man's opposition to being "waited on." In his sickest hours he always insisted on trying to help himself. One dour member of Roosevelt's staff had rather an original way of explaining the Colonel's agility in obeying "orders." "The folks here do not give him orders," said this 262 TALKS WITH T. R. surgeon. "They think they do. He's just come in, captivated everybody in the place, and comes pretty near to running things. It's what I suspect he does everywhere. Personally I '11 be glad when he gets out. Why? Because the nurses and some of the fool doc- tors here can then think of something beside Colonel Roosevelt." WOMAN IN OFFICE WHY not?" Colonel Roosevelt asked this question one day when a visitor jokingly remarked that in the event of his returning to the White House, he might have a woman private secretary. The woman in question was Miss Josephine M. Strieker, who be- came attached to his staff in the Bull Moose days and was his secretary to the end. "Miss Strieker is a perfectly good secretary," he went on. "She is competent, faithful, loyal. If she is to be criticized at all, it is because she tries to do too much herself. Should I by any chance return to the White House, I should be glad to have a secre- tary of her attainments. Some of the politicians might not like it, it might be somewhat embarrassing to them, and it would be a precedent, but I am sure that if I could stand it, and she could stand the poli- ticians, we are about the only persons who would have to be considered. "Come to think of it, is there any good or valid reason why women should not have many places we are apt to consider exclusive male property? To be sure, Jeannette Rankin has shown a lack of some things to be desired in a member of Congress, but 264 TALKS WITH T. R. have all the male members been so good? I think not. Now that women are getting the ballot, we must be prepared to see them in many offices hitherto barred to them. Not a few of the most successful men I have known in public life owe their success very largely to the political sense of their wives. Take Blank. He is a nice fellow, and I like him, but I would give more for the opinion of his wife on a matter of practical politics than I would for his. It comes natural to her — she is her father's daughter. Without her, I doubt very much if her husband would have gone as far as he has. With her, he may go farther. "I mention this couple because you know all about them. Another man I won't name had a repu- tation for real conservatism. He was as conserv^ative as Senator Allison. You remember that Allison sheep story — where some one remarked that a flock seemed to be closely sheared, and he is said to have answered, ' It appears so from this side.' The man I have in mind was even more conservative at times. He always asked time to think a thing over. It did not take me long to discover that if the thing was of any earthly consequence, he wished time to talk it over with his maiden sister — a lady of the New England schoolma'am type. "I am not sure that any of us would care to see WOMAN IN OFFICE 26$ women in all public tasks — I can think of some that I would dislike seeing any woman in — but any- place she can fill as well as the average man she is entitled to. Therefore, to revert, I see no reason why, if I were again in the White House, Miss Strieker would not be a very capable successor to the Honorable Joseph Patrick Tumulty." When he was about to leave the hospital after the serious operation in February, 191 8, I spoke of the good work done by Miss Strieker while he was so ill. "Mrs. Roosevelt may tell you of this," I added, "but there are lots of things she has not known about, I imagine." "Miss Strieker is a trump — a splendid woman and an excellent secretary. Her handling of various matters that have arisen since I came here and when she had to depend on her own judgment has been splendid — she has been very tactful in some very delicate matters. I know that some of my friends do not exactly swear by her — they may swear at her behind her back — but that can make no difference with me. "They dislike her because she is too faithful to me to please them. Any good secretary comes in for that sort of thing. Take Loeb. He was devoted to me and never considered himself. He was thor- oughly disliked by many persons just because he i66 TALKS WITH T. R. did as I told him. He made good as secretary just as he made good as collector [of the port of New York] and as he is making good in business. "Loeb is going to be a very wealthy man some one of these days, and he deserves to be, for he is honest and a hard worker. "You do not know Loeb very well? I want you to get acquainted with him — you '11 like him, and you'll find you have many things in common. He's a capital fellow." THE NEW YORK FIGHT OF 1918 HAD Colonel Roosevelt so chosen, he would have ended his days in the Executive Mansion in Albany. In the fall of 19 18 leaders of a powerful faction in the party used every possible argument and influence to induce him to stand against Charles S. Whitman for the Republican nomination. They believed, and privately the Whitman leaders agreed with them, that they could stampede the convention for "T. R." if he would only say the word. On the other hand, Whitman's lieutenants used every bit of influence they could command to induce him to declare for their man. They were as unsuccessful as the anti-Whitmanites. " I shall support whoever is nominated," was the best either side could get from him. "I will not," he declared to me as to others, "be used by Whitman, and I will not allow Whitman's foes to use me as a club on him or to drag any of their chestnuts out of the fire. I shall not interfere in the New York fight or be a candidate for Governor. " It is a fight within the party for the members of the party to settle between themselves. They and the party will be the better off for settling it. I do not know that I could settle it, but if I did, it would 268 TALKS WITH T. R. leave soreness and ill-feeling and put me in a posi- tion I will not take — ■ that of a State boss. "I have no delusions about Whitman. Neither have I any delusions as to Mr. Barnes and some others who are fighting him. There is no call for me to interfere, and I shall not interfere. "Believe me, I realize that it is not love for Roosevelt that prompts Whitman's party to praise me. I am too old a bird to be deceived on this point. They talk of me for Governor, not because they want me, but because they want to kill off Whitman. "They won't use me as a blackjack." The effort to induce Colonel Roosevelt to run for Governor was not the only attempt made to use him in New York politics in the last years of his life. An earlier move was in the form of a bill making him food controller of the State. The day this move be- came public, Colonel Roosevelt called me to his office to say he would not for a moment consider it. "I shall," said he, "have something to say later in the day. Be at the Union League at five. If you wish, bring one or two of the boys along." The late N. A. Jennings was the only man of those close to the Colonel I could reach. When we arrived he had a statement ready. "I have," said he, "tried to be fair to Whitman by emphasizing the fact that the Governor should THE NEW YORK FIGHT OF 1918 269 be free to make appointments. I have been Governor and I know what that means. "Furthermore, I am not the man for the place. I know my Hmitations. And if I were, I would not allow myself to be switched on to a side track at this time. The main thing is to get troops over, to speed up the work, to wake up the country. Food is im- portant, it is extremely important, but there are men who can do this work better than I can and I am going to let some one of them do it. " I am very much out of patience with those cheer- ful souls who keep crying, 'Food will win the war.' The war will be won by the men with guns in their hands. *'I have said all this, though not in those words, in this statement. I don't believe you can read my writing, so I '11 read it to you. "You will see," he declared, as he finished reading, "that the real value of this move is that it gives me the opportunity to once more hammer on the need of full, absolute, and complete preparedness." HOME FOLK THERE are many things in Oyster Bay that I would Uke to see changed, but I cannot well do anything. If I interfered, many would not like it. You see there are some persons in this world who resent being reformed, even by an ex- President of the United States." Colonel Roosevelt was talking of his relations with the people of Oyster Bay. These relations were unique and not readily under- stood by the visitor, who often was surprised to hear a resident speak unkindly of the town's leading citi- zen. At bottom all liked the Colonel and appreci- ated what he had done for the town; though many resented the thought that Oyster Bay's sole reason for existence was the need of some place where news despatches having to do with Colonel Roosevelt might be dated. The entire truth, I think, is that Roosevelt was not really understood by the town folks. Some re- sented the fact that only a few of their number ever were asked to Sagamore Hill, where Roosevelt's life, while simple, was essentially that of the Lord of the Manor. They felt that it was in many ways a world HOME FOLK 271 apart, and that the great and important who visited Sagamore Hill were not their kind. On the other hand, they would have very strongly resented any change. Were they made welcome at any and all times, they would have felt that "T. R.," as they invariably called him, would be patronizing them. It was this the Colonel had in mind when he said he was careful not to interfere in town affairs. "One trouble here," he said, discussing Oyster Bay and his life there, *'is that when there is some- thing worth while here you do not report it. Your papers would not print it if you did, I suppose. It would not be news. "Take the Christmas exercises at the Cove School. For over thirty years I have been the Santa Claus there. It began when — no, before — my children started to school. Mrs. Roosevelt for years bought the presents after consultation with the teachers, and learning just what each child wished or should have. I remember she always used to buy at Bloom- ingdale's because she could get the best value for the money. Of late years she has not been able to do the shopping and the teachers have done that work. "The celebration is a movable feast, usually fixed after considerable discussion with the teachers. I have been there whenever I could. I always have tried to spend Christmas here at home. Sometimes 272 TALKS WITH T. R. when I was President I could not come, but I was here when I could. It is the usual school celebration — carols, 'curfew shall not ring to-night,' addresses by myself and other leading citizens — you know what I mean. And of course I have a word for every- body. The occasion would be entirely lost if the little red heads of one family were not appropriately recognized. "It's a good school and democratic. There is one negro family here that sends its children there. Ted at one time shared a desk with one of them. If that were only known in the South, it would damn me for- ever. But that would not be news, that celebration.'* The one person in Oyster Bay who, above all others, voiced his disapproval of the Colonel was Disbrow, the local editor. His was a Democratic sheet (it still is, I believe), and Disbrow seemed to feel it incumbent upon him to speak as an individual as strongly as he did when he used the editorial "we." He particularly resented the fact that prac- tically every news item from Oyster Bay in the New York papers referred in some way to the Colonel or his family — a state of affairs he consid- ered most unjust. How to change things he and others who felt as he did did not know until after Judge Hughes had been favored over the Colonel by the Republican HOME FOLK 273 Convention. Then it occurred to Disbrow and others that a big Independence Day celebration, with a parade, a firemen's muster, and other trimmings, would for once, at least, result in something other than Roosevelt matter being printed as coming from the Bay. ''This man up on the hill is all through," said Dis- brow. "The King is dead. We'll have a celebration that will show folks there's something to Oyster Bay but Roosevelt." Frederic R. Coudert was selected as orator of the day, and everything arranged, even to having the Colonel sit in the grandstand, as a sort of Exhibit A. The Colonel, who had an inkling of the motive back of the celebration, agreed to attend on the distinct understanding that he was not to be asked to speak by the committee or the chairman. When the day came around, a really creditable parade was held, the town was prettily decorated, and half of Long Island was on hand when Mr. Coudert began to speak. So was a detail of blue- jackets from a warship, stationed in the Bay for the occasion, a battery of moving-picture men, and the usual group of New York reporters. Mr. Coudert, always a good speaker, was at his best, and every- thing from Disbrow 's standpoint was lovely until he was about to conclude. 274 TALKS WITH T. R. "However," he said, "I am sure you have heard enough from me. There 's another here you 'd prefer to hear from, and as I 'm bound by no gentleman's agreement, I present to you your fellow townsman, Colonel Roosevelt." Instantly, the picture changed. The "corpus de- lictu" that was came to life with a crashing, patri- otic speech, winding up by inviting the bluejackets and their officers to partake of his hospitality at Sagamore Hill, and departed. Next morning Oyster Bay was on the front pages of half the papers of the country, with Mr. Hughes receiving scant room in- side. Mr. Coudert was mentioned as having "also spoke," and the parade was given notice in passing. "Huh," said Maury Townsend, last of the oldest families, next day when asked what he thought of the denouement. "What did they expect? First thing any one about here knows some people we know will be scheming to keep squirrels on the ground." THE VALUE OF MASONRY COLONEL ROOSEVELT was a Mason, and in a quiet way an enthusiastic one. He was a fre- quent attendant at Matinecock Lodge in Oyster Bay in which he was raised, and when in foreign parts, particularly in out-of-the-way places, made it a rule, when possible, to visit the local lodges. He was as thorough in his Masonry as he was in other things, as witness Harry Russell, well known in the craft, who assisted in his initiation. "When," says Russell, "the Colonel came up for examination he was letter perfect — hanged if he did not have the work better than his conductor, for he corrected him in an error." Talking of Oyster Bay affairs at his home one afternoon the Colonel touched on this phase of his activities. "As you know," he said, turning to me, "I am a member of the local lodge of Masons. You also know, brother, I violate no secret when I say that one of the greatest values in Masonry is that it affords an opportunity for men in all walks of life to meet on common ground, where for the time all men are equal and have one common interest. 276 TALKS WITH T. R. "For example, when I was President, the master was Worshipful Brother Doughty, gardener on the estate of one of my neighbors, and a most excellent public-spirited citizen, with whom I liked to main- tain contact. Clearly I could not call upon him when I came home. It would have embarrassed him. Neither could he, without embarrassment, call on me. In the lodge it was different. He was over me, though I was President, and it was good for him and good for me. " I go to the lodge, and even the folks who do not belong to or believe in the order, rather like it that I should go. They seem to feel it 's part of the eternal fitness of things. Whenever I return from one of my journeys I always go there to tell of the lodges I have visited, in Nairobi in Africa, in Trinidad, or the quaint little lodge I found away up on the Ascunsion River. They sort of feel I am their representative to these lodges, and they like it. There's a real com- munity of interest. "It's the same way with Mrs. Roosevelt. She is an Episcopalian, you know, and belongs to a guild named after a saint — Saint Hilda, I believe. She frequently has the members here. She had them at the White House on several occasions. There's no social rank in the guild, no distinction — the brake- man's wife or the butcher's wife, the equal of her THE VALUE OF MASONRY 277 neighbor, and all are comfortable. You see, they have a common interest. "That is the way to make people work together. Get them on common ground, get them together through some interest in common. There social lines fade out and you get results." HITTING THE BACK TRAIL I HAVE no desire to return to the scenes of my ranching days. It's all changed — and I don't want to see it." I had asked the Colonel if he ever longed to retrace his steps through the ranch country he had known as a young man. "It is a mistake, I think, for one to hit the back trail after many years have passed. One finds things changed, the old picture is destroyed, the romance gone. I was back in the old country once. I saw only a little of it, but that was enough. Why there was a store down where we had the clash with the Indians! "The place is all settled now. The folks there are largely of foreign stock, good people and good citi- zens, who lead most matter-of-fact lives. It is best that it should be so, but I don't wish to see the place again. I 'd rather try and remember it as it was. " Change, of course, is the rule of all new countries. I imagine that thirty or forty years from now the jungle I hunted over in Africa may be quite settled and as safe as Upper Harlem. This will not be true of the Amazon. A great many years must elapse before that country is little more than a poorly charted wilderness. It is not attractive to the white man. HITTING THE BACK TRAIL 279 "Africa, on the other hand, is. For that reason, it will be comparatively developed when the Amazon country is still raw. "I shall revisit neither place. I have done my bit. Those who come after me must do theirs. Anyway, I've no desire to hit the back trail. As a rule, it's not profitable." ON HEREDITY ONCE, when Colonel Roosevelt declared that Richard Derby (now Colonel), who married his youngest daughter, Ethel, was "a fine fellow" of whom he was "as proud as I am of my blood sons," I remarked that Dr. Derby came from a splendid family — the Derbys of old Salem, in Massachusetts. "Yes, I know," he replied; "it is as you say, a splendid family. I do not care what any man says, and I 'm no ancestor worshipper either, blood will tell in a man, a horse, or a dog. In either case you will have culls at times and throw-backs, but in the long run and on the average you will find the blooded animal wins. "Take our immigrant stock. You will find, I am sure, if you could go back into the history of the immigrant that rises above his fellows, that back of him there was some superior stock; that a father, grandfather, or some remote ancestor was eminent above his fellows in the home land, wherever that might have been. " It is so with our American negroes. Take my boy, Charlie Lee, for example. Charlie came to me from Captain Fitzhugh Lee, whose boy he had been. Charlie is a first-class citizen, careful, industrious, ON HEREDITY 281 cleanly, thrifty — a better man than the average run of whites. Charlie's father was General Robert E. Lee's body servant; Charlie takes his name from the Lee family. The father was a superior negro. Doubtless if we could go back, we'd find that his father's father, and beyond, were well above the average of slaves. " Charlie inherits his good points from his parents, from those people I 've been talking about. He is as loyal as a bulldog, perfectly attached to the family and devoted to the children. If it was the life of any one of them or Charlie's, Charlie would not hesitate one second. If he were lucky enough to escape him- self, he would not think he had done anything out of the ordinary, and he would probably resent being told that he had." Charlie had an equally high opinion of his adored Colonel. "Colonel Roosevelt has been splendid to me," he said one day. "He's more like a father to us all than an employer. You just be up at the house if one of those Irish girls is sick! The Colonel and Mrs. Roose- velt are just as worried as though she was one of the children and she would n't get any better care if she was one of the children. "But," laughed Charlie at the conclusion of this — for him — very long speech, "what's the use of 282 TALKS WITH T. R. talking? Quality folks are quality folks wherever you find them." The Colonel grinned when I one day repeated Charlie's speech to him. "It's about what you should expect of Charlie," said he. " If he were to leave me for any reason, you would find him looking about for some family he felt he could with honor attach himself to and he'd serve it as loyally and as proudly as he now serves mine. Mere money would not get him if what he terms ' quality ' were not there. And if I make myself clear, Charlie would honor any family he might go with. If I did not know anything else about it, the fact that Charlie had put his O.K. on it would tell me its members were worth-while people. "But Charlie won't go. He'll stay with Mrs. Roosevelt and me as long as we live, and then, in all probability, go with one of the children. It will be one of those things everybody will take for granted — Charlie's going with Ted or Ethel or one of the others." ON REMEMBERING FRIEND AND FOE IT was no part of Colonel Roosevelt's philosophy to turn the other cheek to the smiter. On the contrary, he very much favored payment in kind — if the party of the other part was worthy of atten- tion. In a word, his philosophy forbade him to forget friends or foes, and it was his regret that he had not had time to attend to all of the latter. This I learned one day when meeting him at the Grand Central Terminal he invited me to ride up- town with him. " I have something to tell you," he said. " I wanted you to know that I have just given Julian Street a statement for use in Collier's endorsing Purroy Mitchel for reelection. I thought you would be glad to know it." "On the contrary, I am sorry," I replied. "Why?" " First, because you are binding yourself to a sure loser, and I don't like to see you with a loser. Second, and less important, I cannot be with you on this." "You surprise me," said the Colonel. "Why can't you be with me?" "Colonel," I replied, "I am sorry. If this were 284 TALKS WITH T. R. anything to you personally, I 'd follow you anywhere, but it is n't. On the other hand, this man and I are not friends, for he went out of his way to try and do me an injury. No man of his position can do that to me. A little fellow I 'd ignore, but a man in his high position I won't." "What did he do?" asked the Colonel. I explained at some length, concluding by saying that I would not have cared much had the man not rewarded my taking much trouble to play square with him by misrepresenting my position. "I can't forget that sort of thing," I said, just a wee bit fearful that my defection might offend him. "Jack," he said, hitting his right fist in his left palm, "you are absolutely right, absolutely right. A man has no more right to forget an enemy than he has to forget a friend. "God knows," he went on after a pause, " I have always tried to do something for everybody who ever did anything for me, and I have been fortunate in that I have usually been successful in this re- spect, but the regret of my life is that I have been unable to take proper care of all my enemies — I have had a million of them, too many of them for any man, however lucky, to attend to in an ordinary lifetime." ON REMEMBERING FRIEND AND FOE 285 Every word the Colonel bit off short in the way peculiar to him. " I take an effort to do me a kindness as an obliga- tion, and an injury or a thing that might naturally be expected to injure as an obligation. No man can in justice to himself forget friend or foe. In a public exigency one should for the moment forget a personal injury if so doing would let him work with the other person in the public interest, that as a matter of public duty, but only as a public duty. **By this I do not mean that one should sit and nurse his wounds all the time. Not at all. But I'll pardon him if he remembers his scars when oppor- tunity offers." Colonel Roosevelt was himself the most punctili- ous of men in recognizing the claims of others upon him. For this reason, if no other, not every one could do him a favor. " I am," he remarked whimsically one day, "a bit particular in the matter of receiving favors. If a man does anything for you, you are bound, if you can, to do something for him when occasion offers. If it hap- pens to be the right sort of a man, it won't matter much, but with the other kind it can be very, very embarrassing. It's not everybody I care to be under obligation to." The Colonel not long after this practised what he 286 TALKS WITH T. R. preached. In a matter that was of grave importance to him, a politician whose standards were not of the highest, but who was in a position to assist, offered his aid. " I shall have to decline with thanks," said he. " If I allow him to do anything for me, I shall have to do something for him later on. He knows that as well as I do, and I am simply not going to be under any obligation to him. He's not the kind I want to be beholden to. "A man should be as careful in accepting favors as he should be in making promises. If he's careless in either, he soon finds he 's in trouble of one sort or another. There's where many a man in politics has wrecked himself, exactly as men in business have gone bankrupt endorsing notes for friends." "WELL-MEANING FOOLS" IF they ever get Mr. Wilson out here, I hope they'll bar that trick. It's pretty, but it affords the best cover for evil-minded persons I have ever seen. A man with a bomb could not ask a better opportunity." Colonel Roosevelt was referring to a feature of his reception in Springfield, Ohio, that, pretty as any picture, he did not exactly like. It was a shower of peonies aimed at the stage as he made his appear- ance. Near Springfield is a famous peony nursery. From it bulbs are shipped all over the w^orld. For the blooms of its forty thousand plants there is a rather limited market, so once a year there is "peony day" when the flowers are sold about the streets for the benefit of the Red Cross or some other charity. On the occasion of the Colonel's visit there was a "war-chest" drive on, so the blooms were given away, and some one conceived the idea of giving him "a shower" when he reached the auditorium. This building was filled to capacity when he ar- rived. Each of the three thousand or more who had jammed their way in had at least one peony blossom; 288 TALKS WITH T. R. most of them had several. As he appeared emerging from the wings, the audience arose and began hurl- ing the great, luscious blooms at the stage. For a few minutes the air was full of them, the hall looking for all the world as though an army had taken to hurl- ing snowballs. While it lasted, Colonel Roosevelt held his place in the entrance. From my seat I could see his jaw set, and his head half shake. It was clear he did not exactly approve of the demonstration. "Wasn't that flower thing in the hall a fool af- fair?" he asked that evening. I agreed that it was, adding that it was very pretty and that those responsible meant well. "Exactly," said he. "They meant well. But I have found that one of the real dangers of life are people who mean well. You never can tell what they will do. You can tell, or at least be on guard against those who do not mean well. Some of the greatest embarrassments of my life have been caused by people with the best of intentions that 'did not know it was loaded.' "I am not afraid of the crook who means evil. I can usually take care of him or guard against him. But the well-meaning fool — no man can guard against him or his embarrassments." ON COLLEGE LIFE THE two classes of college boys who get the least out of college life are those who have no money and those who have too much. Neither pov- erty nor great riches are desirable for the boy in college." Colonel Roosevelt had asked my plans for my boy, and I had told him I meant to send him to Harvard "if I had the necessary funds." "It does not," said he, "require very much money to send a boy through Harvard or for that matter Yale or any of the big schools. The fact is that the boy who has too much money in college is just as badly off as the poor fellow who has none. I have every sympathy with the boy who works his way through college, but I realize that the poor fellow who has to divide his time between work, classroom, and study does not begin to get all a man should get out of college. He does not get the real spirit of the university, and he may come out with a mass of un- digested knowledge, worn physically and mentally and a narrow man. He'd have done as well in many cases working at some trade and devoting his spare time to a public library. "On the other hand, the boy who has unlimited 290 TALKS WITH T. R. money has unlimited opportunities to spend it, to get into trouble and acquire habits that will be a handicap in later life. With the aid of tutors he gets his degree, and leaves college just as the extremely poor boy without having gotten the real benefit of the college. Both have been in but not of the college. "Unlike either of these, the boy of moderate means, enough to permit him to take a real part in all college activities, but not enough to permit or induce extravagance, gets about everything there is to be had. They are the men who really benefit by college. "It does not hurt a boy to have to do some work — some of the best men I have known have had to do some work while in college — but the fellow who has all work and no time for the lighter activities is unfortunate. He would do better to delay his en- trance until he could accumulate enough funds to make his stay in the school less of a constant drill. "That, I know, is not quite so romantic, but it is eminently more practical. "However, one can never tell how a university man will turn out or what a university will turn out. Just now the two most eminent of the alumni of my college are Boies Penrose and Bill Barnes." ON PROHIBITION COLONEL ROOSEVELT was not of those who favored the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the manufacture, importa- tion, or sale of intoxicating Hquors. To his mind prohibition was certain to cause unrest and dissatis- faction; he doubted the fairness of removing the saloon without providing something to take its place in the life of the tenement-dwellers; and he was in- clined to think the liquor question was settling itself. "You and I can readily recall the time," he said to me one day, "when it was not bad form for sub- stantial men of affairs, for lawyers, doctors — pro- fessional men generally — to drink in the middle of the day. It is good form no longer, and it's not now done. It is not so long ago that practically every man in politics drank more or less, when hard drinking, if not the rule, was not the exception. Now the hard drinker, if he exists at all among the higher grade, is a survival of what you might call another day. "Take Tammany. No one holds that up as an organization of model men, yet I am sure that were you to make a canvass of its district leaders, you would find pretty close to a majority if not an actual majority are teetotallers. Tammany no longer sends 292 TALKS WITH T. R. men with ability, and a weakness for liquor, to Albany. It may and it probably will send another of Tom Grady's ability, but it will not send one who drinks as hard. "This, you may rest assured, is not a matter of morals. It is, however, a matter of efficiency. Tam- many wants results and it is sufficiently abreast of the times to know that drink and efficiency do not go hand in hand in these days of card indexes and adding machines. "It is the same in your profession. Not long ago most of the boys were fairly competent drinking men ; some I knew were rated as extra competent by ad- miring, perhaps envious, colleagues. Now the drink- ing man, at least the man who drinks enough to show the effects, is rare. The reason: your editors won't stand for it. As Jack Slaght put it the other day — I think it was Jack — a reporter in the old days was expected to have 'a birthday' about so often and nothing was thought of it. Now, as Slaght puts it, he is allowed but two. The first time, still quoting your friend Slaght, who at times is inclined to use plain language, he gets hell; the next time he gets fired. That is so, is it not?" I assured him that Slaght was substantially cor- rect. "It's not a matter of morals there, though" (with ON PROHIBITION 293 a laugh). " I will admit you boys do not lack morals. As with Tammany, it is a question of getting results, exactly as it is with the doctor, the lawyer, and the judge. "Drinking declined once it became an economic question, or at least as soon as it was recognized as an economic factor. It then began to be unfashion- able — at least to over-drink — and the man who never drank at all ceased to be unusual in any trade or calling. *' I am, however, sorry that they are pressing pro- hibition so hard at this time. It is, I think, all right, desirable, in fact, to limit or perhaps prohibit the so-called hard liquors, but it is a mistake, I think, to stop or try to stop the use of beers and the lighter wines. "If this thing goes through, where does the social side of life come in? We both know that a 'dry' din- ner is apt to be a sad sort of affair. It will make dining a lost art. " Likewise, I do not know how the working-classes will take to the change. You and I have no need of the saloon. We have other places to go. But you and I know that the saloon fits into a very definite place in the life of the tenement-dweller. I do not know what he will do without it; what substitutes the re- formers think they can give him for it. I do not be- 2 94 TALKS WITH T. R. lieve they have thought of that, or that they care much. "Frankly, I do not know what will be the outcome. Prohibition, if it comes, will cause ill-feeling and un- rest — it will be a disturbing factor — but I do not look for anything really serious, for after all is said and done, the fact remains that the American work- man is a law-abiding individual. "When it comes, prohibition may or may not be permanent. You may, however, be sure of one thing — it will be extremely difficult to repeal, once it becomes part of the Constitution." Responsibility for prohibition Colonel Roosevelt placed squarely upon the shoulders of the liquor dealers good and bad. "Some liquor dealers I have known," said he, "were good, well-meaning citizens, who kept decent places. Take the Oakeses, father and son, who own the Oyster Bay Inn. I should be very sorry to see them lose their license. Theirs is a clean, respectable place. Again, there is John Brosnan's place in New York. No one ever heard a complaint against John. His place has been no more offensive than if he sold dry goods. "But the John Brosnans are responsible for the plight they now find themselves in, because they have stood neutral when they did not fight to save ON PROHIBITION 295 men who ran dives. Had the Brosnans and Oakeses and men of their stamp Hned up with decent citizens in closing up dives, they would have served the com- munity and themselves. However, they did not, and the situation is as it is. " I shall take no part in the contest one way or the other. It must be settled without me. I shall not allow it or anything else to swerve me from the work we're now in." The "work we're now in" was the effort to speed up the war by arousing the American people to the necessity of winning a "peace with victory." PERSHING AND WOOD ONE thing which annoyed Colonel Roosevelt was the public's persistence in believing that it was to him that General Leonard Wood owed his big jump in the army; in a word, to its confounding the case of Wood with that of Pershing. "The man they are thinking of," he used to say, "is Pershing. It was he I jumped over the heads of several hundred other army officers. I 'd do it again, by thunder, if the same occasion arose ! Wood got his big jump from McKinley, and all I ever gave him were the promotions due him in the usual course of seniority. I've tried a hundred times to straighten this out in the public mind, but I don't suppose I '11 ever succeed. The public seems to wish to believe this myth. "President McKinley gave Wood his big jump in the regular establishment, after he took him out of the Rough Riders. I gave Pershing his big jump long after I had succeeded Mr. McKinley in the White House. "It came about in this way: Pershing was doing brilliant work in the Philippines. All the official re- ports showed him a man of energy and initiative, who could be depended upon to do what he was sent PERSHING AND WOOD 297 to do, and about whom you did not have to worry. The unofficial reports that came back squared with all this. Both left no room for doubt as to the calibre and quality of the man. "Now about this time the line of promotion in the army became clogged. It needed new colonels and lieutenant-colonels, but the law would not per- mit the appointment of men immediately below these ranks that were of the quality needed. Congress would not change the law. "I had, however, the right to appoint brigadier- generals. I made Pershing one. Therefore, you might say that Congress, by refusing me the right to make him a colonel or lieutenant-colonel, forced me to elevate him even higher. "Pershing at this time had one handicap. It was in the person of his esteemed father-in-law, Senator Warren of Wyoming, Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. To advance Pershing above his elders meant an invitation to charges of favoritism, or, as the army and navy sometimes put it, ' the three p's — politics, petticoats, and a pull.' Not to ad- vance him for this reason would have been cowardly and unfair. There was nothing for me to do but name him and let the heathen rage. "After I had done so, Warren came to me and thanked me. 298 TALKS WITH T. R. "I said to him: 'Senator, I am very fond of you, but this appointment has not been made on your account. You owe me no thanks for it. I am pro- moting Captain Pershing, not because he is your son-in-law, but in spite of the row that relationship will stir up. You don't owe me a thing on account of it.' "Warren did not seem to like this, but it was the truth and there was no reason why it should be sugar- coated for him. However" (this with a laugh), "he did not oppose the appointment. "Time has proven that I was right. Mr. Wilson has proved it by his selection of Pershing, first for Mexico, and now to command the armies in France. Sims, of the navy, another man I was accused of favoring, Mr. Wilson has also chosen for important work, fairly good proof that my judgment of these men when they were juniors was sound." "But he has not approved of Wood," I suggested. "No, he has not. He has used Wood very badly and very unfairly. I might say he has also been very foolish in the way he has handled Wood. If he wanted to side-track him, he could have done it by sending him to Hawaii or the Philippines and leaving him there. But he did not have the courage to do this; he adopted halfway measures, and as a result, Wood has been like a sore thumb to him — always PERSHING AND WOOD 299 in the way, and doing things so well that the public won't allow Mr. Wilson to forget him. ''Wood is a good soldier, and a splendid organizer. So is Pershing. Pershing, in addition, is something of a courtier. Wood is not. Wood has been plain and outspoken and he's suffered for it. "Wood is a big man who can look on a problem from every angle. He makes few mistakes, but he 's big enough, when he makes one, to admit the error, and he always has patience with the other fellow's opinion. " I am very fond of Wood, and I know he is of me, but in my years in the Presidency, Wood never took any advantage of our intimacy or in the slightest degree presumed on our friendship. If anything, he leaned backward in this respect." FONDNESS FOR THE KHAKI LAD JACK, I understand some of Pershing's wounded are here. I must see them." Wherever there were men from overseas — and in the early days of the war these were almost in- variably wounded or gassed — Colonel Roosevelt wanted to meet them. If they were on hand when he arrived, so much the better. If they were not, he would ask the local committee where they were to be seen. On trains and in other public places he would al- ways stop to greet them, and ask of their experiences, their commands, and how they were getting along. They were welcome, too, at Sagamore Hill. After the establishment of the great camps on Long Island he was at home to the "rookies" on Saturdays, and after a while a reception for them was a fixed feast each week. For them there would be refreshments, he had something to say to each of them, and glad to show all the famous ''trophy room." Bluejackets, too, were as welcome as the men of the other arm of the service. The marvel of those meetings was the number of mutual acquaintances the Colonel and soldiers and sailors would discover. FONDNESS FOR THE KHAKI LAD 301 ** Colonel," a lad would say, "I am from Blank. John Smith there says to remember him to you." "That's splendid! Tell him I am very glad to hear from him. How did he ever come out with that mine of his?" Or it might be a request to be remembered to the village doctor or judge. He knew somebody in nearly every place they would mention. In Detroit a veteran boatswain, recalled from retirement to assist in recruiting, hailed the Colonel. "I'm mighty glad to see you again," exclaimed T. R. ** Let me see, the last time I saw you, you were on top of a turret on a ship in Italian waters — you and two others. I '11 have your name in a moment — • is n't it Johnson?" "Yes, sir," said the proud sailor, swelling his chest a bit, "I was a bosun then." Johnson, by the way, was a navy character, known in the seven seas as "Steamboat" Johnson. "Steamboat Johnson — that bosun — is tickled to death at your remembering him," I said to the Colonel afterward. "That's it, 'Steamboat,' I knew he had some such outlandish moniker, as they might say in our be- loved New York. That helped me recall him. I re- member an officer explaining that he had amazing skill in handling steam launches; could do as much 302 TALKS WITH T. R. with one as most good seamen could with a fair- sized tug. He's a good sample of the old-time navy man. I believe he 's more than half glad of this war — it keeps him in the service." Once I spoke of the Saturday receptions at Saga- more Hill as a nice thing. "I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered. " I rather believe the boys enjoy it. I know I do. I 'm glad to have them come, and the obligation is all mine. If I can extend them any little courtesy I am glad to do it. It is no more than I would thank an- other man for doing for my boys. Mrs. Roosevelt feels about it just as I do — she's glad to have them come. "They won't let me go to war, but they cannot prevent my admiring those who are privileged to go — that, and minding the grandchildren." The grandchildren frequently took part in these festivities. Once little "Dick" Derby, baby son of the Colonel's younger daughter, Ethel, came out, and espying a flag proceeded to salute the colors in true man-of-warsman style. A group of bluejackets present applauded. "We start them young out here," said the de- lighted Colonel. It was on this occasion that the Colonel, showing his visitors through the "trophy room," called atten- FONDNESS FOR THE KHAKI LAD 303 tion to an enormous pair of elephant tusks, said to be the largest in the world. "Those," said he, ''were presented to me by the one man in the world fully satisfied with his ances- try." "Might I ask, sir," said a bluejacket, "who he might be?" "King Menelek of Abyssinia. You know he is said to have descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba." The Colonel was in an especially jovial mood this particular afternoon, venturing to make what he seldom did — a pun — in showing a book Kaiser Wilhelm, in happier days, had sent him. "You see, gentlemen," said the Colonel, pointing to a grammatical error in the inscription, " the Kaiser did not know his English very well even then." Wilhelm had used "to" where he should have spelled it "too." ON BEING SIXTY COLONEL," I asked on the eve of his last birth- day, " how does it seem to be sixty — you know you will be sixty on Sunday?" " I do not know that it makes a bit of difference," he replied. "At any rate, I had not noticed any, or that I feel any different than when I was fifty-nine or fifty-seven." "You are looking well," I said. "I think I will emphasize that in my story of Sunday as sort of an answer to those who are spreading the report that you are a decrepit old man." "Do so, by all means," he said. "It might be of interest to say that this week I have been pulling a boat — Mrs. Roosevelt and I had a little picnic down at Lloyd's Neck one day this week. My boat is rather heavy and it is a good pull, but I did not notice that it affected me any. "A man should not be old at sixty if he takes reasonable care of himself. I would be all right if it were not that I have some reminders yet of that old Brazilian fever. It has come back at times in a very disagreeable sort of way. Aside from that I am all right. A man of sixty, though, should be in a position ON BEING SIXTY 305 where he can take things easy — be in a position where he can do those things he may Hke to do and not be compelled to do a lot of other things that younger men can do as well. "If a man has done his duty, he will have his share of work done at that age, and ordinarily be in a position to retire. If he has not done his duty he may not be called upon to decide the question, for my experience has been that the man who does not do his work is the kind who abuses his health, and if alive, is not much good at sixty, or, for that matter, years before. "One cannot, however, lay down any general rule on that sort of thing. Some men do their best work at sixty or even later. It depends on the man and on circumstances that surround him or that may arise after he has thought his best work was behind him. "How old are you?" he suddenly asked. I told him. "You've got a long way ahead of you yet. You'll be in harness many years yet and won't want to think of retiring before you are sixty. Then you will probably insist on doing some work. You won't be so foolish as to wish to quit altogether even at what now seems to you to be a pretty good age for a news- paper man. The man who has been active all of his 3o6 TALKS WITH T. R. life who, on a given date, arbitrarily shuts down, is inviting trouble for himself. By shutting down, he invites a breakdown. "Therefore the wise retains an interest in some worth-while things as long as he is able to." T£ THE COLONEL AND THE TREATY THIS country must keep its absolute economic independence and raise or lower economic barriers as its interests demand, for we have to look out for the interests of our own workingman. "We must insist on the preservation of the Mon- roe Doctrine; w^e must keep the right to close the Pan .ua Canal to our enemies in war-time; and we must not undertake to interfere in European, Asi- atic, or African matters with which we ought to have properly no concern." That was Colonel Roosevelt's position as to what the peace treaty should in part contain as expressed by him after Mr. Wilson had announced his inten- tion of going to Paris, but before he sailed. In this talk he covered the then nebulous field of treaty- making, and, as my notes show, strongly indicated that he foresaw the complications that arose in the Senate when the finished document was presented to that body for action. It was clear that he was not of those who approved of Mr. Wilson's plan to take part in the Peace Conference and he was very much of the opinion that a definite statement of his posi- tion was due the American people from Mr. Wilson. He also made it clear that he was fearful the now 3o8 TALKS WITH T. R. almost forgotten "14 points" would be pressed to the disadvantage of our Allies. "President Wilson," he said, "has not given the slightest explanation of what his views are or why he is going abroad. He pleads for unity, but he him- self is responsible for any division among the Amer- ican people as regards the Peace Conference at this time. "He has never permitted the American people to pass on his peace proposals, nor has he ever made these propositions clear and straightforward. "As for the '14 points,' so far as the American people have expressed any opinion upon them, it was on November 5 when they rejected them. "What Mr. Wilson says of these ' 14 points ' is sheer nonsense. He says the American army was fighting for them. Why, there was not one American soldier in a thousand that ever heard of them! The Ameri- can army was fighting to smash Germany. The American people wanted Germany smashed. "The Allies have never accepted the '14 points.' The United States has never accepted them. Ger- many and Austria enthusiastically accepted them. Here certain individuals including President Wilson, Mr. Hearst, Mr. Viereck, as I understand it, and a number of pro-Germans and pacifists and interna- tional Socialists have accepted them; but neither THE COLONEL AND THE TREATY 309 the American people nor the American Congress has accepted them. "Mr. Wilson himself has rejected at least one outright and has interpreted another in the directly- opposite sense to its plain and obvious meaning. "The simple truth is that some of the * 14 points' are thoroughly mischievous under any interpreta- tion, and that most of the others are so vague and ambiguous that it is nonsense to tr>^ to do anything with them until they have been defined and made definite. " Inasmuch as Mr. Wilson is going over, it is ear- nestly to be hoped that it is his business not to try to be an umpire between our Allies and our enemies, but act loyally as one of the Allies. We have n't suffered anything like as much and we have not rendered as much service as the leading Allies. It is the British navy and the French, British, and Italian armies that have done most to bring about the downfall of Germany and therefore the safety of the United States. It is our business to stand by our Allies. "The British Empire imperatively needs the greatest navy in the world and this we should in- stantly concede. Our need for a great navy comes second to hers and we should have the second largest navy in the world. Similarly France needs greater 3IO TALKS WITH T. R. military strength than we do, but we should have our young men trained to arms on the general lines of the Swiss system. "The phrase 'freedom of the seas' may mean anything or nothing. If it is to be interpreted as Ger- many interprets it, it is thoroughly mischievous. There must be no interpretation of the phrase that would prevent the English navy in the event of any future war from repeating the tremendous service it has rendered in this war. "The British must, of course, keep the colonies they have captured." Here the Colonel laid down his irreducible mini- mum of what the United States should insist upon printed above. "As for Mr. Wilson at the Peace Conference," he concluded, "it is his business to stand by France, England, and our other Allies and present with them a solid front to Germany." ENGLAND AND THE REST OF THE WORLD December 19, 1918 Mr. Leary: Miss Strieker called up this morning to say that Colonel Roosevelt would like you to call on him to- morrow at II o'clock at the Roosevelt Hospital, and bring P. W. Wilson with you. He wants to talk over the article Mr. Wilson has in this morning's Tribune. If it can't be arranged for to-morrow morning, then Saturday morning will do. K. P. Mr. Wilson's telephone number is Bryant 145 1. This note was the prelude to one of the most im- portant, as well as one of the last, talks I had with Colonel Roosevelt. In it he made the flat assertion that it lay with the United States and England to preserve the peace of the world ; that he could foresee no reason why there should not be a general arbitra- tion treaty between the two countries, but that such a treaty could not with safety be made with Japan and perhaps not with Italy. "I see no reason — there is no reason," said he, "why we should not have a general arbitration treaty with Great Britain. I could not, would not, have said that five years ago, but I can now conceive of no question that may arise between the two coun- 312 TALKS WITH T. R. tries that cannot in safety and honor be left to arbi- tration. Working together they have the peace of the world in their hands. "I would not favor, I would not approve of such a treaty with Japan. It would be dangerous. Such a treaty with Italy might conceivably be dangerous. But in such a treaty with Great Britain there would be no danger to either party." Colonel Roosevelt had two things in mind in send- ing for Mr. Wilson — to show his appreciation of Wilson's Tribune article referred to in Miss Phelps's note, and to give him assistance in making America's position clear to his English readers. The article re- ferred to a meeting a few nights earlier of the so- called League of Small Nations to which Wilson had been bidden to speak. He went there expecting it to be, as the name indicated, a meeting in the interest of small nations. Instead, it was devoted mainly to demands for the independence of India and to gen- eral denunciation of all things English. Wilson, a former M.P., and a veteran of the press gallery at Westminster, took up the challenge, when it came his turn to speak, with the declaration: "I am an Englishman." Despite hisses he had his say, and with characteristic British doggedness, thereafter pur- sued his country's assailants through the press. Colonel Roosevelt had very little to say about this ENGLAND AND THE WORLD 313 incident. Instead he plunged, almost immediately Wilson was introduced and he had apologized for having to receive him in a hospital, into the question of President Wilson's mission abroad and the way matters were working out. "As an American," said he, "I am glad and proud of the reception given Mr. Wilson. I know, you know, it is to the President of the United States these hon- ors, these acclamations are given. As an American I am naturally gratified. But I very much fear that Mr. Wilson does not appreciate the fact that these honors, this wonderful welcome, are extended to President Wilson and not to Wilson the individual. There is danger in this to an egoist of the Wilson type. "The greatest danger, however, Is that the people of England, the people of Europe, will take Mr. Wil- son at his own appraisal, at the value he sets upon himself, and ignore the sentiment of the Republican leaders, the Republican Senate, in the matter of a league of nations. They should realize that Mr. Wil- son may sell what he cannot deliver, may promise more than he can deliver. They should not forget that in the recent election Mr. Wilson, by demand- ing that the American people elect a Congress fa- vorable to him and his views, demanded, in effect, a vote of confidence, and that the American people, 314 TALKS WITH T. R. by voting him a Republican House and a Republi- can Senate, gave him a vote of no confidence. "The vote was a repudiation of Mr. Wilson's de- sire to have a free hand, and should be, as it is, notice to the world, that there are other opinions and other persons to be considered — notice that any treaty Mr. Wilson may make will be and must be subject to scrutiny and examination, and, therefore, should be made with due regard to that provision in our Constitution giving the Senate coordinate power in treaty-making. "A league of nations per se may be a very desirable thing. It may be a very dangerous thing. It may be an instrument that will do the very thing it is de- signed to prevent — cause war and talk of war. " I see no reason — there is no reason — why we should not have a general arbitration treaty with Great Britain. I could not, would not have said that five years ago, but I can now conceive of no ques- tion that may arise between the two countries that cannot in safety be left to arbitration. Working to- gether they have the peace of the world in their hands. "I would not favor, I would not approve such a treaty with Japan. It would be dangerous. Such a treaty with Italy conceivably might be dangerous. But in such a treaty between the United States and ENGLAND AND THE WORLD 315 Great Britain there would be no danger to either party. "We have a common language and common ideals. Our laws have the same common roots. There is no question on which we can well quarrel, for our inter- ests are alike. We have nothing England is likely to wish to take away from us, and I am sure we envy England possession of nothing she has. Her navy, great though it may be, is not a menace to our com- merce. In the years before we officially recognized the fact that Germany was making war upon us, it stood between us and the consequences of a policy of unpreparedness. Talk about freedom of the seas — the British Navy has kept them free. "A general arbitration treaty with Japan is im- possible. Every one who has given the subject care- ful thought knows that. At the moment we are at peace with Japan. To-morrow, the immigration question may bring us to the edge of war again. "That question, immigration, is one that we can- not and must not undertake to arbitrate. It would not arise with England. Your immigration here is small. It is furthermore a highly desirable immigra- tion. Japan's is not desirable and is not wanted. Nor can there be arbitration on internal matters including the tariff which is an internal matter and must be so considered. With Japan, however, 3i6 TALKS WITH T. R. the danger at all times is immigration, and allied questions. "There is also objection to such a treaty with Italy. It is conceivable — in fact possible — that the time is not far distant when the United States may wish to limit or restrict immigration from Italy. I have the greatest respect for the Italian, but it is possible to get too much even of a good thing, and conceivable that the time will come when we will have all the undigested Italian immigration we may wish. Then we will wish to close the door. We could not and would not arbitrate that. "Therefore, a general arbitration agreement is not possible or desirable. An honest man will not make a contract he cannot keep. We are not yet, thank God, converted to the German idea that contracts are scraps of paper. "The only thing I can see that may make friction between the United States and Great Britain is the Irish question. That, however, is an internal ques- tion that England sooner or later must settle for her own comfort and convenience if nothing else. It is a matter that makes for trouble within the family — it is, as you know, a cause of annoyance and an issue of importance in Canada and Australia. Its clearing up will be welcomed by the Dominions, and, I be- lieve, by the people of England generally. They wish ENGLAND AND THE WORLD 317 to do justice by Ireland. Eventually they will do so." The Colonel had prefaced this talk by a word as to his condition. He received us, seated in a great arm- chair, with a dressing-robe partly concealing, partly revealing, that, save for a coat, he was fully dressed. His color was good, his voice strong, his eye clear. The only indication other than his presence in a hospital that anything was wrong was a slight swell- ing in his right arm and hand. "I'm here," he said, "mainly because I don't happen to have a town house, and it is not at all easy for the doctor who wishes to keep an eye on this inflammatory rheumatism of mine to run out to Oyster Bay. They sort of like to have me here — at least they don't object to my presence, so I 'm here. I'll leave in a few days now so as to be home for Christmas with the grandchildren." Leaving the hospital, Mr. Wilson, not exactly clear as to why Colonel Roosevelt had sent for him, asked what he should do. "I appreciate that I have been honored by Mr. Roosevelt," said he, "but I realize that he is far too busy a man to give up the large part of a morning to a visiting Englishman, merely for the sake of talking to him. Yet he was not talking for publica- tion; you know he stipulated that he was not being 3i8 TALKS WITH T. R. interviewed and must not be quoted. He made it clear, however, that you know what he has in mind and that he relies on your having that thing done. Now: what did he have in mind?" "Two things," said I. "First, he's a splendid fighter and admires courage in others. In his sending for you on the strength of your melee with the League of Small Nations, one first-class fighting man was extending the right hand of fellowship to a kin- dred spirit, and as a mark of that fellowship and his appreciation giving you information that almost any American reporter I know of would risk his right eye to get. Second, and more important. Colonel Roosevelt recognizes the vast importance of getting the real situation in America, the real Amer- ican sentiment, before the English people. You are now in a position to state very clearly what the Republican attitude is and will be, for Colonel Roosevelt is to-day the head and the voice of the Republican Party and in all human probability, as matters now stand, will be the next President. "This talk leaves you in a position to say authori- tatively, and without fear of successful challenge, just where Roosevelt and those for whom he speaks do stand. In any event, you cannot now go wrong on any despatch involving this feature of the situation. "As you will soon be in London, it may be that ENGLAND AND THE WORLD 319 you will wish to await your arrival there before writing anything, "In any event, you are in a position to tell the folks at home just how things stand here. If you write, you cannot, of course, quote Colonel Roose- velt. You may, however, say what 'friends of Colonel Roosevelt' say, or, 'persons in the confidence of Colonel Roosevelt say he feels or believes so and so.' That will be all right." On the following day I saw the Colonel again for a few minutes and told him what I had told Wilson. "Quite right," said he. "If he does that, he will help his people by giving them a real view of the way matters stand here, and that will help us. It is folly, almost criminal folly, to lead the people of Europe to expect the impossible. The awakening will be painful and the after effects bad, if they are led to believe we are prepared to surrender our nationality. We are nationalists, not internationalists, just as we are monogamists and not polygamists, and we love our country above all other countries. "Do you think Wilson clearly understood me?" I said I did. " I'm glad of that. What these fool international- ists do not see is that there are things that cannot be arbitrated, and it's not wise or honest to agree to arbitrate where one knows non-arbitrable matters 320 TALKS WITH T. R. are likely to arise. You've patiently sat through enough of my speeches to be reasonably familiar with my assertion that a man does not ask arbitra- tion when a blackguard slaps his wife's face. The Lord knows outsiders may think, after what has happened the last few years, that we are so gaited, but we are not. " I might have told Wilson that I am not concerned about the Anglo-Japanese alliance. It is of very lim- ited value to either nation, for it is an unnatural alli- ance. The real alliance, the alliance worth while, is where the parties' interests are common interests, where they think along the same broad lines and their aspirations do not conflict. Such an alliance need not be written, nor signed, nor sealed. It will stand on its own bottom and by its inherent strength. On the other hand, the written agreement, where these conditions do not attain, is never of lasting value. Can you imagine the English people siding with Japan against us? Neither can I. Nor can any other man that is sane and honest with himself and has any real knowledge of the English people. Even Hearst would have difficulty in imagining such a thing were he only approximately honest with him- self. "What I am afraid of is that this man Wilson will arouse hopes that never can be realized, and that the ENGLAND AND THE WORLD 321 United States will suffer from the resentment that must follow. Then the very crowds that acclaim him now will rise up and damn him and us along with him, and we'll be left, as we were before we asserted our manhood and went into this war, the best-hated people in Europe. "Wilson is playing a dangerous game. He's play- ing diplomacy with the most skilled diplomatists. Just now he's got all the advantage. But he is in the position of the tenderfoot with money playing poker with professional gamblers. In the beginning he has the advantage of money, they of experience. In the end they have the money and he some experience. The difference is that in one case an individual is gambling with his own, while in this case Mr. Wilson is playing with other folks' chips. If my poker terms are bad, the other members of the Charley Thomp- son Finger Club will correct you. "They will play with Mr. Wilson. They will give him a grand time, and he will, unless I am greatly mistaken, give them promises the American people will not endorse. There will be delay and confusion and in the end the thing will have to be done right. "It is, of course, possible that anything Mr. Wilson agrees to may be ratified by the Senate. But it will only make for trouble, bitter trouble later on, if promises are made that we cannot keep." 322 TALKS WITH T. R. On the death of Colonel Roosevelt I cabled Mr. Wilson in London advising him that in my opinion the time had come when he could tell the story of that Frida}^ morning in Roosevelt Hospital. I believe he made some reference to the matter, but did not go into it in detail or at any considerable length. It is not good form for one newspaper man to ask another why he did or did not do a certain thing. Therefore I have never asked my friend Wilson "why." If, however, I were to guess, I would not hesitate to say the reason for the matter not being given in full to the people of England, and through them to all Europe, was that the then editor of the London News was and is of those who worship at the shrine of Woodrow Wilson and acclaim him as the long- awaited Messiah. MR. WILSON'S "IDEALS" IT is a mistake to speak of ' Mr. Wilson's ideals ' or of Mr. Wilson as an idealist. He is merely a selfish, dishonest politician." Shortly before he died, while he was yet in Roose- velt Hospital under treatment for inflammatory rheumatism, Colonel Roosevelt so expressed himself in commenting upon news and editorial references to the President. Just bef . j he died, on the Friday before in fact, he sent a letter to Ogden Mills Reid, proprietor of the New York Tribune, protesting in much the language quoted above against an edito- rial reference in Mr. Reid's paper to Mr. Wilson's idealism. The Colonel sent Mr. Reid, of whom he was very fond, a half-bantering sort of note describing himself as "A Constant Reader" who felt he must protest against misstatement of fact. The letter was dic- tated — the Colonel could not then use the pen and therefore signed and initialled by Miss Josephine M. Strieker to the end his secretary^ and most devoted follower. Mailed in New York City, it did not reach Mr. Reid until after the Colonel had died, and was, so to speak, a voice from the tomb. *'Mr. Wilson never had an ideal in his life; he is 324 TALKS WITH T. R. merely a selfish politician," was an assertion often made by him. "One of the difficulties in the present situation [the war and immediately thereafter] is that the man in the street does not readily awaken to this fact. Nor do many of the politicians. Mr. Wilson as a politician is the master of most of them, only they do not know it. They ascribe all of his success to luck. They do not realize that much of this that they call luck is mere opportunism on his part. In so far as a thing may serve his end, he is abso- lutely unscrupulous. "A case in point is this cry on which he was re- elected : ' He kept us out of war.* No one knew better than Mr. Wilson that Germany was at war on us and that under his direction we were backing into war stern foremost. It was a catch-cry, a cry calcu- lated to attract the vote of the pacifists and the peace-at-any-price people. With its honesty, Mr. Wilson had no concern. His only interest was in the way it might work, might advance his political for- tunes. "He was as honest in this, however, as in his 'strict accountability' notes. As Br^^an is reported to have told Dumba, these notes were mainly in- tended for home consumption and were not to be taken too seriously in Berlin or Vienna. I honestly believe that Bryan gave that word to Dumba ex- THINKING IT OVER MR. WILSON'S IDEALS 315 actly as he is understood to have done and that he was entirely honest in his statement, however doubt- ful the propriety of his so doing may have been." Colonel Roosevelt many times spoke with appre- hension of the effect Mr. Wilson's policy toward Germany would have on the rising generation. "To revert back a bit," he once said, "you spoke of your boy being a hero-worshipper. All real boys, all worth-while boys, are. Do you know that one of the regrettable things about this Administration, these four years of nightmare, is the possible effect on the boys now growing up. What inspiration is this man Wilson to any boy? What sort of a boy would he be hero to? What has he done, what can any man of his type do to inspire in any boy a love of countr>^? What sort of a country would he leave a boy to be proud of and loyal to? That is one of the saddest things of the Administration. "Another thing, contempt for the man has in a way led to contempt for the office. Only the other day a gentleman spoke of hearing Wilson described in one of our best clubs in language rarely heard out- side of a bar-room. It was a shock to him. I was as thoroughly disliked while President as any man could be by certain elements that had a good reason for disliking me, but they did not hold me in contempt, and they did not hold my office in contempt." 226 TALKS WITH T. R. Much as he disliked Mr. Wilson, and he was frank in saying, " I despise the man and dislike his policies to the point of hate," as he did in describing the so- called Gary dinner, Colonel Roosevelt never abused Mr. Wilson as an individual or referred to his acts as an individual. Gossip that was common property in Washington, and the clubs and newspaper offices of the country he never referred to, and those closest to him knew better than to bring them up. The Colonel was no gossip and no friend of gossipers. The nearest approach to reference to such matters, and one of the two instances I know of where he indicated that he had knowledge of this talk, was one day when he deprecated the manner in which political foes of Mr. Wilson were fighting him. "I am not at all interested in petty gossip," said he. " It is a waste of time. The way to fight this man is in the open, smashing him anywhere along the line that he leaves an opening. It is the only way to fight him. Were I a master of ridicule, which I am not, I would rejoice in the openings he gives. Invec- tive and abuse would be, as it nearly always is, a mistake. That is particularly true now, for people will resent much of that directed against the Presi- dent. That was not always the case when I was in the White House" (this with a grin), " but it is very much the case now. MR. WILSON'S IDEALS 327 ** In time Mr. Wilson will be the best-damned man in America since the days of James Buchanan and Andy Johnson, but that time is not now. When that time comes, I shall be sorry for Mr. Wilson. He, how- ever, will not be sorry for himself. He will figuratively gather his cloak about him and from his great height look down upon and be sorrowfully contemptuous of those pigmies of mortals unable to see things as he sees and has seen them. It will never occur to him that those who have ceased to acclaim him may by any chance be right and he be wrong." Just once, and once only, did I hear the Colonel use anything like profanity toward Mr. Wilson. This was on the morning the famous Zimmermann note was made public. The Colonel had not read the morning papers when N. A. Jennings, of the New York Herald, and I called on him in his suite in the Metropolitan Magazine offices. Jennings had an early edition of the Evening Sun which he laid on the Colonel's desk. The great black headlines caught his eye and he grabbed the paper to get the high points of the despatch. In an instant he was on the other side of the desk, crushing the paper in his rage and uttering words similar to those employed by the Father of his Country at the Battle of Monmouth. In another instant, he had recovered himself. " Boys," said he with a half smile, "I'm sorry, but 328 TALKS WITH T. R. you have now heard some of the more or less — mostly less — justly famed Roosevelt profanity — some of the Roosevelt capacity to rage. I don't apolo- gize for it — this man is enough to make the saints, and the angels, yes, the apostles swear, and I would not blame them. My God, why don't he do some- thing? It is beyond me." "Oh, give him time," drawled Jennings. " In time he'll move. Everything will work out all right." ** Work out all right, yes, it will work out all right; it will have to work out all right; the American people will make it work out all right; but, oh, the cost, in blood, in treasure, in suffering, this delay, this policy of writing notes and doing nothing must in the end involve!" At this meeting the Colonel declined to speak for publication, adding that he might say something later. "Just at this moment," said he, "I feel that it is best for me to say nothing. The facts are strong enough. Let them sink in. Then it may be time for me to talk." Vastly different was the reception the Colonel gave Mr. Wilson's appeal to the country for the elec- tion of a Democratic Congress in 191 8. The appeal, printed in the early afternoon papers, sent me hiking for Sagamore Hill. The Colonel met me on the piazza. MR. WILSON'S IDEALS 329 "By Jove, Jack, I am glad to see you. It 's splendid of you to come. Yes, I've seen that appeal to the country and I 'm just delighted. " I am as pleased as Punch. It is exactly as I would have ordered it. He gives me a splendid opening, and to-morrow I will send out the fighting part of my Carnegie Hall speech." For this meeting, called to ratify the Republican State and Congressional ticket, Colonel Roosevelt had prepared a set speech which was then in the hands of the press associations. Naturally it did not touch on Mr. Wilson's appeal. "We now see the real Mr. Wilson," he went on to say. "It's not a different Mr. Wilson than the one we have known, but not the Mr. Wilson he would have us know or that all of the people have known. Every one can now see Mr. Wilson the politician in all his nakedness and minus his camouflage. "It is regrettable that any American President should see fit to make such a lamentable exhibition of himself at a time like this. It is, however, fortu- nate in that it will show the country Mr. Wilson as he is — the real Mr. Wilson. "I shall certainly take advantage of this opening in my speech Monday. " Did I ever tell you the story of the New Bedford whaling captain who, when called to account for 330 TALKS WITH T. R. knocking down the mate of another ship, explained that he did so because this man ' held himself so inviting'? Mr. Wilson has held himself very inviting. " I shall, of course, try to be very careful and not to abuse or seem to abuse him, but I certainly am grateful for this opening. I am glad the real Mr. Wilson has revealed himself." "Colonel," I suggested, "I hope you will use that expression 'the real Mr. Wilson.'" "Exactly as I used your expression on dealing with Germany — 'compounding a felony.' By the way, I am very glad we agreed to leave politics out of that statement of October 13." This was a statement in which the Colonel had set out to advise all good Americans who felt a& Senator Miles Poindexter spoke to vote the Re- publican ticket. This idea was abandoned on the ground that it left the way open to attack, and that in the course of the campaign a better opportunity for such an appeal would present itself. "To get back to the real Mr. Wilson," the Colonel went on, "I do not pretend to be able to predict what the people may do any more than I can predict the result of a great war, but I think the gentleman will find he has made a mistake. There is, however, no limit as to what he will do to get or retain power. " Do you know that they [the Democrats] are now MR. WILSON'S IDEALS 331 organizing the various national elements in this country as units that may be as anti-American as they wish so long as they are Democrats? This Americanization Commission is working along those lines. They have n't exactly lined up the pro-Ger- mans yet, but they are getting around them via the Liberty loans. "You know that various of these foreign groups kept aloof from the Liberty loans in the early days of the war. Now they have found it a cheap way to become Americanized. They take one of these groups who happens to be a Democrat, place him promi- nently on a committee, and seek to round up his fel- lows through him. It is the opposite of what should be done. " But, I tell you, I 'm as pleased as Punch over this latest of Mr. Wilson's. There'll be lots of fun in the next two years." I told Charles T. White, of the Tribune, of the Colonel's intention of being conservative in his treatment of Mr. Wilson's appeal. After the meeting, White, a veteran of many a political campaign, came to me. " I thought you said Colonel Roosevelt was going to be conservative? Why, in a nice way, he called him everything but a dog-thief. I 'm glad he was not radical if that's his idea of being conser\^ative." 2^2 TALKS WITH T. R. The Colonel laughed when I repeated this to him. ''You may tell the Honorable Charlie White," said he, "that he's a good fellow and I like him, but that until this time I never suspected him of being a mind reader. He has gauged my sentiments exactly." These sentiments, Colonel Roosevelt had previ- ously told me, were best expressed in the conclusion of his Cooper Union address at the end of the 191 6 campaign. This was the famous "ghost speech." This speech he prepared, and for once reading an address did not seem to detract from its appeal. This, by the way, was read to as mixed an audience as one would ask to find, even in Cooper Union. Most of the seats were reserved and were filled by up town folk in evening clothes for the most part. The seats not claimed by the more well-to-do were taken by the East-Siders who habitually attend everything in Cooper Union. The result was, para- doxical as the statement may seem, an audience more representative of New York than one ordi- narily finds at a political meeting. Throughout the address the Colonel was fre- quently interrupted with cheers, but it was not until the close that the real demonstration came. As he swung into the last paragraph he threw his manu- script to the floor and amidst silence as nearly abso- lute as an orator ever gets (Colonel Roosevelt was MR. WILSON'S IDEALS ^33 an orator that night at least) drew the final count in his indictment against Mr. Wilson. ''Mr. Wilson," he began, "now dwells at Shadow Lawn." In the press box one could almost feel the house pull itself together, sensing what was to come. "There should be shadows enough at Shadow Lawn," he went on, clipping off each word cleanly, as was his practice. "The shadows of men, women, and children who have risen from the ooze of the ocean bottom and from graves in foreign land. The shadows of the helpless whom Mr. Wilson did not dare protect lest he might have to face danger; the shadows of babies gasping pitifully as they sank under the waves; the shadows of women outraged and slain by bandits. "The shadows of Boyd and Adair and their brave troopers who lay in the Mexican desert, the black blood crusted around their mouths and their dim eyes looking upward because President Wilson had sent them to do a task and had then shamefully abandoned them to the mercy of the foes who know no mercy. "Those are the shadows proper for Shadow Lawn; the shadows of deeds that were never done; the shadows of brave words that were followed by no action; the shadows of the tortured dead." 334 TALKS WITH T. R. With his final gesture the house was on its feet. It was storming the platform as he reached toward the exit, throwing himself through the group on the platform after the manner of the expert in such work and in a moment was on the sidewalk boarding the car that was to take him to another meeting on the East Side. Two years later I referred to this speech in the course of a chat, saying his close was quite the best thing I had ever heard him do. "Down front," said I, "you could almost see the ghosts rising at your call." "Yes?" he answered in query form. "Well, Mr. Wilson is not dead yet. He is a very fortunate man if he does not live to be tortured by many, many ghosts." THE END CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A ?:^ 9^ v^^ v^^ "^ XV" * jf\ «» /ru - \.'^ i 4 ^ ' % V^^' '"'^^^ .V _^^' "•. < "^ "" ^'y:^.:-^^ v 0^ <. "^^d< ^--. V'-^^c/^--. V'-%c/s.., <^^'--/.''.. < /. ^ ^ '' / » ^ s - A^ <-^ ' ■> <■ ^ ^^