^^ ^ OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR COMFORT AND STRENGTH FROM THE SHEPHERD PSALM THE PREACHER-PERSUADER WEEK-DAY PRAYERS PRAYERS FOR EVENTIDE SOCIAL PLANS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WORKABLE PLANS FOR WIDE-AWAKE CHURCHES CHURCH PUBLICITY JA^ A^^ ^^^ / 5^ O ^? Roosevelt's Religion By CHRISTIAN F. REISNER .^^^^ tI)EABlree\)03^x» THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1922, by CHRISTIAN F. REISNER Printed in the United States of America mnQ72 C1A690168 TO YOUNG MEN IN THE HOPE THAT THEY MAY BE AS WISE AS WAS Mr. Roosevelt in appreciating and appropriating concrete christianity CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE President Harding's Testimony.. facing 10 Leonard Wood's Testimony facing 11 An Explanation 11 I. Theodore's Childhood Home 19 • n. His Own an Ideal Home 37 in. A Helpful Father Himself 55 IV Providentially Prepared for His Ca- 71 reer *^ V. The Essential of Success 90 VI. A Humble Self-Confidence 112 VII. A Courteous Christian Friend 135 VIII. The Brother of His People 162 IX. Public Duties Fearlessly Performed . . 184 X. Preached and Practiced High Ideals . . 204 XI. Was He a Christian? Others' Testi- mony 228 XII. Was He a Christian? His Own Testi- mony 247 XIII. A Pure and Reverent Mind 275 XIV. Drinking and Prohibition 292 XV. His Opinion of the Bible 305 XVI. Did He Join the Church? 324 XVII. Church Attendance and Work 341 Books Used as References 371 Index ^'^^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Copy of a Large Photograph Inscribed and Presented to a Sunday-School Teacher BY President Roosevelt Frontispiece FACINQ PAGE ''Bill" Sewall and a Lad from the Roose- velt Military Academy 75 The Simple Marble Slab which Marks Mr. Roosevelt's Last Resting Place 113 A Famous Trio at Chautauqua, New York: Jacob A. Riis (on Left), Theodore Roose- velt, AND (Bishop) John H. Vincent 137 The Visitors at the Grave During Thirty Minutes of an Ordinary Day 163 Mr. Roosevelt's Favorite Photograph (and THE Choice of His Closest Friends) 185 The Funeral Cortege Entering Christ Church at Oyster Bay 203 The Earnest 'Treacher" in Action 225 "Bill" Sewall's Letter Describing Mr. Roosevelt's Religion 231 Grace Reformed Church, 15th Street N. W., Near Rhode Island Avenue, Washing- ton^ D. C 235 Grace Reformed Church (Interior Views) . . 249 10 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The Bible Presented to Vice-President Roosevelt by the Harvard Republican Club 305 Mr. Roosevelt's Outline of a Talk Given to a Bible Class in Oyster Bay 312 The Inscription Prepared by Mr. Roosevelt FOR THE New Testament Given to Sol- diers Going Overseas ; 321 The Oyster Bay Home (Christ) Church 329 Two Church Doors 343 WARREN G. HARDING MARION. OHIO. January 6, 19£1. Bev. Christian F. Reisner, 650 West 157th St., Hew York City, Dear Sir: — Replying to your letter Deoemher 2l8t in which you request some expression from me concerning my impressions of "Theodore Boosevelt the Christian" - Permit me to say that I am convinced that Theodore Roosevelt had a devout helief in God and though a consistent churchman he never paraded his helief , hut it was evident in his writings, in his speeches and in hie conduct. His clean personal life is the hest proof of his faith and belief. That he was a close student of the Bihle was hut natural since he was ever a seeker after Truth, Unquestionably he believed in prayer, not only as a means of grace, but as a personal help and consolation. Yours truly 'V^^»^5^ Personal •. Fort Sheridan, Illinois, January Twelfth. Hineteen Q?nenty-Ons. Sear Dr. Beisser: Answering yotir letter of the tenth: ^Theodore EooseTOlt v/as a true Christian. Ho "believed In CrOd, and that all peoples must have XpiZ4^^^ that a nation forsaking its religion is a decadent nsftion. He was a church- goer, as an evidence of his failii and for ptirpose of worship. His life, his ideals and his acts established his faith in God. He was a reader of the Bible, I have no recollection of hearing him tatee the nan© of God in vain, I "believe that he gathered many of his ethical ideals from the Scriptures, His cotirage was maintained "by his sense of ri^teousnessand justice. He was clean in thou^t and speech; a man of "broad syn5)athy, a sycjjathy limited neither "by race nor creed. He was a doer of good works, and a strenuous advocate of those principles which are laid dowa in the Commandments* / Sincerely yotxrs, r\ ^l/t>upu\ i-Ki-'V^ Dr. Giristian P. Resiner, 550 W. 157th Street, Kew York City. AN EXPLANATION A RECENTLY published bibliography containing a list of over five hundred books and pamphlets about and by Theodore Roosevelt contains not a single arti- cle, pamphlet, or book about Mr. Roosevelt's religion. Religion was the heart of his life, the creator of his ideals, the sustainer of his courage, the feeder of his faith, and the fountain of his wisdom. Without religion the greatness of Mr. Roosevelt is inex- plicable. He was a typical and outstanding Amer- ican because he did have a vital religious faith and a daily practice consistent with it. Gladstone near the end of his life said : I have been in public life fifty-eight years, and forty- seven in the Cabinet of the British government, and during these forty-seven years I have been associated with sixty of the master minds of the country and all but five were Christians. All history will show that pure religion builds the greatest leaders of earth. To find a truly great man is to find a ^an with faith in the Father-God and one who has consciously or unconsciously followed the program of Jesus. American history was made by Christians — and this term is not used in a narrow, sectarian sense. It is employed in the spirit of the Great Teacher who, when the disciples reported that they checked one who was "casting out devils" because he "followed 11 12 AN EXPLANATION not with us" told them, '^Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us." The Pilgrim Fathers began the New England colony with prayer. Our first constitutional conven- tion at Benjamin Franklin's suggestion, opened its sessions with a religious service. Washington of- fered petitions in secluded places in the forest. Abraham Lincoln sent for Bishop Simpson, that they might pray together at critical times. William McKinley in his death hour gave a new meaning to the forgiveness of enemies. When the Titanic car- ried down the brave American men who had sent the women away safely in the lifeboats, the band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as the ship sank. The three generals who led the Allied forces to vic- tory were General Foch, a devout Koman Catholic, who prayed much daily; General Haig, a faithful Presbyterian ; and General Pershing, who was reared in the Methodist Church and is now a communicant in the Protestant Episcopal Church. All agree that there were no atheists in the trenches. A careful investigation will show that the great men of America are believers in God and in the brotherhood of man as exemplified by the Father's Son, who came to earth and lived among men. Men are not rewarded for their "faith" in an ar- bitrary way, but such faith and training develops and equips big men and sustains them under strain. ' The promise was "Seek first the kingdom of God" — the rulership of the Christ spirit— and "all things shall.be added unto you," and that promise is liter- ally fulfilled. AN EXPLANATION 13 Theodore Koosevelt stands out as the towering, unquestioned illustration of the size and kind of, men pure religion builds. He was strongly human and yet devout, admittedly imperfect and yet sin- cerely seeking the truth, notably self-confident and yet avowedly a worshipful disciple of the humble Teacher of Galilee. He went away from earth carry-; ing the diploma of a completed life course, and hence is a beckoning example to all who would think widely, contest successfully, serve steadily, live hap- pily, and cross the river at the end triumphantly. The words of many witnesses following various vocations have been freely and frequently quoted be- cause the important subject of religion dare not be left either to an author's declarations or even to his interpretation of quotations. The evidence pre- sented will be recognized as conclusive. The author desires to express his appreciation to the publishers of the following volumes for their courtesy in permitting unusual liberty in quoting from Mr. Koosevelt's writings : Theodore Roosevelt^ the Man as I Knew Him. By Ferdinand C. Iglehart. The Christian Herald, Pub- lishers. ^'BilV Setvairs Story of Theodore Roosevelt, By William Wingate Sewall. Harper & Brothers, Pub- lishers. The Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt. By Herman Hagedorn. Harper & Brothers, Publishers. Theodore Roosevelt. By William Roscoe Thayer. Houghton Mifflin Company, Publishers. Theodore Roosevelt, the Logic of His Career. By U AN EXPLANATION Charles G. Washburn. Houghton MifOin Company, Publishers. Talks With T. R. By John J. Leary, Jr. Hough- ton Mifflin Company, Publishers. The Life of Theodore Roosevelt. By William Draper Lewis. John C. Winston Company, Pub- lishers. Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt. By Lawrence F. Abbott. Doubleday, Page & Company, Publishers. Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man. By James Morgan. The Macmillan Company, Pub- lishers. Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. By Jacob Riis. The Macmillan Company, Publishers. Personal Memoirs of the Home Life of the Late Theodore Roosevelt. By Albert Loren Cheney. Cheney Publishing Company, Publishers. American Ideals and Other Essays. By Theodore Roosevelt. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers. Roosevelt, His Life Meaning and Messages, Vol. I —The Roosevelt Policy. The Current Literature Company, Publishers. The Many-Sided Roosevelt. By George William Douglas. Dodd, Mead & Company, Publishers. From the Jungle Through Europe icith Roosevelt. By John O'Laughlin. Chappie Publishing Company, Ltd., Boston, Publishers. RealizaUe 7(Zea?s— The Earl Lectures, delivered under the auspices of the Pacific Theological Semi- nary. By Theodore Roosevelt. Whitaker & Ray- Wiggin Co., Publishers, San Francisco. AN EXPLANATION 15 Theodore Roosevelt as an Undergraduate. By Donald Wilhelm. John W. Luce & Co., Publishers, While Mr. Koosevelt had a profound and workable creed, he seldom talked about or detailed it. Yet he lived a very definite one. Theories interested him very little; he demanded practice. He agreed with James: *'I will show you my faith by my works." Nevertheless, he emphasized the necessity of faith and worship. New York's children, uninstructed, might decide that trees are not necessary to furnish fruit; there is such an abundance in the stores. One is prone to conclude after reading the many high-sounding phrases divorced from any mention of God, about "right," "honesty," "service," "the Golden Rule," and "morality," that these grew in the air or were self-existent entities. These words have full meaning only in Christian communities. Every ideal with power in it or moral word which possesses red blood, grew on the tree called religion. Where there is no religion, or God, or church, there is no moral practice, progress, or security. Mr. Roosevelt said, "A churchless community is a com- munity on the rapid downgrade." Again he said, "Every sensible man believes in and practices re- ligion." To take God out of consideration when viewing Mr. Roosevelt's life is to mislead the people and lessen the permanency of his influence. Without a religious training similar to that which he and his associates received and followed, there will be no leaders of caliber and strength to succeed the pres- 16 AN EXPLANATION ent-day leaders; teachers and parents must realize that or fail at their task. The child without a re- ligious training is unfitted to meet life's problems successfully. Eeligion does not consist alone of prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance. While necessary for ripest development, they are but sunshine, rain, and soil which feed the roots of faith and enable the character to bear fruit in words and deeds of right- eousness. Neither does any religion require humans who profess it to be without flaw or periods of failure. The orchard is not dug up because it bears some scrubby fruit, or even if it fails to produce for one whole season. Americanism is often cheapened by hypocrites; none of us reach our highest ideals as citizens, and yet we do not refrain from profess- ing to be an "American" on this account. It is un- fair to demand that those who announce themselves as pupils in the school of Christ, by professing to be Christians, should be flawless. This book will review all phases of Mr. Koose- velt's life but with the single purpose of exhibiting his religious traits. His ordinary faults will be taken for granted. No one will conclude, therefore, that he had no temptations or failures or lapses from a perfect Christian standard because they are not presented. His religion is traced back to his childhood, fol- lowed in his own home, discovered in his ideals, teachings, and activities, and confidently identified in his church affiliations and advocacies. The ma- terial has been gathered from biographies and arti- AN EXPLANATION 17 cles, the writings and addresses of Mr. Roosevelt and from interviews with such high authorities as Mrs. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, the Hon. Oscar Straus, Dr. Lyman Abbott, General Leonard Wood, President Nicholas Murray Butler, Gifford Pinchot, W. Emlen Roosevelt (his cousin), William Loeb, Mr. McGrath, Dr. Alex. Lambert, ''Bill" Sewall, H. L. Stoddard, A. G. Van Valkenburg, and Major George Haven Putnam. Mr. Roosevelt was reared in a deeply religious^ home and gave his children a similar training. He joined the church at sixteen and attended regularly. He was a close student of the Bible, chose religious ^ men as associates, and accepted many of the ''mys- tical" elements of religion. He said, "I have had to deliver a good many lay sermons." And Bruce Barton wrote: "Why was it that with all his faults we loved Theodore Roosevelt so well? He preached at us disturbingly, but he practiced what he preached." Mr. Morley said of him, "He has many of Napoleon's qualities: indomitable courage, tireless perseverance, great capacity for leadership, and one thing that Napoleon never had — high moral purpose." He had ideals of duty and lived and en- forced them. He was pure in heart, mind, and tongue and reverent always; he never even took God's name in vain. He asserted that "Every man who is a Christian should join some church." He de- fended and supported both foreign and home mis- , sions. He obeyed Paul's injunction, "Redeeming the time" (Eph. 5. 16). This is translated by some 18 AN EXPLANATION "buying up opportunity/' or, as Moffatt translates it, "Make the very most of your time." He never wasted a moment. For example, every day after tramping and hunting in Africa, though very weary, with dogged persistence he wrote his articles for Scrib- ners and dispatched them by three different "run- ners," so that at least one would get through. He always forged straight forward, following "his lights," though at times he walked almost alone. He literally had the more "abundant life" promised be- lievers. He fearlessly and buoyantly met the issue of every day and lived it full, allowing the next to take care of itself. He indeed appropriated the words written by Victor Hugo : "Let us be like the bird New lighted on a twig that swings: He feels its sway but sings on unaffrighted, Knowing he has his wings." 0^Q^^tA^^ CHAPTER I THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME "Then papa and I went for a long roam in the woods and had Sunday school in them. I drew a church, and I am now going to bed." — Theodore Roosevelt. Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. — Prov. '22. 6. MR. ROOSEVELT'S mixed ancestry made him a notable illustration of a distinctive Christian doctrine — namely, the common brotherhood of all humanity. And he never forgot that suggestive fact. His paternal ancestor came to America as a steerage passenger in 1644 from Hol- land. He found in the environs of New York four hundred or five hundred people who spoke eighteen different languages : already the land was cosmopoli- tan. After that for seven generations every son was born on Manhattan Island. Mr. Roosevelt frequently recalled the fact that many nationalities were merged in him. He once said: I myself represent an instance of fusion of several dif- ferent stocks, my blood most largely Lowland Scotch, next to that Dutch, with a strain of French Huguenot and of Gaelic, my ancestors having been here for the most part of two centuries. My Dutch forebears kept their blood practically unmixed until the days of my grandfather, and his father was the first in the line to use English as the invariable home tongue. 19 20 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION His ancestors set him an example of public serv- ice. A great-uncle of Roosevelt, Nicholas J., shared with Fulton the honor of developing the steamboat. Two ancestors were aldermen in the New York Dutch Village of early days and legislated to open the street which bears their name. Another, Isaac Roosevelt, sat in the constitutional convention with Alexander Hamilton. A Roosevelt started one of the first banks in New York and was its president. From his mother's side he had Welsh, Irish, and German blood. Her forebears came to Pennsylvania with William Penn, though she herself was born in Georgia. Mr. Roosevelt himself testifies to the remarkable influence of his Christian father when he tells us that very early the children were taught that girls and boys must have the "same standard of clean liv- ing," for what was wrong for a woman was equally culpable for a man. In his Pacific Theological Lec- tures he says : "If the man preaches and practices a different code of morality for himself than that which he demands his wife shall practice ... he is fundamentally a bad citizen." In writing to Edward S. Martin on November 20, 1920, Mr. Roosevelt emphasized the masculinity of his father, together with the tenderness and purity of his nature. He recalled the fact that while his father recognized him to be a sickly and timid boy, he did not coddle him but trained him to hold his own with older boys and to be ready to do some of the rough work of the world. His father insisted that if he were "decent" and manly at the same time, THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 21 the respect for his manliness would keep others from ridiculing his decency. The teaching and char- acter of his father created such a love and respect that he says, "I would have hated and dreaded be- yond measure to have him know that I had been guilty of a lie, or of cruelty, or of bullying or of un- cleanness or of cowardice." Mr. Roosevelt's father had a character which commanded a righteous respect. He administered corporal punishment only once to Theodore, who had bitten his sister Anna's arm. He hid first m the yard and then under the kitchen table, hoping thus to avoid the punishment he knew was merited. His father followed him on all fours under the table. The culprit rushed out, flung at his father a handful of dough which he grabbed off the table, and ran for the stairs. But here he was intercepted and re- ceived a punishment which he ^^remembered." Mr. Roosevelt summed up his whole estimate of his father in the words, ^^My father, Theodore Roose- velt, was the best man I ever knew." His father had a remarkable influence on him. Some of Theodore's firm traits and activities are, therefore, understood when one reviews the father's life. The Rev. Dr. James M. Ludlow, who was the senior Roosevelt's pastor for several years, told me; Mr Roosevelt, Sr., was a very companionable man. He was naturally aristocratic but never snobbish. Mrs. Roose- velt was dignified and retiring, but a very sweet woman who always won her way. The sister, Miss Gracey, was much like her. Mr. Roosevelt was always very active in movements for reform. He was passionate in his attacks on evil He exhibited an easy control except when some 22 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION notable wrong was called to his attention. He then became a bundle of wrath. He was a prophet of righteousness, and he would not mince matters in going after sinners high or low. His son constantly reminded me of him in this respect. Mr. Roosevelt was very loyal to the memory of his father. His uncle, R. B. Roosevelt, was nominated as a Presidential elector by the Democrats, to which party he belonged, but he declined to serve, out of regard for his nephew, who was at that time the Re- publican candidate. Later he was President Roose- velt's guest at his inaugural, and on his return he received a letter from the President, expressing per- sonal gratification that the uncle had attended the inauguration, both for his own sake and also be- cause he so vividly reminded him of his own father. He showed that the presence of his father was never forgotten, for he wrote, "How I wish father could have lived to see it too!" Theodore, Sr., was normally a Republican, but he could not stand the rule of the bosses who collected from the corporations and refused to walk uprightly, and he arraigned them vigorously. President Hayes admired his independence and nominated him for collector of the Port of New York, but the bosses, un- willing to see the highest Federal office in the gift of the state held by a man they could not control, kept the Senate from confirming him, and so he never filled the office. His father did not enter the Civil War as an actual fighter, though he was a Lincoln Republican and heartily backed the Ujiion. He had married a woman THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 23 heartily in sympathy with the Confederacy and was therefore compelled to exercise rare powers of con- ciliation and charity. This situation also provi- dentially prepared the son to merge the North and South together. He nevertheless rendered priceless aid to the Union cause, so that in spite of a divided home concerning the war, Theodore grew up in a "loyal" household. His activities were so eminently ''social" that their influence is recognized in the son's ideals. Mr. Koosevelt, Sr., proposed and carried to success State and national legislation to enable the soldiers to allot part of their salaries to their families so that it would be paid directly to them. He traveled and talked and finally lived for three months in Washington to get the bill passed. Congressmen in those days could not understand how any man should desire legislation without a selfish purpose, and for a time they watched him suspiciously. But his high standing finally removed that suspicion. He was appointed one of the New York State Commission- ers and visited the various camps in the State, riding six or eight hours a day on horseback to do so. He then stood in the snow and slush pleading with the soldiers to sign over some of their pay to their starv- ing families. He often found the soldiers hardened into utter listlessness concerning home folk, but he urged in mass meeting and by individual appeal until he secured their signatures. The sutlers, who wanted to get the soldiers' money for rum, opposed him persistently. Theodore, Junior, imbibed an in- tense patriotism, for his father worked with the 24 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION "Loyal Publication Society," which scattered in- formation about the causes of the war and the right- eousness of the Union's side. It was badly needed in New York, not always loyal in those days. He was one of the first members of the Union League Club, which club aided in raising and equipping the first Negro regiment. War charity, as usual, led to vast waste ; he initi- ated methods to systematize the expenditures and reduce the waste. He called conferences of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, and finally succeeded in organizing a city and then a State Board of Charities and became its first president. He was also an active worker on the Advisory Board of the Woman's Central Association of Re- lief, formed in Cooper Union the latter part of April, 1861, to furnish supplies and nurses to weak, sick, and injured soldiers. This grew into the Sani- tary Commission and ultimately into the American Red Cross. Then too he did much to aid the unemployed and unprotected soldiers in their attempt to get started in civilian life. Thousands of soldiers had drifted into New York city and could find no way to support themselves. He organized in his own home the "Soldiers' Employ- ment Bureau." This bureau also aided crippled soldiers to find fitting vocations. Many of these soldiers had not received their salaries from the gov- ernment, and grafting agents were buying their claims and exacting heavy fees. For their protection he helped form the "Protective War Claims Asso- THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 25 elation/' which aided the soldiers without charge and saved them over one million dollars in fees. He was particularly interested in preventing cruelty to children and to animals and encouraged various organizations working along these lines. He gave much time to the Newsboys' Lodging Houses, which were effective in keeping the boys off the street, where they were prone to learn criminal-making habits. Every Sunday evening he spent at one of these homes. One orphan boy picked up on the street was located on a Western farm with foster parents by Mr. Roosevelt, Sr. The lad, afterward grown into unusual ability, greeted President Roosevelt as Governor Brady, of Alaska, and told him of the father's helpfulness. The Rev. Dr. Ludlow recounted a characteristic incident of the father to the writer, that reminds one of the President: A distinguished group of men was being entertained at dinner by Mr. Roosevelt, the father, and I was included as his pastor. He was very orderly and observant of all the nicest customs on such an occasion. His servants were well trained, his bearing was that of an old-school gentle- man, and he was very punctilious about such a dignified dinner. The butler with much hesitation appeared and whispered to the host. Mr. Roosevelt grew red in the face but stopped the dinner service and asked to be excused. In about ten minutes he returned and proposed to tell us why he left. We assured him that it was not necessary but he insisted. He said: "You know I am interested in the news- boys' home. I told the boys that if they had any trouble In getting ready for Christmas to come up and see me. I overheard one lad say: 'He's just kidding you. That bloke wouldn't see you at his fine home.' Well, one of the 26 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION boys came a few moments ago. Though I never leave a din- ner party, I had to do so for these lads. I could, if neces- sary, lose your respect, but I must not lose my grip on these boys." George Haven Putnam declares : ^'It was to the initiative and unselfish cooperation of Theodore's father and uncle that the city owes the Roosevelt Hospital." Mrs. Robinson talked to me about Mr. Roosevelt, Sr., and his good-Samaritan work and teaching : My sister Anna (afterward Mrs. Cowles, the wife of the Admiral) suffered from spinal trouble. There was then little hope for one thus afflicted. Usually the patients must lie still in bed until frequently they lost the use of their limbs. But father became interested in a young doctor, Charles Fayette Taylor, who proposed the modern treatment with braces. Father tried to found a hospital for this kind of treatment but failed to secure financial support, until he gave a reception at our home. He had the little sufferers brought and laid on the dining room table so that the braces could be seen and the curative effects be established. My father placed me by the table to show and explain the method. Mrs. John Jacob Astor was thus convinced and promised aid. Others did the same. And thus my father was able to get the first orthopaedic hospital started. The suffering of his own child gave him such sym- pathy for others that he opened the door of help to the afflicted ones. He further aided a movement to provide quarters for lunatics in city hospitals, and another to secure systematic care for dependent orphans and delin- quent children, and others to provide for decent care for vagrants and protective tenement-house laws. THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 27 He was indeed "full" of good works. He was also a loyal and hopeful supporter of the Y. M. C. A. All of these movements he explained to Theodore, Jr., for the boy was his close associate and often accom- panied him to the meetings and missions where the various subjects were discussed. Such a life of help- fulness, backed by an earnest Christian faith, could not fail to impress the son. It was not to be wondered that the "son" later fathered the "Progressive" party social program. The father died while still in his prime at forty- six; Theodore was only nineteen. A eulogy at the time described him as a "man of untiring energy and of prodigious industry, the most valiant fighter of his day for the right, and the winner of his fights. He was a tireless helper of the helpless." A set of resolutions adopted by the Union League Club said : "His life was a stirring summons to the men of wealth, of culture, and of leisure in the community to a more active participation in public affairs." Mr. Roosevelt said that his mother was "a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and beloved by everybody. She was en- tirely 'unreconstructed' to the day of her death." She was never reconciled to the defeat of the Confed- eracy. Her father's house was in the line of Sherman's march to the sea, and everything portable was car- ried away. While he was in the White House an old soldier sent Mr. Roosevelt a book which had been taken from the grandfather's library during that raid. 28 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Theodore early understood the divided loyalty in his home during the Civil War and recalled a time when he aroused his mother by praying for the suc- cess of the Union. He describes the incident when "I attempted a partial vengeance by praying with loud fervor for the success of the Union armies when we all came to say our prayers before my mother in the evening." His mother, while loyal to the cause, also had a strong sense of humor and did not punish him, but warned him that the next time his father would be informed and that meant serious punish- ment; he did not repeat the offense. The ''father'' felt keenly his wife's attitude but was lovingly pa- tient about it and illustrated to his children the possibility of harmony amidst diverse views. The old-fashioned home out of which have come the stalwart soldiers of righteousness and the prophetic leaders in America had in it a definite worship of a personal God. The modern home without a vital religion in it is much less influential than the old kind, even if its theological conceptions were some- what crude. Mrs. Robinson in a happy interview described the joyful "family prayer" hour which was observed : Father always had family prayer just before breakfast every morning. It was a joy to us all and never a burden. He would call cheerily, "Come to prayers." Each one of the children would then endeavor to be the first one to call out, "I speak for you and the cubby hole too." The first one to call this secured the seat of honor, which was lo- cated between the head of the old-fashioned sofa and father. Here he or she sat while he read the morning les- son from the Bible. He had a religion of brightness and THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 29 gayety. It gave cheer. It was never black nor did it have any sympathy with depressing and fearful forebodings. In fact, father attended Dr. Adams' church in the early days because he preached a God of love; he talked much about heaven and omitted the current doctrine of hell. He de- scribed a Christ who came to make mankind happy. God was very real and near to my father. The spiritual life was a very normal thing in this home. Bible-reading was a regular and reverential practice. Religious questions were treated as any others that might come up. Even a Sunday school could be held while on a "tramp," as is shown by a reference in Theodore's diary quoted by Mr. Hage- dorn while touring Europe and during a stop in Vienna : "Then papa and I went for a long roam through the woods and had Sunday school in them. I drew a church and I am now going to bed." W. Emlen Roosevelt told me that this intelligent interest in the Bible began with Theodore's grand- father : I can vividly remember our (Theodore's and my) grand- father. He too had retired from business. In his later years he did not attend church very regularly but spent much time in his room alone with the Bible. He would talk with various types of people about Scripture passages. He read religious papers and was constantly studying re- ligion in its broader aspects. Theodore'fi father made it a practice to set apart one day every week to be spent in visiting and cheer- ing the poor and less fortunate. He would normally allow no day to pass without some act of kindness to his credit. He withdrew more and more from 30 KOOSEVELT'S EELIGION business until he was entirely out of it so that he could and did give all of his time to helping folks. Theodore said of his father : I remember seeing him going down Broadway, staid and respectable business man as he was, with a poor little sick kitten in his pocket, a waif which he had picked up in the street. Mrs. Robinson told me about her father's success in distributing tracts : My father took great satisfaction in circulating tracts or pamphlets on religious subjects. They were much in vogue in that day. He would follow them up. I recall a case where he persuaded a boy to read one of these tracts. He then followed it up with a call on the boy, who lived in an obscure tenement house. Father saw that the boy had read the tract to his mother. He then talked with the family about religion and persuaded the whole family to attend church, and they became regular too. The animal spirits of childhood were guided, not suppressed, and so goodness was nurtured by a happy home life. In the winter time the Roosevelt family lived at 28 East Twentieth Street. The old home is now being restored to its original condition by an organization of patriotic women. In the summer the whole family went to the country, where they had as pets cats, dogs, rabbits, a raccoon, and a Shetland pony called "General Grant," for whom the Presi- dent's Children thirty years afterward named their pony. On Christmas Eve each child borrowed the largest stocking in the house and hung it near the chimney. Early next morning they trooped into THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 31 their parents' room and emptied their stockings on the bed. After breakfast the larger presents were viewed in the drawing room. Mr. Roosevelt once said, "I never knew anyone else have what seemed to me such attractive Christmases, and in the next gen- eration I tried to reproduce them exactly for my own children." It was the product of a real Christian home. Dr. Ludlow related an incident which explains Mr. Roosevelt's early interest in the Police Depart- ment, and which enforces the fact that he early found the representatives of religion congenial : Theodore frequently visited me in my study. One morn- ing, when he was about sixteen, a woman asked me to call on her dying mother. When I proposed going immediately, she urged delay until three p. m. That aroused suspicion that there was a frame-up to blackmail me, and so I asked Theodore if he would accompany me, and we made the call at once. There was no sickness. The people were crooked and hoped to extort money. When Theodore learned this fact, he said, "1 wish I were a policeman, so that I could hit this." While President he told Governor Fort that this first gave him a desire to enter the Police Department, which bore full fruit when he accepted the commissionership. Even as a boy he was tremendously energetic when answering a call of duty. It is related that Theodore's father was once con- gratulated by his pastor upon the meaning of his son's name — ''gift of God." "Suppose we change it a little, and call it a gift to God?" said the father. He accepted fatherhood as a serious responsibility. Mrs. Robinson recalled for me the home customs which gave religious training to the children: 32 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Each child bowed at mother's knee to say the "Now I lay me" prayer and the "Our Father." My grandmother Bulloch was also at our house during a part of our child- hood and joined "Aunt Gracey" in giving us religious train- ing. Aunt Gracey started to teach Theodore his letters at three years of age and at the same time led him to begin memorizing hymns and psalms. Our father went farther and taught us the meaning of various verses in the Bible. At the five o'clock Sunday hour [detailed in another chap- ter] we described the sermon we had heard in the morning. This helped us to listen for the purpose of repeating, to seek the best method of expression, and to love the Bible. We each read aloud out of our own Bible. What our father there taught us was worked into our life afterward. The first notable book which impressed and in- fluenced Theodore as a little lad was Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, This account of the courageous apostle of Christ who was a naturalist and a missionary and explorer in Africa, and who was found by Henry M. Stanley, and who later died on the shore of Lake Bangweolo, having slipped away while on his knees in prayer, awakened Theodore's imagination and lifted his ideals. His sisters delighted in telling how he went about carrying a big volume of Livingstone's works, asking everyone he met to explain to him about ^'foraging ants." Finally the little fellow attracted attention, and they found that Livingstone had re- ferred merely to "foregoing ants." He evidently was guided in his reading, for he paid high praise to the influence of a certain periodi- cal called "Our Young Folks," which he said "in- stilled the individual virtues" and enforced the fact THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 33 that "character" was the chief requisite for success. He then affirmed that all the modern moralizations and the wisdom of men could not change this fact, for a worthy citizen, above everything else, must have the right traits in himself, such as "self-reli- ance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights, and the sympathy which makes him regardful of the rights of others." This, he said, he was taught by his reading at home and at Harvard. Mr. Roosevelt, Sr., regularly attended, during the holiday season, a dinner at the Newsboys' Lodging House and often Miss Satterj^'s Night School for Little Italians. He took Theodore and the other children to these meetings and to various Christian missions, and required them to help in a hearty way that might remove any air of superiority. These associations gave them an intimate view of the poor, which, when added to their knowledge of the rich, gave them breadth. Theodore's father always taught a class in a mis- sion Sunday school. On the way to this work he would stop and leave his own children at the Sunday school connected with Dr. Adams' Presbyterian Church on Madison Square. Afterward this church had as pastor the vigorous opponent of Tammany, Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst. Roosevelt gave his father's example as the occasion for his own activity as a Sunday-school teacher in a Mission where he worked for three years until go- ing to Harvard. In Cambridge he first taught a class in an Episcopal and then in a Congregational school. He declared, "I do not think I made much of 34 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION a success of the 7 years work." But this he admitted was disproved when he recognized a Taxi driver as a former member of his class who informed him that he ^'was an ardent Bull Mooser." Piety and activity in the church during the days of Mr. Roosevelt's youth were only expected of the ef- feminate or those anticipating an early death. He probably noticed this feeling, for he remembered the conditions then prevalent as late as 1900, when he explained that it was uncommon for college men in his day to teach a Sunday-school class. They also looked down upon one who did, so he determined to offset this false estimate by being a ^'corking" boxer, a good runner, and a genial member of the Porcelain Club. He affirmed that while he enjoyed them as sports, yet his deepest purpose was to be so furnished that no one should ''laugh at me with impunity be- cause I was decent." Jacob A. Riis relates that one Sunday while at Harvard Theodore noticed that a boy in his Sunday- school class had a black eye. On inquiring he found that the lad had received it in giving punishment to a boy who had been ugly to his sister. Mr. Roosevelt commended him and gave him a dollar bill as a re- ward. The minister of the church reproved the teacher for thus encouraging fighting and asked for his resignation. He acquiesced, but, like a good soldier and unlike some weak slackers in church work who would have relaxed into idleness with ''hurt" feelings, Theodore went to another church and there asked for and taught another class. Mr. Roosevelt put high value on the training he THEODORE'S CHILDHOOD HOME 35 received in his own home, for he affirmed, "I left college and entered the big world, owing more than I can express to the training I had received, espe- cially in my home.'' Mr. Thayer, who was his schoolmate and close friend at Harvard and later his biographer, also testified to the moral stability thus insured : The quiet but firm teaching of his parents bore fruit in him- he came to college with a body of rational moral principles which he made no parade of. but obeyed in- stinctively. And so, where many young fellows are thrown off their balance on first acquiring the freedom which col- lege life gives or are dazed and distracted on first hearing the babel of strange philosophies or novel doctrines, he walked straight, held himself erect, and was not fooled into mistaking novelty for truth, or libertinism for man- liness. Dean Lewis wrote me : ^'Unquestionably his adult ideals were essentially the ideals of his mother and father." Dr. Alexander Lambert, who while his physician for twenty years was also his intimate friend, and who himself is a member of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, said to me: Theodore received his ideals from his father, who was a deeply religious man. His father transmitted to him the full Christian doctrine of righteousness, and Theodore followed it through his whole life in word and deed. Mrs. Kobinson affirmed her father to be an in- spired man in his influence on Theodore : My father was more than a religious man, he was an in- 36 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION spired man. He gave my brother all the big things of his character and added to that the inculcation of a patient persistency built on absolute confidence in the outcome. In an address at the old home site she said : When this home has been restored I will place in the bedroom the suite which my father and mother used. Into this room my brother came every night to say his prayers at my mother's knee. Then she added : '^Those of you who have helped to restore this home will some day be as proud of it as were those in later years who helped restore Mount Vernon." Why will they be proud ? Because it is to be made a center of Americanization work. That will nat- urally lead to recollections of the methods employed to build this towering American. Then they must remember that those methods were inseparably wrapped up in a Christian home, and that every night the boy came into the bedroom to say his prayers at his mother's knee, and that every morning the family gathered for "prayers," and that the Bible and church attendance were never neglected in that household. Religious education is indispensable to the build- ing of such Americans as Theodore Roosevelt. CHAPTER II HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME "I ask you men and women to act in all relations of life ... as you hope to see your sons and daughters act if you have brought them up rightly." — Theodore Roosevelt. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord.— Gen. 18. 19. MB. ROOSEVELT'S Letters to His Children alone present conclusive evidence of an ideal and Christian home life. The Rev. C. L. Slattery, D.D., rector of Grace Church, New York, These letters reveal a beautiful picture of American family life at its best. For parents who think themselves too busy (chiefly with their own pleasure) to give any special attention to their children, delegating them unin- terruptedly to nurses, governesses, and schoolmasters, it must be startling to read what the most active President of the United States was able to do for and with his chil- dren while he lived in the White House. Mr. Roosevelt did not rear his children amidst soft splendor but in the atmosphere of Christian sim- plicity and sturdy hardihood. This furnished a good foundation for a sane religious training. The house in which Mr. Roosevelt lived stood on a hill 37 38 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION near Oyster Bay overlooking Long Island Sound, and was surrounded by a farm of eighty acres. The trees were cleared in front of the house, thus giving a fine view of the water, while they were otherwise thick enough to shut off neighboring houses and thus give privacy. Through- out the interior easy-chairs and couches invited re- pose. The large living room was filled with trophies of his hunting trips. No worry or friction disturbed the restfulness of its harmony. He broke the mo- notony and kept his body sturdy by long rides on the country roads, chopped trees, or tramped through woods, or raced or romped with the children in the cleared space. While never a rich man, yet his in- come in later life would easily have secured a more imposing and commodious house and grounds; but he made few changes. He early found the secret of contentment in simplicity of life, and that added to a household in which pure love and sympathy reigned while God was worshiped and reverenced, made a very happy home. When he came into the White House, Mr. Roose- velt warned the newspaper men that they must not infringe on the privacy of his home by mentioning Mrs. Roosevelt or any intimate home details in their articles. The correspondent not observing this re- quest was told that he would not receive any of the President's communications nor would he or any other representative of that paper be allowed in the White House. His family thus escaped an exasperat- ing newspaper notoriety, which has spoiled so many children. HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 39 One daily paper broke this rule in a most irritating manner. It is reported that the Eoosevelt children had amused themselves by chasing a turkey over the White House grounds with a hatchet and finally killed it. The story was doubtless fathered by one of his enemies who hoped to picture the episode as a natural outcome of electing a President with a Wild West record. The President was furious at the implication that he could be such a cruel father and poor sportsman as to teach or permit his chil- dren to enjoy such a barbarous pastime. The re- porter who invented the tale and all other repre- sentatives of that paper were permanently shut out from the White House. The warm and delightful home life experienced by Mr. Roosevelt is only possible where Christ's rules are followed. Mrs. Roosevelt was an ideal home- maker, markedly domestic, and notably religious. She was a woman of rare judgment, whose advice her husband sought and usually followed. He once said to Mr. Stoddard: "When I go against Mrs. Roosevelt's judgment, I usually go wrong. You know I never make an important move without first consulting her." Writing Kermit in November, 1904, Mr. Roosevelt recounted the fact that he was very "proud and happy" over the "day of greatest triumph I ever had," which referred to his election as President. He then explains his satisfaction that during the time when his election seemed in doubt he was comforted by the fact that "the really important thing was the lovely life I have with mother and you children, 40 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION and that compared to this home life everything else was of very small importance from the standpoint of happiness." He steadily hoped that the day might come when public duties would allow him to enjoy his home un- disturbed. In 1910 when some charged that he craved the limelight he wrote William Allen White that he craved the quiet of his home where he had just spent five of the happiest weeks he had enjoyed in many years in the companionship of Mrs. Roose- velt. He had relished "our books and pictures and bronzes and big wood fires and horses to ride," and the assurance that "the children are doing well." A very intimate friend of the family described to me the happiness prevalent in the inner circle : Mr. Roosevelt invited a great many people to dine with him, hut few were really brought into the inner circle. There was a clearly defined line between the two. In the "family" gatherings there was an exuberance of joy and fellowship hard to describe. Only a selected number of very intimate friends ever entered into it. Mr. Valkenburg, in an editorial said : The Colonel's relations with his family were what one would expect in a man against whom his bitterest enemies (and he had many) never breathed the slightest kind of scandal. Those who knew him best were wont to declare that he and Mrs. Roosevelt were lovers ever, and both were the chums and confidants of their children. With his grand- children, Colonel Roosevelt confessed that he was "as big a fool as any other American grandfather." He would leave a conference to play with little Richard Derby, son of his daughter Ethel, or to dandle Ted the Third on his knee. HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 41 Mrs. Clinton, who for many months was his sec- retary, and lived in the Oyster Bay home, writes that Mr. and Mrs. Koosevelt were very thoughtful and considerate of everyone and of each other. Their home life was ideal, not a single jar occurring while she lived with them. She ate at the table regu- larly with them and was treated like one of the family. Continuing, she says : Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt were in the habit of taking a "constitutional" early every morning, walking around the wide veranda arm in arm, rain or shine, as merry as two children. Colonel Roosevelt was always gentlemanly. I never heard him use a harsh or vulgar word. He was particularly fond of his children, and would stop in the midst of dictation every afternoon at four o'clock and leave the room, after which strange noises proceeded from the nursery. He was playing bear with baby Quentin on the bed. — Personal Memoirs of the Home Life of Theodore Roosevelt, Cheney, p. 143. Such a home gave the children confidence in the teaching of the parents, and created an atmosphere which nourished religious truths into healthy growth. In his Pacific Theological Seminary lectures Mr. Koosevelt warns people that there is no substitute for home life: Nothing else . . . can take the place of family life, and family life cannot be really happy unless it is based on duty, based on recognition of the great underlying laws of religion and morality. Continuing, he said : Multiplication of divorces means that there is something 42 ROOSEVELT^S RELIGION rotten in the community, that there is some principle of evil at work which must be counteracted and overcome or widespread disaster will follow. He never lost the old-fashioned and safe standards taught by the church. In a letter to Kermit Mr. Roosevelt describes their home life. He notes the fact that he had ^'people in to lunch/' but that at dinner the family was usually alone. Callers are welcomed in the evening, though "I generally have an hour in which to sit with mother and the others up in the library, talking and reading and watching the bright wood fire." The four children, Ted, Archie, Ethel, and Quentin, in accordance with long practice, ''are generally in mother's room for twenty minutes or half an hour just before she dresses." In the busiest period of his life he allotted at least one half hour a day to his children with fre- quent picnics and play times of longer duration. He believed that in a Christian home the father had home duties just as binding as those of the mother, and so in his Pacific Theological Seminary lectures he said of the man in the household : We continually speak — and it is perfectly proper that we should — of the enormous importance of the woman's work in the home. It is more important than the man's. She does play a greater part. But the man is not to be excused if he fails to recognize that his work in the home, in help- ing bring up, as well as provide for the children, is also one of his primary functions. A little later he condemns a too widely current cus- tom of pampering children : HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 43 Too often, among hard-working friends of mine, I have known a woman to say, "I've had to work hard all my life, and my daughter shall be brought up as a lady" — meaning, poor soul, that the daughter shall be brought up to be utterly worthless to herself and everyone else. He literally practiced what he preached. It will be remembered that his son Theodore carried a din- ner pail and worked in a mill for a year. He was not turning out hothouse products but worthy citizens. The same hardy biblical rules were applied to the daughter. Mr. W. H. Crook, White House attache for many years, describes the occasion when Miss Ethel was introduced to society in Washington. He recalls the fact that the daughter had been brought up in a simple and natural way at Sagamore Hill, where she had been the close associate of "two enter- prising young brothers and as closely the comrade of father and mother." While she had mastered three modern languages and was well trained mentally as well as being a finished pianist, she was at the same time taught in the "art of housekeeping and home-making by that best of all teachers, a com- petent mother." Mr. Roosevelt and his wife, who was Miss Edith Kermit Carow, had been childhood playmates and neighbors. Her great-grandfather, Benjamin Lee, was an Englishman who served in the British navy in the Revolutionary War. On one occasion, because he disobeyed orders which he thought unjust to the prisoners in his care, he was sentenced to be shot. His life was spared through the influence of a fellow officer, afterward William IV of Great 44 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Britain. Later he made the United States his home- land and rose to be a captain in our navy. Another great-grandfather fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. Mrs. Roosevelt was also a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher. She in- herited a spiritual nature which, with her warrior blood, qualified her to be a good comrade to her courageous "preacher" and "moral reformer" hus- band. Mr. Roosevelt was not backward in developing and expressing affection but employed it with his dear ones by kiss and caress and written word. In a letter to Ethel which he addressed as "Blessedest Ethely-Bye" he affirmed that Kermit thought him "a little soft because I am so eagerly looking forward to the end when I shall see darling j)retty mother, my own sweetheart, and the very nicest of all nice daughters, you blessed girlie." He might dictate the weekly letter to his children while getting shaved, but every letter which went to his wife was written with his own hand. He was always determined to do his part to keep affection's fires burning. Mr. Bishop told me that after Quentin's death Mr. Roosevelt avoided the name of Quentin in all con- versation, for when it was mentioned this tender- hearted father would break down and weep. It is reliably reported that the morning after Quentin's death an old servant went to the barn and found Mr. Roosevelt in tears with his arms around the neck of the pony his children had ridden. He noticed and was interested in household affairs. One day he watches Mrs. Roosevelt putting the covers HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 45 on the house furnishings and scattering moth balls preparatory to leaving the Oyster Bay house for the winter and writes Kermit telling him that ^'Ethel and I insist that she now eyes us both with a pro- fessional gaze and secretly wishes she could wrap us in a neatly pinned sheet with camphor balls." He had the Christian ideal of womanhood. He was always a little afraid that the Suffrage move- ment, which he favored, not as the moral panacea so many proclaimed it to be but as an inherent right belonging to women, would lead women away from their unique sphere. In a letter written in 1908 he affirmed that "the indispensable field for the usefulness of woman is as the mother of the family." He affirmed "that her work in bearing and rearing the children" was more important than any man's work, and it was her nor- mal special work just as it was the man's special work to be the bread-winner and the "soldier who will fight for the home." Men engaged in strenuous duties and away from home all day are prone to depreciate the strain and constant toil which is incumbent on the mother at home. In an address on "The Dignity of Labor" Mr. Roosevelt said : The woman who has borne and has reared as they should be reared a family of children has in the most emphatic manner deserved well of the republic. Her burden has been heavy, and she has been able to bear it worthily only by the possession of resolution, of good sense, of conscience, and of unselfishness; but if she has borne it well, then to her shall come the supreme blessing, for in the words of 46 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION the oldest and greatest of books, "Her children shall rise up and call her blessed."^ Mr. Loeb called my attention to the fact that in no circumstances would Mr. Roosevelt pardon a wife beater or wife murderer. He warmly commends a very drastic bill enacted in England for the punish- ment of those engaged in the white slave traffic. He congratulated Mr. White, sponsor of the bill, for its drastic penalties which provided "for the flogging of male offenders." Referring to the fact that the bill had frightened the slavers out of England, he says that this was because "their skin is the only un- hardened thing" about them. He was always righteously indignant against race suicide and declares in his Pacific Theological School Lectures, ''If you do not believe in your own stock enough to wish to see the stock kept up, then you are not good Americans." In his letter to George Tre- velyan he tells how much he was saddened to find an ugly Socialist tract in Sweden containing "an elabo- rate appeal to stop having children; the Socialists being so bitter in their class hatred as to welcome race destruction as a means of slacking it." This he accounted a heathen doctrine. Mrs. Roosevelt, in her quiet and yet effective way, mothered Mr. Roosevelt more than most people knew. Major Putnam related an incident to me which doubtless revealed her habits as a solicitous wife : I was at Oyster Bay for lunch a short time before Theo- dore started on his African trip and remarked to Mrs. 1.4 Square Deal, p. 22. Reprinted by permission of M. A. Donahue & Co. Chicago. HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 47 Roosevelt, "I suppose you are somewhat anxious about Mr. Roosevelt traveling among man-eating lions." She replied, "I do not doubt that Theodore can manage the lions, but I am afraid of the fevers, he is so careless." The children of Mr. Roosevelt's household were given careful religious instruction and training but were at the same time taught to be self-reliant. So he says of his offspring : I do not want anyone to believe that my little ones are brought up to be cowards in this house. If they are struck, they are not taught to turn the other cheek. I haven't any use for weaklings. I commend gentleness and manliness. I want my boys to be strong and gentle. For all my chil- dren I vray that they may be healthy and natural. Theodore Jr. tells of a time when he took too literally instructions concerning self-protection and assaulted his little brother, in line with "father's instructions to fight anyone who insulted me." When Theodore Jr.'s mother, hearing howls in the nursery, came up and found Kermit screaming tear- fully, Theodore Jr. tells us, "I told her that he had insulted me by taking away some of my blocks, so I had hit him on the head with a mechanical rabbit." In an address on parenthood . he enforced the im- portance of home influences: Some children will go wrong in spite of the best train- ing, and some will go right even where their surroundings are most unfortunate. Nevertheless, an immense amount depends upon the family training. In speaking of the fact that all four of his boys 48 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION had enlisted, he declared, ^'You cannot bring up boys to be eagles and expect them to act like sparrows." Mr. Bishop told the writer that one day, while en- gaged in collecting and editing Mr. Roosevelt's let- ters, he called on him at the hospital, and showing him two or three letters which he had written to his children, suggested that a special book be published containing these letters. Mr. Bishop, continuing, said: When I came again, he had secured other copies from the children themselves, and, convinced that such a book might help the homes of America, he decided to sacrifice his long-treasured ideal of privacy for his family and publish them. He was intensely interested in the selection of the letters and told me a short time before he died, "I would rather have this book published than anything that has ever been written about me." Never a week passed, during this man's busy career, without every child absent from home receiving a letter from him. The book was issued under the title Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children^ and nearly 200,- 000 copies were sold the first year. To read it is to be convinced that his home was ideal because he translated the term "Christian" into actuality. Mr. Roosevelt insisted that there was just the proper mixture of "freedom and control" for the children in his household. "They were never al- lowed to be disobedient or to shirk lessons or work ; tliey were encouraged to have all the fun possible." "Bill" Sewall told me that Mr. Roosevelt never crowded his boys to do things his way. "He gave them the truth and allowed them to choose their own HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 49 way of applying it." The three families of cousins lived close together and Mr. Roosevelt tells us that they swam, tramped, boated, coasted and "skated in winter, and were intimate friends with the cows, chickens, pigs and other live-stock" in the summer. A sample of a severe reprimand given one of the children is shown in a letter to Archie. Quentin and three associates, including Charley Taft, had been playing for five hours on a rainy day in the White House and had "made spit balls and deliberately put them on the portraits." The President discovered it after Quentin had retired, but pulled him out of bed to clean them all off the pictures. The next morning the four culprits were summoned and Mr. Roosevelt said: "I explained that they had acted like boors; that it would have been a disgrace to have behaved so in any gentleman's house." Then the President decreed that the three associates of Quentin should not come to the house again, nor any other playmate, until he felt they had been suf- ficiently punished, and concludes : "They were four very sheepish small boys when I got through with them." Mr. Henry L. Stoddard, the Editor of the Evening Mail, remarked to me : I never saw a more wonderful home. Mr. Roosevelt was a genuinely component part of it. Everything of moment was made a family matter. The table was like a Cabinet council. The children were trusted to discuss the most important things. He revealed himself fully to his children. The children were encouraged to express them- selves fully. One day when Archie was getting much 50 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION praise for bravery and patience in sickness, Quentin, then a small lad, was impressed by a contrast he saw, and said, ^'If only I had Archie's nature and my head, wouldn't it be great?" Mr. Roosevelt, while he was a great athlete, was constantly sounding warnings against becoming too much engrossed in sports, and had no place for them except as they improved the physical condition and so better equipped one for service to his fellows. He writes Kermit that he is glad to learn that he is playing football, but "I do not have any special am- bition to see you shine overmuch in athletics at college," because it will take too much of his time. He then affirms that he would rather have his son excel in his studies than in athletics but that above all else he must ^'show true manliness of character than show either intellectual or physical prowess." In his 'Tacific" lectures he reminded them, "But I wish to remind you that merely having a good time will turn to bitter dust." The children of all kinds of public men are subject to special temptations. Some come from overatten- tion and the unusual privileges which such a place gives. There are also a certain type of human de- mons who find hyenalike delight in working moral destruction on the children of conspicuous people. Other criminally minded people vent their spleen on the children of one they hate. Mr. Roosevelt once told his physician. Dr. Lambert : You have never sounded the depths of human depravity until you see the mail sent to a President and his children. Such filth and enmity is Inconceivable. And since the HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 51 writers maliciously seek to reach the little ones, all the mail must be carefully scanned before they see it. Much evidence exists to show the high value Mr. Koosevelt put on religious education. He said once to Dr. Iglehart : We must cultivate the mind, but it is not enough only to cultivate the mind. With education of mind must go the spiritual teaching which will make us turn the trained intellect to good account. . . . Education must be educa- tion of the heart and conscience no less than of the mind. In line with this Theodore Jr. tells us ^' Tilgrim's Progress' and the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' we knew when very young. When father was dressing for dinner he used to teach us poetry." Once when Quentin was ill and could not get out of bed to say his prayers, his devout French nurse knelt in his stead to impress upon him the fact that it was not right to say his prayers unless he knelt down. Was it accidental that a devout nurse was selected ? It is very evident from many references to the names which the children gave animals that they were familiar with people in religious fields. These names were in their hero class, or they would not have applied them to loved pets. In a letter to E. B. Martin Mr. Roosevelt tells him that one of his boys had named his guinea pigs after such people as '^Bishop Doane, Dr. Johnson, my Dutch Reformed pastor, and Father Grady, the local priest, with whom the children had scraped a speaking acquain- tance." He then tells about a small bear which 52 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION some political friends from West Virginia had sent him "which the children of their own accord chris- tened 'Jonathan Edwards,' partly out of compliment to their mother's ancestor and partly because they thought they detected Calvinistic traits in the bear's character." It is natural to presume that they knew something about Calvin if they saw his "traits" in the bear. Kermit told me: Father was only strict about one thing on Sunday, and that was that we attend church and Sunday school. After that we could spend the day as we thought best; he trusted our sense of fitness. Mr. Roosevelt playfully described a household custom w^hich usually permitted the children to ac- company their mother to the Episcopal church while he went alone to the Dutch Reformed : "But if any child misbehaved itself, it was sometimes sent next Sunday to church with me," when that particular child would walk along with rather strained polite- ness, showing that the prescription worked and quieted the turbulent spirit. The rector of the Protestant Episcopalian church at Oyster Bay which the family attended, writing of Mr. Roosevelt's attitude toward the Sunday school, said: Of course, the parish has a Sunday school. Looking over the old registers, one finds the family represented on the roll. Once each year on Christmas Eve the Colonel himself spoke to the school, receiving his orange and box of candy with the other members of the school and joining heartily HIS OWN AN IDEAL HOME 53 in the singing of our historic carol, doubly dear to us henceforth because he loved it. But evidently he attended Sunday-school meetings and was often depressed by their inefficiency, for he says in his Pacific Theological Seminary lectures : It has always irritated me when, in whatever capacity, I have attended Sunday-school celebrations, to listen to some of the speeches made, and especially when I knew some of the men making them {Realizable Ideais, page 4). Mr. Roosevelt was very proud of the "record" of Quentin which General Pershing gave on his death. One section read: "He was most courteous in his conduct, clean in his private life, and devoted in his duty." Mr. Roosevelt's constant aim was not alone to teach by word but to set an ideal example. His highest ambition was to say, "Follow me as I follow right." And so he closes his Pacific Theological Lectures in Berkeley with the words : My plea can be summed up in these words: I ask you men and women to act in all the relations of life, in private life and in public life, in business, in politics, and m every other relation, as you hope to see your sons and daughters act if you have brought them up rightly and if you prize their good name and good standing among decent men and women (Realizahle Ideals, page 154). Well could Hon. Charles E. Hughes say concerning this home, at a memorial service in the Republican Club, New York : 54 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION It is with pleasure that we remember the family life of this stout-hearted American. ... An ideal husband and father, his home was the beautiful abode of all that was worthy and true. CHAPTER III A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF "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."— Theodore Roosevelt. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.— ilfaZ. Jf. 6. MR. ROOSEVELT believed in the leaven of righteousness, and therefore, having built a strong Christian character, he utilized it to influence his children. To do that like the Great Teacher he kept his nature childlike in simplicity and gladly fellowshiped with them. Kermit said to the writer, ''Father was a tre- mendous friend, though, of course, he would not brook disobedience." The emphasis was on the word "friend." Theodore added : All our lives my father treated his sons and daughters as companions. When we were not with him he wrote us constantly. . . . Father, busy as he was, during the entire time we were abroad (during the war) wrote to each of us weekly, and when he physically could, in his own hand. Mr. Roosevelt tells of frequent walks while he was assistant secretary of the navy, when his own chil- dren and Leonard Wood with his children accom- 55 56 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION panied him. He was much pleased because General Wood's son seemed to consider him very patriarchal. He explains that he was leading a group of children on a hike and came to Rock Creek across which a tree had so fallen as to form a bridge. Mr. Roosevelt was standing on the log half way across in order that he could help the little folks over. Suddenly one lively lad caused Mr. Roosevelt to reach so far that he overbalanced and fell into the water. Then the little Wood boy cried out frantically, '^Oh ! Oh ! the father of all the children fell into the creek." While he 'Qifted" them he also retained his own youth by fellowship with boys and girls, and it grieved him if he felt that they were growing away from him or no longer had a place for him in their play. He wrote Ethel about a group of boys Quen- tin had at the White House and showed by his letter that he was sincerely grieved because they did not deem him young enough to invite him to join in their games. He then reminds her of the times he joined her playmates in ''hide and seek" in the White House and "obstacle races" down the hall. All great servants of humanity have been lovers of children with time in spite of heavy duties to give their own offspring. Lincoln's Tad was always with him. According to Ida M. Tarbell, when his father was in a night conference the boy would lie down on the floor at the President's feet and go to sleep. When the conference was over Mr. Lincoln would pick Tad up and himself undress and put him to bed. Washington, deprived of children of his own, adopted A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF 57 several and found richest delight in their company. David all but broke his heart over Absalom's dis- obedience and defection. Theodore Roosevelt was wise in condemning a home where childhood finds no welcome, for its in- mates lose the spirit of that Kingdom which insures their being humble and helpful citizens. If all the facts were known, it is probable that at weary hours he may have desired to escape from the children. Instead, however, he willfully pushed aside crowd- ing work, and for his own sake and that of the service he desired to render he put himself into a playful attitude, and so became one of them, even as he will- fully gave himself to exercise. Mrs. Robinson said to the writer : My brother loved children as naturally as the birds do springtime. He took as much pains to help my boys as he did his own. He gave them much pleasure and real in- tellectual profit. He played with my grandchildren with as much enthusiasm as with his children's little ones. He had no single strain of hardness or cruelty in his make-up but, like his Master, was uniformly gentle. That is the reason he was so winsome to childhood. Some imagined that his delight in hunt- ing marked him as loving to shed blood. Dr. Lam- bert, who accompanied him on many hunts, discussed that with the writer: Mr. Roosevelt never killed game for "sport." One day in Colorado we were not able to go hunting but were shut in by a snowstorm. Phil Stewart, of Colorado Springs, was with us. To tease the President he suddenly said to 58 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION him, "I believe your habit of never killing game for 'sport' is not necessarily an evidence of kindliness of heart but is, rather, the sign of a weakness of character." The President could not forget the charge even though made in fun, and the next day I found him pondering it again. It hurt him deeply to have his native kindliness of heart questioned. He did, of course, kill all the mountain lions he could find because he enjoyed the danger of handling them, and he was ridding various regions of destructive beasts. There was never the least evidence of cruelty in his hunting." Mr. Roosevelt accredited the confidence of chil- dren as an asset. It was charged that a man under consideration for appointment to a federal judgeship in a Western State gambled. A State "leader" called on the President and told him that these charges greatly distressed the man's family, and showed a letter from the candidate's daughter which read : "Dear Papa : Why don't you go to the Presi- dent and tell him about it? If he sees your face, he will never believe those nasty charges." Taking a rose from his table the President handed it to his caller and said : "I wish that you would send this flower to that daughter and tell her I like a young girl who has that kind of faith in her father." At that moment a note arrived from Attorney-General Knox, stating that investigation had found the charges to be untrue. After showing the note to the State leader, the President sent the candidate's nomination to the Senate. He saw in children the future leaders and counted time given to them as well invested. He counted ap- pointments with Ills children as binding as any made with adults. The nephews were no more slighted A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF 59 than his own children and had no abnormal fear of the President. He was still "Uncle Teddy." One afternoon he had forgotten to show up at four o'clock, so one of his nephews came in and said : "Uncle Teddy, it's after four." "So it is," responded Mr. Roosevelt, looking at the clock. "Why didn't you call me sooner? One of you boys get my rifle." Then he turned to his guest and added: "I must ask you to excuse me. We'll talk this out some other time. I prom- ised the boys I'd go shooting with them after four o'clock, and I never keep boys waiting. It's a hard trial for a boy to wait."^ Mr. Riis described a big Christmas dinner given in the Duane Street Newsboys' Lodging House. When the superintendent's back was turned, eight of the boys, as they took their places at the table, "swiped" an- other's pie. Seeing Mr. Riis and mistaking him for Police Commissioner Roosevelt, one boy spoke up: "I know you. I seen your pitcher in the papers. You're Teddy Roosevelt." Immediately the eight pieces of pie mysteriously reap- peared in their places. Mr. Roosevelt's supposed presence had awakened the boys to be honest. What a tribute to his character! When he heard this incident he said that no higher compliment had ever been paid him. In January, 1905, he accompanied nine boys, which included three of his own, on a "scramble" through Rock Creek Park, Washington. The boys insisted on his company and he wrote one of the parents : iFrom The Life and Meaning of Theodore Roosevelt, by Eugene Thwing, p. 222. 60 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION I am really touched at the way in which your children, as well as my own, treat me as a friend and playmate. . . . I do not think that one of them saw anything incongruous in the President's getting as bedaubed with mud as they got, or in my wiggling and clambering around jutting rocks, through cracks, and up what were really small cliff faces, just like the rest of them. When one of them surpassed him they would crow just as if he were a boy of their own age. He never forgot the joyful thrills of his own child- hood at Christmas time, and hence was able to make a glad time at that season for his own household. He wrote of the rapture which the gifts brought : I wonder whether there ever can come in life a thrill of greater exaltation and rapture than that which comes to one between the ages of say six and fourteen when the library door is thrown open and you walk in to see all the gifts like a materialized fairy land, arranged on your special table. Pity the pauperized heart that would destroy and deny the existence of Santa Claus. It is probable that while the President was not consulted, he nevertheless was not opposed to the trip which Algonquin, ''the pony," made to the bed- room of Archy when he was sick in the White House. The stable boys, feeling certain that a visit with the pony would cure the invalid, conspired together to smuggle the animal into the basement and into the elevator which carried him up to the sickroom of the lad. The President describes one of Quentin's exploits in a letter to Archie. He had caught two snakes at A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF Gl Oyster Bay and brought one of them along to Wash- ington. En route it had created consternation on the train by getting out of its box and into the car two or three times. On arriving at home he visited a "pet" store, and the owner loaned him three more snakes for the day, one large and two small ones. Quentin engrossed in his pets came rushing on his roller skates into his father's private office where the President was conferring with the Attorney Gen- eral and deposited the snakes in his father's lap. The "boy" problem was more important than any other. In another letter he tells with great enjoyment how Quentin procured a hive of bees for experimen- tation. His partner was "a mongrel-looking small boy with an Italian name whose father kept a fruit- stand." They took the bees up to the school exhibit, where some of them got out of the hive and were left behind, and "yesterday they at intervals added great zest to life in the classroom." He writes Ted of his arrival at Oyster Bay for the summer. Quentin and his dog Black Jack stay close to him while he tries to work. The dog is curled up in a chair while the boy keeps talking to him so that there is added "an element of harassing difficulty to my effort to answer my accumulated correspondence." But he does not send the little fellow away, but treasures his fellowship. At another period he writes Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward that since his daughter is out he is act- ing as nurse for two guinea pigs which his daughter does not count safe with anyone else, and he con- 62 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION eludes : ^'I do not intend to have wanton suffering inflicted on any creature." When a woman visitor at his White House office once suggested that his children must be a great pleasure to him, he replied with a smile : "Pleasure! You would be surprised and perhaps shocked if you could see the President of the United States engaged in a pillow fight with his children. But those fights are the joy of my life." One of these fights is described in a letter to Kermit. Mrs. Roosevelt had preceded the President up the stairs and at the top Archie and Quentin met her armed with pillows and warned her not to tell '^father." When he reached the top of the stairs "they assailed me with shrieks and chuckles of de- light and then the pillow fight raged up and down the hall." It was frequently his custom after his bath to read them from Uncle Remus, which task "mother" usually performed, but "now and then when I think she really must have a holiday from it, I read to them myself." And he did it so delightfully that the children still recall it as one of life's brightest memories. Again he writes Kermit a letter which gives a pic- ture of the ideal father, keeping young with and training his children in fundamental religion. There is no substitute for the Bible and hymns. "Mother" has gone off for nine days and he is taking her place. Each night he spends three fourths of an hour read- ing such books as Algonquin Indian Tales or the A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF 63 poetry of Scott and Macaulay. He also reads them "each evening from the Bible." He chooses such stories as David, Saul, and Jonathan, and they be- came so interested that many times the President had to read more than a chapter. This distinguished father then hears them say their prayers and repeat the hymn which was assigned to be committed. If the latter is repeated correctly, he gives the "reward of a five-cent piece" — in line with Mrs. Roosevelt's instructions. He is frequently "disconcerted by the fact that they persist in regarding me as a play- mate." He played a water game called "stage-coach" on the float, while in swimming with the children. Dur- ing the improvised story told by the grown-up, when the word "stage-coach" is mentioned, in the indoor game each one gets up and turns around and finds a new seat. But instead of tamely do- ing this in the water game, the children plunge overboard. Mr. Roosevelt tells us that then comes a tense period. The water is alive with kicking legs and bubbles from submerged heads. He must carefully count heads that come up to see if they correspond "with the number of children who had gone down." Nothing builds a faith in God and goodness that will withstand the storms of life so successfully as a happy childhood. Mr. Roosevelt's "Memories" doubtless inspired his efforts in behalf of his own children. In a letter to Miss Carow, his wife's sister, in August, 1903, he describes the celebration of Ethel's 64 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION birthday, when her only request from him was that he should take part in a barn romp : Of course, I had not the heart to refuse, but really it seems, to put it mildly, rather odd for a stout, elderly President to be bouncing over hay ricks in a wild effort to get to goal before an active midget of a competitor aged nine. He further details an amateur theatrical per- formance which Lorraine and Ted arranged for ''Laura Roosevelt's tennis courts." Quentin was Cupid, Ted represented George Washington, and Cleopatra was impersonated by Lorraine. They closed with a song in which a verse was dedicated to the President, who then writes: ''I love all these children and have great fun with them, and I am touched by the way in which they feel that I am their special friend, champion, and companion." The President frequently went out camping with his boys and their selected companions. They would roll up in a blanket and sleep on the ground. They arose early and were enthusiastic over the meals he would prepare. He tells us that "it was of a simple character, . . . but they certainly ate in a way that showed their words were not uttered in a spirit of empty compliment." Kermit gave some vivid descriptions of these ex- peditions with his father in the Metropolitan Maga- zine. His father from the start enforced the law of the jungle. A group would row across the bay in the afternoon to a point of land four or five miles away. A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF 65 They carried food and blankets and cooked their supper, usually of bacon and chicken, with fire built from driftwood on the beach. Any child who would greedily grab or selfishly select his piece of chicken was warned that such an act might cut him out of the party the next time. After supper they wrapped the blankets around themselves and lay down on the sand while ^'father" would tell ghost stories. ''The smallest of us lay within reach of father, where we could touch him if the story became too vivid for our nerves and we needed the reassuring feel of his clothes to bring us back to reality." If there was a "haunt" in it which led to seizing a victim, the story-teller would illustrate it by seizing the nearest child at the opportune moment. After the story they would roll up in their blankets, burrow in the sand, and sleep. At dawn they arose to gather more wood and cook breakfast and prepare to return. On the row home they would chant a ballad of a seafaring nature which they had learned from their father. Such trips occurred three or four times during a summer and began when the boys were only six or seven and continued until they were grown, and left home. When his children held his attention he for- got everything else. He genuinely enjoyed and en- tered into all their sports. Mr. Cheney tells how Scribners once sent a stenographer to write a story which Mr. Roosevelt had agreed to dictate. Waiting an hour after the appointed time, she protested impatiently at his failure to keep the appointment, when someone di- rected her to the window, where she saw the reason 66 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION why Mr. Koosevelt had forgotten the appointment. He was sliding down the hill on skis with the chil- dren. Appearing later, he was very apologetic. In all this fellowship with his children he kept his own spirit saturated with religion as he did his lungs with good air, so that he would build right ideals in his children. In a letter to Edith Wharton, Paris, he enforced this fact in referring to the death of Quentin : There is no use of my writing about Quentin, as I should break down if I tried. His death is heart-breaking, but it would have been far worse if he had lived at the cost of the slightest failure to perform his duty.' When F. R. Coudert, an old friend of the family, returned from France, he met Mr. Roosevelt and was greeted as follows: ^'You saw Quentin? It is a terrible thing that he will never return. It would be a more terrible thing if he had not gone."^ As Senator Lodge said : "I cannot say that he sent his four sons, because they all went at once, as everyone knew that their father's sons would go."^ The training received fitted them to hear and answer the call of humanity in a prompt and self- sacrificing way — life was not held dear when service called. The acid test showed them to be sound to the core. Julian Street describes the way he taught his chil- dren the motto, ''Always over or through, never around," which made them "good soldiers." When •From The Life and Meaning of Theodore Roosevelt, by Eugene Thwing, p. 200. nhid. Hhid. A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF 67 he was governor he would start on a walk with Mrs. Roosevelt and the children, and they would under- stand that ultimately some physical test would be met. The walk would call for sustained effort in the face of fatigue ; to cross a difficult field or to ford a brook at a treacherous spot, or to go through a deep ravine with tangled underbrush. Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt were teaching the children that life presents similar obstacles and that ''It is the part of good manhood and good womanhood to meet squarely and surmount them, going through or over, but never around." Thus early they began to learn lessons in ''resourcefulness, perseverance, courage, stoicism, and disregard for danger." The latter was often met. They once came to an almost perpendicu- lar clay bank, very difficult to ascend. All succeeded except Alice, then a girl of sixteen, who had reached the top but could not get down. Elon Hooker, a family friend, had accompanied them. He climbed a tree and grasping a piece of slate on the bank he made a bridge with his arm. When Alice stepped on the arm the piece of slate gave way and fell to the bottom of the precipice but she caught a limb and held on until Mr. Hooker rescued her and brought her safely down. They then discovered that the mass of slate had struck Mr. Roosevelt on the head and made a cut from forehead to rear which caused the surgeon to take a dozen stitches ; but there was no complaint. One of the "cousins" recounted her memories of these tramps to Dean Lewis. He had few rules and was always just and fair, she said, but expected them 68 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION to use their reason. "If there was a slip in climbing a tree because both hands were not used, home we went." It was the same if they fell into a brook. "We never regarded this kind of punishment as unfair because it taught us to take care of ourselves." He was a great favorite as Santa Claus at the vil- lage school where his children attended. He always demanded his "treat" with the children. Frequently he used the occasion to enforce Christian virtues. Once he said to them : I want you all as you grow up to have a good time. I do not think enough of a sour-faced child to spank him. And while you are having a good time, work, for you will have a good time while you work, if you work the right way. If the time ever comes for you to fight, fight, as you have worked, for it will he your duty. A coward, you know, is several degrees meaner than a liar. Be manly and gentle to those weaker than yourselves. Hold your own and at the same time do your duty to the weak, and you will come pretty near being noble men and women.^ His boys went to the public school at Oyster Bay through the grammar grades and in Washington and did not know any discrimination of class or con- dition but accepted all as members of the great brotherhood. One of them when asked how he got along with the "common" boys in school replied, "My father says there are only tall boys and short boys and bad boys and good boys, and that's all the kinds of boys there are." That teaching will insure democracy. ^Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, from Theodore Roose velt: The Boy and the Man, by James Morgan, p. 284. Copyright, 1907, by The Macmillan Company. A HELPFUL FATHER HIMSELF 69 In a commencement address at the ^'Hill School," in which many notable men have been prepared for college, he enforced the need of earnest righteous- ness : One of the hardest things to do is to make men under- stand that "efficiency in politics does not atone for public immorality." I believe in happiness, I believe in pleasure — but I do not believe you will have any good time at all in life un- less the good time comes as an incident of the doing of duty — doing some work worth doing. Continuing he said: In short, to-day, under the auspices of the Civic Club, ... I preach to you the doctrine that . . . you will amount to nothing unless you have ideals, and you will amount to nothing unless in good faith you strive to realize them (The Outlook, June 9, 1913). In an article on ^^Character and Success" in The Outlook, March 31, 1900, in discussing a Harvard- Yale football game, he repeated with satisfaction what a Yale professor had said to him about character in a football player : I told them not to take him, for he was slack in his studies, and my experience is that, as a rule, the man who is slack in his studies will be slack in his football work; it is character that counts in both. He added: Between any two contestants, even in college sport or in college work, the difference in character on the right side 70 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION is as great as the difference of intellect or strength the other way; it is the character side that will win. Dr. Lambert said to the writer: The President visited Ted at the Groton School. When he left the lad kissed his father good-by. He then told his father that the last time he did that he had several fights on his hands because the boys teased him about it and he had waded into them. Then the President said: "You can be just as good and as affectionate in life as you are willing to fight for." And he himself taught and illus- trated that truth all his life. The writer said to Kermit: "If someone should say to you, 'How can you prove that your father had faith in God?' how would you answer?" In a voice a little stiff with indignation he replied: "I wouldn't answer it." In further conversation he showed that he considered the question an absurd one, for to him his father's faith in God seemed very evident. Harriet Beecher Stowe once said of her father, Lyman Beecher, "My father was for so many years for me so true an image of the heavenly Father." Few can fairly receive that tribute, but every man can in his own way strive to be a clean, companion- able, inspiring, and high-purposed father striving to put the ideals of Jesus into deeds. Theodore Roose- velt was preeminently that kind of a father, and without the teachings of Jesus and the indwelling spirit of God he could not have so nearly approached the ideal. I CHAPTER IV PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED FOR HIS CAREER "God is with the patient if they know how to wait."— Theodore Roosevelt. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier. — 2 Tim. 2. S. MR. ROOSEVELT once said : "Fit yourselves for the work God has for you to do in this world and lose no time about it." He had a fearless confidence that his life was immortal until his work was done. He accepted every experience as a part of the schooling he needed for his tasks. His mother once told Mr. Cheney, the editor of the local paper, after Theodore had narrowly escaped serious injury by being thrown from a colt, "If the Lord had not taken care of Theodore as a boy, he would have been killed long ago." Mrs. Robinson said to the writer, after stressing the deep religious nature of her father, "My father had a confident prevision of Theodore's future, be- lieving deeply in his notable usefulness." Riches are a hindrance to the spur that helps suc- cess. Carnegie pitied the sons of the wealthy. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., envied his father his early pov- erty. But Theodore's wealth was turned to his ad- vantage, since it gave him a certain independence 71 72 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION in action and furnished means to build a sturdy body and to secure unusual training. In his day many of the sons of the rich were soft and given to slothful ease. He believed that God expected every man to find a field for strenuous endeavor. He finally believed that he was called to enter politics. It was then so dominated by bosses and obedient henchmen that his high-idealed and independent ac- tivities were looked upon as a joke. The New York World reported a speech to the City Reform Club when he was a candidate for the Legislature as at- tended by many other ^^dudes." That paper's report continues : He closed by upbraiding the dudes, present and absent, for not knowing more about politics. . . . When Mr. Roose- velt finished, the other dudes took the tops of their canes out of their mouths, tapped the floor with the other end and threw away their lighted cigarettes. In that day it was counted a very effeminate habit to smoke cigarettes. He accepted inherited wealth as a God-intrusted talent for which returns must be made. He insisted, therefore, that the freedom from engrossing labor which riches insured must be spent in public service. Theodore aspired to be a natural history student like Audubon, and his father encouraged him and insisted that he must be convinced of his desire to do scien- tific work and must make it a serious career. His father assured Theodore that he ''had made enough money to enable me to take up such a career and to do non-remunerative work of value." The father PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 73 insisted that it must not be taken up as a dilettante but that he must "abandon all thought of enjoyment that could accompany a money-making career." Even Lis early training seemed providentially ordered to fit him for his career. His mother's sister and his grandmother were staunch Southerners who, much against their will, were compelled to eat the Northerner's food, since the Unionists drove them out of their own home. They lived with Mr. Roose- velt, Sr. Aunt "Gracey" had much to do with the training of Teedie, or Theodore, because his own mother was frail. He was afterward the first Presi- dent outside of those who were likely to be preju- diced by actual participation in the Civil War, and this unique childhood home helped to save him from prejudice against the South. Aunt "Gracey" was very devout, and while she taught him his letters and related subjects in early childhood, she also gave him an earnest training in religion and saturated him with psalms and hymns which he committed to memory. One of the first books read to him by his religious home teachers was Pilgrim's Progress, and from it he drew his earliest hero, Great-Heart, to whom he himself was appropriately likened at death. He once said: Great-Heart is my favorite character in allegory, just as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is to my mind one of the greatest books that was ever written; and I think that Abraham Lincoln is the ideal Great-Heart of public life. The great abundance of cartoonists in these days 74 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION — and they are usually very "raw" — cause us to lose sight of their influence. Mr. Roosevelt pays Thomas Nast, one of the "first," this tribute : When I was a boy I received my first guidance in politics through the cartoons of that famous American cartoonist, Thomas Nast. His cartoons dramatized for us of that time the hideousness of political corruption, . . . indeed, it was he who first gave me the feeling of eager championship of the army and navy which I have ever since retained.^ "Oh, I did not think you could live; you were so tiny and frail." So said a neighbor woman concern- ing a new-born baby she had laid aside at the moth- er's death — feeling confident it would not survive. But the puny baby lived and was the Reverend Ly- man Beecher, the father of Henry Ward Beecher and six other preachers and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Theodore Roosevelt was likewise very frail at birth and far into his teens. He, like others, built charac- ter while patiently battling for health. He recalled his father walking the floor with him at night while he fights to get his breath. Or as a little fellow he would sit up in bed gasping for breath while his parents tried to aid him. Mrs. Robinson writes of him for Dean Lewis : My earliest impressions of my brother Theodore are those of a rather small, patient, suffering, little child. . . . I can see him now, faithfully going through various exer- cises at different times of the day to broaden the chest narrowed by this terrible shortness to breath to make the ^Americariism and Preparedness, by Theodore Roosevelt, p. 122. From the Evening Mail, used by pernaisdion. J Courtesy the New York Times "BILL" SEWALL AND A LAD FROM THE ROOSEVELT MILITARY ACADEMY PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 75 limbs and back strong and able to bear the weight of what was coming later in life. Theodore kept a diary from early childhood. He recorded continuous spells of sickness and suffering never more than a few days apart. Soon after his tenth birthday he went abroad and was harassed steadily by seasickness in addition to asthma, last- ing often for four or five hours at night. He was described as a "tall, thin lad with bright eyes and legs like pipestems." After securing his first gun he found that while his companions hit, he invariably missed a mark when shooting. He mentioned it to his father, who soon bought him his first pair of spectacles, which changed the whole world for him. He attributed his clumsiness as a boy to the fact that he was ignorant of the fact that he could not really see. He after- ward said that the memory of his own early suffer- ings gave him sympathy for children "unjustly blamed for being obstinate or unambitious, or men- tally stupid" when they were probably defective. He was sent to Moose Head Lake, in Maine, to re- lieve one of his unusually severe attacks of asthma. While en route on the stage two boys amused them- selves by teasing the bespectacled "high brow." He finally attempted to fight them, but they handled him with humiliating ease. This experience spurred him to get strength, and so he came home to use his piazza gymnasium strenuously, instead of listlessly. He urged his father to add boxing lessons and John Long, an ex-prize fighter, was hired for that purpose. 76 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION And now began the fight that gave him a real human body and added to his courage for future years, for pure physical valor aids moral courage. In addition to physical frailty, he was also timid and very retiring, afraid of shadows and trembling before cows. His deliverance came from reading one of Marryat's books where the captain of a small British man of war affirmed, "that almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow was for a man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if he were not frightened." This captain affirmed that ultimately pretense would come to reality. Mr. Roosevelt tes- tifies that he tried it, and where he was afraid at first of everything, ranging from grizzly bears to *^mean" horses and gun fighters, he gradually ceased to be afraid of anything. While a freshman at Harvard, Arthur Cutler, his tutor, introduced him to "Bill" Sewall, the Maine guide, who became his lifelong friend, and to whom Cutler said: I want you to take good care of this young fellow. He's ambitious and he isn't very strong. He won't say when he's tired; he won't complain, but he'll just break down. You can't take him on the tramps you take us. "Bill" tells us that with the "advice" came a "thin, pale youngster, with bad eyes and a weak heart." But he was not "such a weakling," for we took one walk of twenty-five miles, "a good, fair walk for any common man." "He was always good-natured and full of fun. I do not ever remember him being 'out PKOVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 77 of sorts.' " He had trained himself to master his own spirit. Theodore developed and showed his grit on an- other walk with "Bill." En route to a lake on the Aroostook River, which they waded, Theodore hurt his bare foot while wading the river and accidentally dropped his shoe, which was swiftly swept away. He put on a pair of moccasins as thin as stockings and proceeded on a tramp over the rocky mountain paths for the whole day, without a murmur. The trip was unusually trying, for in providing special shoes for the African trip, Kermit explained that his father had "skin as tender as a baby's, and he therefore took every precaution that his boots should fit him properly and not rub." His intense concentration began as a child. W. Emlen Roosevelt told the writer : "He would read a book in his boyhood with such utter absorption that no call would affect him, and the only way to attract him was to hit him on the back." He literally ob- served "This one thing I do." His patient persistency was proverbial. While hunting in Colorado a dangerous lion sought such a refuge that Mr. Roosevelt had his guide let him over the precipice by his feet, and his guide says, "He killed the lion, hanging head downward, while I held him by the feet." He once told Dr. Lyman Abbott: "Do you know, I am not a ready writer. No one knows how much time I put into my articles for The Outlook." He had a Christian conception of the power of the mind and spirit over the body — a truth as old as 78 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Jesus and older and long practiced by the "spiritual" folk of the world. He needed no new "ism" to teach it. When he left Harvard a doctor who gave him a physical examination informed him that he had heart trouble and that he must not take vigorous exercise or run upstairs. Mr. Roosevelt replied: "Doctor, I am going to do all the things you tell me not to do. If I've got to live the sort of life you have described, I don't care how short it is." And he proceeded to do so, and in spite of the warning grew a sturdiness of body and spirit that simply fed on difficulties. He steadily followed lines of hardihood and risk. He built his spirit as he did his body. His cowboy days came at such a critical time in his life and were so influential in "preparing" him that they will best illustrate the school in which he trained. He never, even at the last, claimed proficiency in horseback riding. He merely sat astride the most vicious beast with the same gritty grin that he "rode" the recalcitrant politicians when that was a part of his day's work. One day a wild horse jumped a fence and threw him headlong. His arm was broken, but he re- mounted and did not notice it until another jolt caused the bones to slip so that the hand dropped out of place. At another time, a bucking "devil" fell backward on him and split the joint of his shoul- der. But, he remarked, "On both occasions there was nothing to do but remount and go on, for often tlie nearest doctor was more than one hundred miles away." PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 79 At one time, while herding cattle, he was in the saddle for forty straight hours, changing horses five times and going through a rainstorm which kept him wet until the clothes dried on his back. At an- other time he rode one mount for twenty-four hours but at a slower pace. He endured hardness as a good soldier. "Bill" Sewall insisted that Mr. Roosevelt was always "fair-minded." He early trained himself to take no advantages, and even under exasperating circumstances to see the other fellow's side. During a stiff boxing bout while a student at Harvard time was called and he dropped his hands. His opponent instead of stopping took advantage of this opening and put in a smashing blow that brought blood. The onlookers angrily cried, "Foul," and would have mal- treated the offender, but Mr. Roosevelt rushed up, shouting, "He didn't hear. He didn't hear," mean- ing the "time" call of the referee. He was fearless in following his convictions and defending his rights. He proved to the cow punchers that he was a "real" fellow. He lived on their "fare." He took orders from the chief of the drives and did team work. He endured their privations and entered into their sympathies and grew both physically and in personality betimes. He became a stranger to fear. The Marquis de Mores, a neighboring ranchman of wealth, who, un- like Mr. Roosevelt, exploited the fact, was very jealous of Mr. Roosevelt and very ready to attribute wrong motives to his actions. One of Mores' men claimed self-defense in a murder trial while one of 80 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Mr. Roosevelt's men was a witness to disprove the claim. Mores charged Roosevelt with trying to entangle him and proposed a duel. The bluff was called and rifles at twelve paces named — each to ad- vance one pace until the other was killed. Mr. Roosevelt detested dueling, but he knew this would cure the bully; and it did, for he backed down and was docile afterward. While Roosevelt was civil service commissioner, a fellow member from the South, who always carried a revolver, was exasperatingly obstructive and in- sulting, finally threatening gun play. Mr. Roosevelt wrote "Bill" Sewall that he recalled the Mores inci- dent and "called" the obstreperous Southerner, who quailed in the same way as did the former "brawler." Thus had his ranch life naturally developed a courage which, backed by a sense of right, ballasted by rare wisdom and untainted by selfishness, made him unafraid of the "beasts" or "bullies" at Albany and Washington. Mr. Roosevelt recognized that he was the product of all these educative experiences. He remarked : "I had to train myself painfully and laboriously not merely as regards my body but as regards my soul and spirit." He said once to Mr. Leary: "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." "There's a divinity that shapes our ends," and to the Christian it is not blind. The believer in God PROVIDENTIALLY PEEPARED 81 recognizes daily events as signposts and follows the directions. There are no accidents in a divinely ordered life. Many incidents foretold the future and helped Mr. Roosevelt find the pathway. Mr. Thayer, a fellow student, recalls a meeting of the Alpha Delta Phi, in Charles Washburn's room, when Theodore and he discussed lifework problems. Mr. Roosevelt affirmed : "I am going to try to help the cause of better government in New York city; I don't know exactly how." Mr. Thayer after re- called the fact that he then looked at him sharply and saying inwardly, ''I wonder whether he is the real thing or only the bundle of eccentricities which he appears."^ When later it came his turn to prepare a paper for the literary society to which he belonged, he chose for his subject, "The Machine of Politics." Mr. Roosevelt was not primarily interested in partisan politics but finally chose a party because it offered the best obtainable means for effective service. While his father was a Republican, he was so independent that the bosses feared him. That party had been so long in power that corruption had become imbedded. George William Curtis led a group who rebelled at partisanship and were as a result insultingly styled ''Mugwumps." Mr. Roose- velt joined them in opposing Blaine and came near to bolting with them. He was never a narrow parti- san; he uncovered corruption in the "party" and finally cut away from it in an important campaign. During his student days a mock election for Presi- iLi/e of Theodore Roosevelt, Thayer, p. 20. Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers. 82 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION dent was held with Grant, Sherman, Blaine, and Bayard as candidates. His classmates say that Roosevelt voted for Senator Bayard, a Democrat. While in college he refused to debate on the side of a question contrary to his convictions and insisted that such debates where contestants supported a side contrary to their convictions tended to develop insincerity among the students and to minimize "in- tensity of conviction." They were prone, he in- sisted, to become careless in forming or valuing well-* founded convictions. Unfortunately, a few years ago a college training was only sought by those expecting to become pro- fessional men. Mr. Roosevelt was again providen- tially prepared, for he expected to be a teacher, and consequently received a trained mind which later fitted him to be a more capable public servant. Otherwise, he would not have entered Harvard and so would have lost a large chain of helpful influences. He was not a brilliant student, but he was a hard plodder. Mr. Thayer says: He did fairly well in several unrelated subjects and achieved eminence in one, natural science. He had an all- round quality, . . . but he had also power of concentration and thoroughness. Mrs. Robinson says that his college course broad- ened him but it also gave him association with men of his own age which had before been impossible be- cause of his delicacy of health. He entered the military competitions held on the grounds of the Watertown Arsenal but never drew PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 83 any prizes. This training, however, gave him a knowledge of military affairs which served him well when he entered the Spanish War. He was mysteriously led to study the War of 1812 and thus to write a history of the navy while still a student in Harvard. This gave him invaluable in- formation in preparing him for the organization work he did as assistant secretary of the navy, which probably insured early success in the war with Spain, since he trained the men to shoot straight, so that later they sunk the Spanish fleet very quickly. He selected Dewey and gave him secret orders to capture Manila. At the time he took the position his friends had advised him that he was too big to accept anything but a Cabinet position and that it would cheapen him to be merely an assistant — ^but he saw in it a good chance to "serve." Even his friendships at Harvard were predictive of his future. From childhood he always carefully picked his associates, thus securing unique and varied companions. He did not eat at Memorial Hall, Harvard, but formed a private boarding club of eight which held together for the full four years. Afterward the club furnished a doctor, a lawyer, a business man, a cotton broker, a railroad man, a corporation head (who was also a congressman), an invalid, and a President. No two followed the same profession. He was a close friend of George Von L. Meyer — ^later his Attorney-General. He opposed Robert Bacon for captain of the class crew. Bacon was elected anyway, and the second year he fought for him, quoting Lincoln about not swapping horses 84 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION in the middle of a stream; afterward he was his Secretary of State. Though Leonard Wood was a freshman in Medical School while Theodore was a senior in Harvard, yet they were congenial asso- ciates. Henry Cabot Lodge was an instructor in his- tory whom Theodore at first disliked because he "marked the papers too hard" but afterward joined in an early political contest. Ex-Congressman Charles A. Washburne, a member of his boarding club, said, "The qualities I knew in the boy are the qualities most observed in the man." A little while before his decease, Mr. Roosevelt repeated an early and prophetic pledge : "I have kept the promise that I made to myself when I was twenty-one. That promise was to live my life to the hilt until I was sixty, and I have kept that promise." Having completed college, he was ready for the next directive influence. It came. In the fall of 1881, he entered the law school of Columbia Univer- sity. He studied in the law office of his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt, who was chairman of the Committee of 70, in its fight against Boss Tweed and his gang. This uncle was a member of the Board of Aldermen and had been at one time minister to the Netherlands. He was a political leader of aggressive moral con- victions, and naturally this atmosphere influenced Theodore. George Haven Putnam told me that soon after this time Theodore became a special partner in the publishing house of that name. "He brought to me a multitude of publishing plans, for the most part not practical, but when I turned them down he took it with good nature. . . . His exuberant and sug- PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 85 gestive personality so near me made it impossible to carry on my correspondence," said Major Putnam. He therefore suggested to the District Republican Committee that ^'Roosevelt would make an excellent representative in the Assembly." This led to his nomination, and in great delight he came in one Monday with the nomination made and said: "I am going into politics. I have always wanted to have a chance of taking hold of public affairs." There are other explanations but they do not pre- clude this one. He joined the local Republican Club and to beat a culpable boss he agreed to "run" when no one else could be found, at the request of "Joe" Murray. Mr. Roosevelt is the only man ever elected Presi- dent who was born and raised in a great city, except W. H. Taft, who was born in Cincinnati. City life is not conducive to health, initiative, or democratic mixing, though it may furnish the best possible school for the study of humanity to the right-spirited man. Mr. Roosevelt turned his hin- drance into a help by appropriating all the advan- tages of the city and then, at a critical time in his life, going into the far West to take a postgraduate course in soul culture. His body was far from ro- bust. His "faith" had been almost shattered by the sudden death of both wife and mother. He had been disgusted with the condoned corruption among the "respectable" men of his own class. He had been accustomed to an ease that threatened both his vigor and his democratic bearing. His bent toward a literary hermitage was growing. There was no un- 86 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION usual reason why he should go West. His pilgrimage can only be explained by a belief in God's leadership for an earnest man seeking his will. The Divine Hand was not absent in his selection of a companion who was to lead him out of his slough of despond- ency, in the person of ''Bill" Sewall, who was brought to the ranch as manager. "Bill" told the writer: ''My grandfather was a minister. One uncle put seven boys into the ministry. My own children are all members of the church." "Bill," while a student of the Bible, was not a formal re- ligionist, but had a hardy faith in God, a noble set of plain ideals, and a rich and sweetened common sense. He was just the teacher that Mr. Roosevelt needed, as he studied in God's out-of-doors amidst primitive conditions and "nature-cured" men. Beal men of the plains gave deference only to hardihood and character. "Roughing it" built the body, cleared the brain, constructed confidence, and destroyed softening artificiality. His sorrow sweetened in- stead of soured and God spoke out of the bushes in the quiet wilderness. Theodore Roosevelt was a new man and prepared for his work by his "herding" experience even as was Moses, that earlier leader, who passed through a similar experience. And now came a succession of tests to try out his grit, his humility, and his ability. And he passed muster. First he met defeat for mayor, but here he gave a new note to campaigning; then followed ap- pointment to the undesirable Civil Service Commis- sion, where he exhibited a revolutionizing of public office; then came the police job which had PROVIDENTIALLY PREPARED 87 ^^broken" every man who undertook it but in which he inaugurated a new day for civic government; then he accepted the assistant secretaryship of the navy when he was big enough for a Cabinet appoint- ment and was able to use his college-day researches ; then he insisted on being a subordinate, lieu- tenant-colonel, in the Rough Riders, from which he arose to notable military efficiency. At last he seems to have been recognized, for he was elected Governor. (He was elected to office only three times after his legislative days during his whole career.) But again his humility was to be tested and he is "shelved" by being made Vice-President. To pre- pare for a possible future, he used even this "decora- tive" office by starting a law course under Justice White, but once more man proposed but God dis- posed, and at last he came to the highest place of influence. But even there he must "fight a good fight," and was destined later to stand almost alone amidst seeming defeat. He literally inherited the promise : "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things" (Matt. 25. 21). Is there any man so wise that he dare af- firm that Mr. Roosevelt did not, day by day, see the hand of God in all these preparatory steps and so rest confidently in the outcome, no matter what ap- parent defeats came? Bill Sewall said to the writer: When Theodore lost his wife and mother it almost un- balanced his mind. But he never noticed or was affected by the loss of material things. We lost one half of our cattle by drought, snow, and the unfair tactics of the big 88 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION herd owners. He lost nearly $50,000 by the ranch venture. But he was never blue or complained about that. He di- vided all the profits but endured all the losses alone. He had absolutely no instinct for money. He allowed that to die while he developed instead the instinct for service which alone appealed to him. He expected to stay on the ranch permanently when he first came. But God had other plans. When he left the ranch he was clear bone, muscle, and grit and physically strong enough to be anything he wanted to be from President down. While President, he journeyed to Yellowstone Park with John Burroughs for a brief vacation and rest. He left his secretary, physician, and secret service men outside the Park. Then, one quiet day, he requested the privilege of tramping off into a solitude to spend the day all alone. How did he spend such times ? No one can declare dogmatically but a conclusion may be safely drawn from one in- cident related to me by Mr. Leary: While campaigning in Canton, Ohio, Mr. Roosevelt sud- denly disappeared and a reporter who told me about it finally found him kneeling beside the grave of William McKinley. When I related this incident to Dr. Lambert, he said, "I could well believe that to be true from my knowl- edge of him." He believed in God. Why should he not go apart to take stock of his spiritual supplies and test his relationship to God? Elijah found that the still small voice of direction followed the "strong wind,'' the earthquake, and the fire. Why should other prophets be deprived of equal assurance and guidance when sorrows and storms shake their souls ? PKOVIDENTIALLY PREPAKED 89 If so, then Mr. Roosevelt had such solaces. It was written of Moses "like one who saw the King In- visible he never flinched'' (Moffatt translation). That fact can alone explain the life of Theodore Roosevelt. CHAPTER V THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS "If a man lives a decent life and does his work fairly and squarely so that those dependent on him and attached to him are better for his having lived then he is a success." — Theodore Roosevelt. Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. Prov. 14. S4. TO Mr. Roosevelt the very contest for the right was a knightly joust which itself gave thrill and joy. In an address he once said, "Ag- gressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world knows." He entered his campaigns in this spirit and turned life into a game where he did serious business with a happy heart. He developed an instinct for right as an artist would the aesthetic nature or the mother the ability to intuitively interpret the needs of her child. John Burroughs relates a carefully planned attempt of political opponents at Albany to besmirch his character. He was not caught. His innate rectitude and instinct for the right course saved him as it has saved him many times since. I do not think that in any emergency he has to debate with himself long as to the right course to be pursued; he divines it by a kind of infallible instinct. As a "disciple" he had a right to claim the prom- ise that the Spirit would guide "into all truth." 90 THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 91 When Elihu Koot left his Cabinet, though a very undemonstrative man, he wrote Mr. Koosevelt : "I shall always be happy to have been a part of the administration directed by your sincere and rugged adherence to right and devotion to the trust of our country." Senator Lodge said: Roosevelt was always advancing, always struggling to make things better, ... He looked always for an ethical question. He was at his best when he was fighting the battle of right against wrong. Senator Beveridge said: ^Those who were near Colonel Roosevelt knew . . . that . . . the mo- tive power within him was always ethical convic- tion." Eugene Thwing, after saying, ^^The strength of truth was always the one secret of Roosevelt's great power," quotes him as saying : "We scorn the man who would not stand for justice though the whole world come in arms against him." Jacob Riis reports a lady who said : I always wanted to make Roosevelt out as a living em- bodiment of high ideals, but somehow every time he did something that seemed really great, it turned out, upon looking at it seriously, that it was only just the right thing to do. Lemuel Quigg was told, when he came as Platt^s messenger to question Roosevelt concerning his at- titude if he became Governor, that he would try to get on with the organization, but that he would ex- 92 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION pect the organization to be equally sincere in helping when he was trying to do something for the public good. In a stiff controversy, he said, later : I know that you did not in any way wish to represent me as willing to consent to act otherwise than in ac- cordance with my conscience; indeed, you said you knew that I would be incapable of acting save with good faith to the people at large. Vice President Coolidge said, in an address in New York : ^'Theodore Roosevelt never lapsed. He was against what he believed to be wrong everywhere." While riding the range with one of his own cow- boys, during the Dakota days, he came across an unbranded maverick which his cowboy caught, threw, and was about to mark with the Roosevelt brand. Mr. Roosevelt thereupon discharged the boy, who protested that he was working in the interests of his boss, and received the reply, "Yes, my friend, and if you will steal for me, you will steal from me." He was always fearful in receiving financial re- muneration lest he would not render commensurate service. When Lawrence Abbott closed the contract for him to begin his services with The Outlook, at 112,000 a year— a good salary for The Outlook to pay but only one tenth of what other concerns of- fered — he put his arm around Lawrence and said, "Now that is very good of you, Lawrence, but do you really think you can afford it?" He refused to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Magazine at first because he could not see how a monthly periodi- cal could profitably pay what they offered him for THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 93 an article every thirty days. He insisted, "I do not like being in the position of not being able to de- liver full value,'' and he signed only when convinced. Gerald Lee wrote of Mr. Roosevelt : Other men have done things that were good to do, but the very inmost muscle and marrow of goodness itself, goodness with teeth, with a fist, goodness that smiled, that ha-ha'd, that leaped and danced — perpetual motion of goodness, goodness that reeked — has been reserved for Theodore Roosevelt. He has been a colossal drummer of goodness. He has proved himself a master salesman of moral values. This sturdy personality was not an accident. The skyscraper stands because rooted in the eternal rocks and fibered by highly tempered steel ribs. He founded his life on the Rock of Ages and steel-ribbed his personality by moral standards of finest metal highly tempered in the fires of hottest testings. He accepted no substitutes nor permitted flawed ma- terials to go into the structure. And so he stood, tall and strong, in the sunshine of approval or in the storm of most bitter vituperation. Character is to right what brain is to thinking. Men easily and loftily assert that religion to them is contained in the Golden Rule. But it is a com- plex thing to apply it to daily problems. Mr. Roose- velt once said about one phase of its application : The Golden Rule means that we ought to treat every man and woman as we ought to like to be treated ourselves. I say "ought to like" and not merely "like," for it cer- tainly does not mean that we are to divorce unselfishness from foresight, common sense and common honesty. 94 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION At another time, in speaking of his intricate work at Albany, he said: If I am sure a thing is right or wrong, why, then I know how to act; but lots of times there is a little of both on each side, and then it becomes mighty puzzling to know the exact course to follow. A scholar is not made by two years or ten years of study but by a lifetime of study. A good man is built in the same way by a lifetime of watching, seeking advice, following the inner light and seeking more, and having found the right to fight for it every time to the death. To be equipped to know and to do the right is a big task. It cost Mr. Roosevelt as much to get this ability as it does anyone else. Only the shallow slide through life with ease. The Israelites only blew away the hulk of nations decayed by wickedness when they destroyed the tribes on their march to the promised land. Theo- dore Roosevelt believed that he was a prophet warn- ing America against the fate of these people and of Greece and Rome, and so he urged the nation to ob- serve the laws of right as the sine qua non of ex- istence. He therefore enforced righteousness in the same spirit that a patriot fought for the flag when it was in danger. This was an early ideal and is enforced in his "Oliver. Cromwell" — where he in- sists that a nation loses its liberty by ^'licentiousness no less than by servility." This sin, he insists, is a sign of lost self-control and is therefore no different than if the helplessness sprang from a "craven dis- trust of its own powers." THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 95 He was very explicit here in naming a sin which is commonly condoned as the privilege of the free but which the world now learns brings the worst affliction known to the flesh. Nothing could divert his assaults on dangerous practices. Patriotic thrills were stirring a meeting at Madison Square Garden held to welcome the representatives of the sane republic which imme- diately followed the overthrow of the Czar in Kussia. A few days before, a number of innocent Negroes brought into Saint Louis as strike breakers had been mobbed and murdered by white strikers. When Mr. Roosevelt spoke, he arraigned the Saint Louis rioters in no uncertain manner. He declared that when Americans extend greetings to the representa- tives of a ''new" republic, we should at the same time explain to them that such lawlessness as ap- peared in East Saint Louis is thoroughly criminal. The life destroying riots were as inexcusable, he insisted, even though they were Negroes, as were the outbreaks upon the Jews in Czar-ruled Russia. He declared that since this conviction was upon him, he could not keep silent, he must express condemna- tion for such deeds ''that give the lie to our words within our own country." When Mr. Gompers followed he undertook to ex- cuse the rioters because employers were warned against bringing in Negro strike-breakers. Mr. Roosevelt was aroused and amidst a divided audi- ence, he arose again and protested that similar ex- cuses had been made by the Russian autocracy for the pogroms of Jews. And then amidst Gompers' 96 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION further explanations and much commotion, he right- eously shouted : Oh, friends, we have gathered to greet the men and women of New Russia, a republic founded on the principles of justice to all. On such an evening never will I sit mo- tionless while directly or indirectly apology is made for the murder of the helpless. Some questioned the delicacy of Mr. Roosevelt's ac- tions, but such a situation could not be handled with gloves, and he merely used the weapons at hand to assail an un-American doctrine. He always did that whether he struck capitalist or laborite. As early as 1894, in writing on the "Manly Virtues and Practical Politics," he said: No amount of intelligence and no amount of energy will save a nation which is not honest, and no government can ever be a permanent success if administered in accordance with base ideals. He developed the idea later in an article in The Out- look: The foreign policy of a great and self-respecting country should be conducted on exactly the same plane of honor, of insistence upon one's own rights, and of respect for the rights of others, that marks the conduct of a brave and honorable man when dealing with his fellows. From his address at Christiania, Norway, on his return from Africa under the subject of "Peace," it seems fair to conclude that he favored some kind of association of nations, for he said : It would be a master stroke if those great Powers hon- THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 97 estly bent on peace would form a Leaguer of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves but to prevent by force, if necessary, its being broken by others. Each na- tion must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power competent and willing to prevent violence as between na- tions. He insisted that the "commonplace virtues" alone insure the perpetuity of a nation: No prosperity and no glory can save a nation that is rotten at heart. We must ... see to it that not only our citizens in private life, but above all, our statesmen in public life, practice the old commonplace virtues which from time immemorial have lain at the root of all true na- tional well-being {American Ideals, Gilder, p. 271). In an address at Grant's birthplace, Galena, Il- linois, in April, 1900, he said, concerning the power of the nation to produce men like Lincoln and Grant to meet future crises of the nation: The men we need are the men of strong, earnest, solid character — the men who possess the homely virtues, and who to these virtues add rugged courage, rugged honesty, and high resolve. Explaining his rule in appointing men to office, he said: If I am in such doubt about an applicant's character and fitness for office as would lead me not to put my private affairs in his hands, then I shall not put public affairs in his hands. A well-known Democrat was working hard for the 98 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION passage of some righteous bills when Governor Roosevelt, who was helping him to get them enacted, was warned that in thus doing he was aiding the author, Mr. Coler, to strengthen himself as a rival candidate for Governor. He replied, "Maybe so, but he is right and he is going to have those bills if I can get them through the Legislature for him." In his Pacific Theological Lectures, he said: "I ask you people here, whatever your politics may be, to be nonpartisan when the question of honesty is involved." And again: One great realizable ideal for our people is to discourage mere law honesty. . . . The best laws and the most rigid enforcement will not by themselves produce a really healthy type of morals in the community. In addition we must have the public opinion which frowns on the man who violates the spirit of the law even although he keeps within the letter (Realizable Ideals, p. 24). That is a bit similar to the Master's declarations concerning the "legal" dodges of the Pharisees. Such actions eat out the very fiber of fine citizenship. Crooks still wear the livery of "legality" and respec- tability. He rightly concluded that dishonesty was a rapidly multiplying disease germ that made its willing victim an unreliable citizen, and so he says in the same lecture: The minute that a man is dishonest along certain lines, even though he pretends to be honest along other lines, you can be sure that it is only a pretense, it is only ex- pediency; and you cannot trust to the mere sense of ex- pediency to hold a man straight under heavy pressure (Realizable Ideals, pp. 97, 98). THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 99 Believing that moral disorders were as dangerous to the nation as infectious sores were to the indi- vidual, he had no patience with anyone who claimed to know about corruption in public life and then went no further than to deal in innuendoes. When, therefore, a noted free-lance author made general charges against the government in a novel, he sent for him and said : We shall have a government investigation; if your charges are right, I will change the conditions; if you haven't got the facts, I will brand you as a liar to the American people. On entering the Legislature he believed that the prominent men who moved in the same circle with and were friends of his father were opposed to po- litical corruption. He was rudely awakened to find that many "respectable" citizens were mixed up in crooked politics as well as in crooked business and defended it as "practical." Political graft was con- doned all over America. But Mr. Koosevelt was a Daniel born for this hour, and he knew not how to grow strong on such "meat" as the henchmen served. He was Jehovah's man and accepted his menu. When full grown he came to power and imme- diately made efforts to save his country by reading the foreboding signs of the times and commanding repentance. A corrupt judge had written a prominent financier that he was "willing to go to the very verge of ju- dicial discretion to serve 'your vast interests.' " Mr. Koosevelt introduced a resolution to impeach him 100 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION by name and arraigned the Attorney-General for neglect of duty. The Republican leader asked that the resolution be defeated, since reputations had been ruined in this way, and he wanted to give young Mr. Roosevelt time to think before pushing his loose charges. That night ^'wise" friends advised the young legislator to subside. But he only set his jaws and each day appeared on the floor with new motions and facts and regularly furnished the papers additional material. This aroused the State; and in spite of vilification and abuse, the young man whipped the evil forces, and the resolution passed by a big vote. Everything else failing, the bosses endeavored to cow Mr. Roosevelt by hiring a big bully to beat him up. One evening as he was leaving the old Delavan House, where the legislators congregated, a hired thug, "Stubby" Lewis, coming out with a noisy crowd, collided with Mr. Roosevelt, and angrily asked why he ran into him. Before Mr. Roosevelt could answer, the bully struck out, but the blow never landed, for the trained boxer had soon given "Stubby" the beating of his life. Mr. Roosevelt was greatly aided by the newspapers and favored them in every possible way. But he fearlessly assailed a type which he believed was do- ing great harm ; Yellow journalism deifies the cult of the mendacious, the sensational, and the inane, and throughout its wide but vapid field does as much to vulgarize and degrade the popular conscience as any influence under which the coun- try can suffer. These men sneer at the very idea of pay- I THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 101 ing heed to the dictates of a sound morality; as one of their number has cynically put it, they are concerned merely with selling the public whatever the public will buy — a theory of conduct which would justify the existence of every keeper of an opium den, of every foul creature who ministers to the vices of mankind.^ After Mr. Koosevelt's first term in the Legislature, when it was found that he could be neither con- trolled nor cowed, an old friend of the family took the young man out to lunch and gave him fatherly advice. He explained to Mr. Koosevelt that he had demon- strated in the legislature that he had unusual ability or he could not "have made the reform play'^ so effectively. Then he warned Mr. Roosevelt not to "overplay your hand" and that to stop now was to insure himself an influential position in business or law. He could thus join the "people" who "control others" and corral the real "rewards." He was thus advised to get out of politics and join the aristo- cratic group with whom he belonged. Mr. Roosevelt asked some direct questions and found that the political ring was merely the puppet of a few rich men who really ran the country. Hence he came away more determined than ever to fight this "system," which was as dangerous and deadly as the Czarism of Russia. When he was enforcing the law for Sunday closing, many were fearful lest when crime long condoned in the saloon was checked, revolution might result, even as they predicted over the enforcement of pro- ^Lawrence Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 28. 102 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION hibition. And so all classes, including some timid good people, pleaded with him to go slow and use discretion. But he would not compromise and re- plied that there was nothing about discretion in his oath of office and quoted Abraham Lincoln's words : Let reverence of law be taught in schools and colleges, be written in primers and spelling-books, be published from pulpits and proclaimed in legislative houses, and enforced la the courts of justice — in short, let it become the po- litical religion of the nation. And he went straight on, fearlessly enforcing the law amidst abuse, threats, and often great loneli- ness. Crooked business always thrives by assigning rigid righteousness to the realm of the impractical. He hit it when he said: "If there is one thing I dislike, it is the expression, 'Business is business,' especially when it verges on rascality." He again punctured the plea for preferential treatment made by "business": The outcry against stopping dishonest practices among the very wealthy is precisely similar to the outcry raised against every effort for cleanliness and decency in city government, because, forsooth, it will "hurt business." Business interests have always demanded special consideration, falsely claiming that commercial pros- perity insured happiness and security. The moral diseases which destroyed Rome were nurtured amidst "business" prosperity. A plastering salve will not check the growth of a cancer ; it requires a knife. Germany would have secured a strangle hold on THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 103 America long ago if it had not been for President Koosevelt's fearless devotion to the Monroe Doctrine when blind ^^business" endeavored to dull our eyes to the facts. Mr. Roosevelt tells us that when he forced Germany to withdraw from South America : Many of them, including bankers, merchants, and rail- way magnates, criticized the action of the President and the Senate, on the ground that it had caused business dis- turbance. Such a position is essentially ignoble. When a question of national honor or of national right or wrong is at stake, no question of financial interest should be con- sidered for a moment. Those wealthy men who wish the abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine because its assertion may damage their business bring discredit to themselves, and so far as they are able, discredit to the nation of which they are a part. When praised for his independent courage which led him unaided and unadvised to undertake a peace treaty between warring Russia and Japan, he mini- mized success as the sign of the rightness of an act. In a letter to his daughter, Mrs. Longworth, he tells her that he would have been laughed at and con- demned if he had failed to bring peace, but now that he was successful he was overpraised and credited with being "extremely long-headed," when, in fact, events so shaped themselves that "I would have felt as if I were flinching from a plain duty if I had acted otherwise." At another time he said to Mr. Payne: I often get credit for unusual wisdom, when the fact is that I always do what is right, and that turns out so well that they credit it to political sagacity. Right gives light that some men credit to other causes. 104 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION Mr. Koosevelt wrote "Bill" Sewall six months after assuming the governorship, assuring him that it took as much courage to fill his office as it did to go up San Juan Hill. And he went against wrong so intrenched that only a man inspired and armored by God would dare to attack it. To him right was as vital as the heart is to life. He wrote a friend that when he came into the police department, ''both promotions and ap- pointments were made almost solely for money, and the prices were discussed with cynical frankness." The big Tammany leaders never even denied the newly announced agreement whereby the saloons were promised immunity from blackmail, until they paid the police in cash, for the privilege of remain- ing open on Sunday, provided that in the future they rendered absolute political support. Governor Hill, seriously considered as a candidate for President, condoned the passing of a Sunday closing law which was to be used, Mr. Roosevelt openly charged, for purposes of graft. As shown when he "beat up" the hired thug, Mr. Roosevelt was ready to meet his opponents with physical courage which he had built up for use when that was necessary. One day he secured the heavy leg of a chair and laid it close at hand while he presided over a committee accredited to be corrupt. When they refused to report out a worthy bill either favorably or unfavorably because they first de- manded pay, he arose, put the bill in his pocket and said he would report it. Angry murmurs over lost pelf arose, but with the chair leg grasped in his THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 105 hand, he walked calmly out of the room un- molested. When the Legislature, because it was controlled by the corporations, refused to pass his franchise tax bill, he sent a message to the Speaker, who tore it up in his messenger's face. He sent a duplicate and warned the Speaker that if it was not read by him, it would be read from the floor by some member, and if that plan failed then he himself would come and read it. After that it was read, and the bill passed. Dean Lewis describes his calling at Mr. Koose- velt's office while he was assistant secretary of the navy. He found Mr. Koosevelt in spirited conver- sation and tried to hastily withdraw. He recalled him, however, and he recognized the one being lec- tured as a prominent lawyer and an officeholder in a former administration. Mr. Roosevelt was ar- raigning him vigorously for selling the government a rotten ship and trying to sell another. When the lawyer tried to mention his clients, Mr. Roosevelt said, "I congratulate them on having an attorney who will do work for them which they wouldn't have the face to do for themselves." Then telling him that the boat already bought was worthless, he adds, "It will be God's mercy if she doesn't go down with brave men on her — men who go to war to risk their lives, instead of staying home to sell rotten hulks to the government." That was a sample of many "dressings" given to "respectable" crooks. He had an uncanny way of uncovering evil trails. But with it all he kept his sweetness of nature and 106 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION his gentleness of heart. Rudyard Kipling might well cable, "For me it is as if Bunyan's ^Great-Heart' had died in the midst of battle." He believed that laws should be righteous and then nothing should excuse their non-enforcement. He knew no exceptions and so he enforced the Sunday saloon law in New York. Under a new enactment the mayor was empowered to remove the Tammany- controlled magistrates. Mayor Strong did so, and the new ones were to be seated Monday, July 1. Mr. Roosevelt announced, amidst the speechless conster- nation of saloonists and the stiff opposition of most of the people and the active support of almost none, that on Sunday, June 30, the saloons must close. The results were amazing under his relentless pur- pose and skillful management. Benefits were every- where reported. As a result, Sunday-closing cam- paigns spread over the nation and everywhere brought better conditions. This helped show the possibilities of a dry nation and so aided national prohibition. Chauncey Depew claims' to have won the bosses over to the nomination of Mr. Roosevelt for gover- nor. The discovery that one million of the nine set apart to build canals had been stolen convinced Piatt that the party was doomed. Depew, called into conference, was told that Odell had suggested Roose- velt and Piatt objected, "He has always been un- controllable either by the party organization or his superiors, and I am afraid he might be most dan- gerous to our organization." Depew replied : "He is the only man you can elect. When the heckler THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 107 asks about the theft of a million dollars, I will reply, ^We have nominated for Governor the greatest thief- catcher there is in the world. As police commis- sioner he cleaned up New York. He will find out the State thief and punish him.' " Piatt answered, "That settles it." His very methods which they had assailed as impractical saved the day for them. In 1903, in an address at the dedication of a monument to General W. T. Sherman, Mr. Roose- velt said : We can as little afford to tolerate a dishonest man in the public service as a coward in the army. The murderer takes a single life, the corruptionist in public life, whether he be bribe-giver or bribe-taker, strikes at the heart of the commonwealth. It was natural, therefore, that he attacked dishon- est officials wherever found. Bribery and graft were so common that they had even entered the United States Senate. No one had the temerity to attack them there, however, until President Roosevelt backed up the prosecution which led to the expulsion of two dishonest senators. One of them had ac- cepted fees in arguing fraudulent land cases. Land had been '^stolen" by bribery for so many years that it came to be considered legitimate. This senator in extenuation produced a contract showing that his partner was to receive all fees, but the water-mark on the paper betrayed the fact that the paper had been manufactured long after the date of the contract. It had really been made after he was a senator. 108 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION A great ^'Trust" was also caught stealing from the government. Parr, a customs inspector, grow- ing suspicious, investigated and found that each of the seventeen scales was filled with a secret spring which when manipulated by the trust's representa- tive reduced the weight of the sugar when the duty was collected. The trust was prosecuted and paid the government over two million dollars it had stolen in this way. The whole ^^case," step by step, was regularly reported direct to the President. "In- fluence" nearly shunted Parr ofiP the trail, but Mr. Roosevelt, learning of it, kept him on the job. When guilt was clearly proved and there was no evidence of repentance he had no sympathy with the practice of showing clemency and so he condemned the pardons so freely granted soon after he left the Presidency. He objected that the criminals were all pardoned and escaped long sentences on the ground of ill health, which he felt was a subterfuge. They were proven guilty of the worst offenses, rang- ing from "a crime of brutal violence" to "the crimes by astute corruptionists." He felt, therefore, that the community as a whole had been done a grave in- justice by these pardons and that the effects would be "far reaching in their damages," because their crimes had thus been minimized. When Mr. Roosevelt returned from Africa he sin- cerely desired to enjoy his home and do literary work ; but when Mayor Gaynor spoke words of wel- come, the day he landed, the urge of service could not be silenced and he said : And I am ready and eager to do my part, so far as I am THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 109 able, in helping solve problems which must be solved if we of this, the greatest democratic republic upon which the sun has ever shone, are to see its destinies rise to the high level of our hopes and its opportunities. To be willing to loaf was to him a sign of moral ill-health in a world where so much waited to be done. He commended the man who would employ his leisure in "politics or philanthropy, literature or art." Then he continued ; But a leisure class whose leisure simply means idleness is a curse to the community and in so far as its members distinguish themselves chiefly by aping the worst — not the best — traits of similar people across the water, they become both comic and noxious elements to the body politic (American Ideals, p. 25). He revealed his wide-reaching service-ideals in the social program of the Progressive Party which he wrote. It favored workingmen's compensation laws, insurance against sickness and nonemployment. It prohibited child labor, provided a minimum wage and safety and health protection for the various oc- cupations. It interdicted night work for women and young persons and prescribed one day's rest in seven and not more than eight hours work out of twenty-four for toilers. Mr. Roosevelt's address supporting this program was punctuated with ap- plause one hundred and forty-five times. The re- forms proposed were so much in line with the king- dom of God that it was appropriate for the Progres- sive convention to close by singing, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." no ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He held for the nation ideals of service for the whole world even as he did for the individual to his nation. He was therefore eagerly active in negotiat- ing peace between Russia and Japan and in return- ing a part of the Chinese indemnity fund. He urged the duty of aiding Cuba and heartily favored our entrance into the Philippines. Other countries fat- tened themselves through their territorial adminis- tration of backward sections, but he insisted that it was America's duty to develop these weaker people and to teach them to walk alone. Mr. Roosevelt commended the English and Dutch administrators of Malaysia but emphasized the fact that the profit coming to the Europeans was the first consideration, while with us our sole purpose was to benefit the Filipinos even to our own detriment. He insisted that the ideal had never been filled by any other nation and was so high that few, if any, governments in Europe believed that we would ac- tually give the Cubans self-government and fit the Filipinos to govern themselves. With this theory of our nation's place in the world, he early saw the necessity of America entering the World War and so he said: I have a firm conviction that our nation has heen di- vinely called or favored to show to Germany and her allies that they cannot continue in their criminal policy in- definitely without answering for all the suffering and dev- astation that have heen caused {The Great Adventure, p. 198). National and individual success survives and THE ESSENTIAL OF SUCCESS 111 thrives only when ideals and effort are bent toward service and follow the rules of righteousness, which are the laws of God. That was the theory that in- spired and directed all of Mr. Roosevelt's activities. CHAPTER VI A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE "The difference between a leader and a boss ia that the leader leads and the boss drives." — Theodore Roosevelt. For God has not given us a timid spirit but a spirit of power and love and discipline. — 2 Tim. 1. 7 (Moffatt's translation). THEODORE ROOSEVELT stood out conspicu- ously like an officer leading troops into battle as a leader of righteousness ; he was a veritable David in courage. His confidence grew out of a consciousness that he was furnished to per- form his providentially assigned tasks. He sought advice about the "how" to put a conviction into ef- fective form, but he never asked about "expediency" if he was sure it was right. Fear paralyzes many possible leaders. False humility often checks prog- ress, ruins a career, and defeats a campaign. God's command to "go forward" should always be an- swered by "I can." When Mr. Roosevelt had left earth and been car- ried to his humble cemetery a copy of the poem "The Deacon's Prayer," by Samuel Valentine Cole, was found among treasured papers with many lines scored. Here are three of the important stanzas, voicing the "prayer." They are reproduced by per- mission of the author: 112 A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 113 "Not one who merely sits and thinks, Looks Buddha-wise, with folded hands; Who balances, and blinks, and shrinks, And questions — while we wait commands! Who dreams, perchance, that right and wrong Will make their quarrel up some day, And discord be the same as song — Lord, not so safe a one, we pray! "Nor one who never makes mistakes Because he makes not anything; But one who fares ahead and breaks The path for truth's great following; Who takes the way that brave men go — Forever up stern duty's hill; Who answers 'Yes,' or thunders 'No/ According to thy holy will. "We want a man whom we can trust, To lead us where thy purpose leads; Who dares not lie, but dares be just — Give us the dangerous man of deeds!" So prayed the deacon, letting fall Each sentence from his heart; and when He took his seat the brethren all, As by one impulse, cried, "Amen!" It is quite clear that he recognized in these words the ideal which he tried to follow. Of course egotism tempts every capable person. Mr. Roosevelt confessed that early success in the Legislature turned his head. He told Mr. Riis: I suppose that my head was swelled, ... I took the best "mugwump" stand — my own conscience, my own judgment were to decide in all things. I would listen to no argument, no advice. . . . When I looked around, be- fore the session was well under way, I found myself alone. IM ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION . . . "He won't listen to anybody," they said, and I would not. ... I looked the ground over and made up my mind that there were several other excellent people there, with honest opinions of the right, even though they differed from me. I turned in to help them, and they turned to and gave me a hand. And so we were able to get things done.^ He laughed with the rest when one of his boys said, "Father never likes to go to a wedding or a funeral, because he can't be the bride at the wedding or the corpse at the funeral." An egotistical man is always irritable and com- plainful over being thwarted. "Bill" Sewall said, "Mr. Roosevelt was never irritable and he could not endure people who were." Major Putnam aptly said, "Colonel Roosevelt had many traits that he admired in Andrew Jackson, but his real sweetness of nature saved him from arousing the antagonism that Jackson had frequently provoked." He saved himself from too great concern over any particular contest by absorbing himself in an ex- traneous matter. When the Century Magazine pub- lished a notable article about the ancient Irish Sagas, someone asked Mr. Roosevelt how he happened to write it. He explained that Congress was in a bitter contest over his action in the Brownsville Ne- gro soldier murderers' case and, "I knew that it would be a long and possibly irritating business if I followed it ; so I shut myself up, paid no attention to the row, and wrote the article." Mr. Roosevelt was so quick in perception and so ^Lawrence Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 44, 45. A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 115 economical of time that he often seemed to ignore others when he had really digested their suggestions. A great leader must take positions and often stick to them so tenaciously as to appear stubborn. He once said, ''Go ahead, do something, and be willing to take responsibility." We must command respect by our bearing and confidence. The cowboys frequently taunted Mr. Koosevelt about his glasses. His usual policy was, "Do your job and keep your mouth shut." But dur- ing a round-up, when a Texan was peculiarly insult- ing in dubbing him a dude, Roosevelt strode up and said, "You're talking like an ass," and drew his gun, saying, "Put up or shut up! Fight now or be friends." The cowboy apologized and later joined his outfit. This attitude he carried into his public life. When assailed for acting on his own judgment in the plan for the naval trip around the world, he ad- mitted that he acted in that matter as he did in tak- ing Panama without consulting the Cabinet, for he insisted, "In a crisis the duty of a leader is to lead" and not to dodge behind the "timid wisdom of a mul- titude of councilors." It was charged that as President, he interfered to secure legislation just as Wilson and Harding did afterward. Answering the charge, he said, "If I had not interfered, we would not have had any rate bill/'_or beef packers, or pure food, or consular re- form, or Panama Canal, or employers' liability bills. He considered it his duty as the chosen leader of the nation to secure legislation and enforce laws 116 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION that would benefit the people and "favor the growth of intelligence and the diffusion of wealth in such manner as will measurably avoid the extreme of swollen fortunes and grinding poverty.'' When Mr. Roosevelt was charged with a desire to boss the country, he replied, "I am a leader. I am not a boss. The difference between a boss and a leader is that the leader leads and the boss drives." He honestly believed he was gifted as a leader and was serving under Jehovah's orders as certainly as were Israel's leaders. Mr. Loeb told the writer : Mr. Roosevelt's fervor of intense patriotism was some- times taken for egotism. He never had the least trace of the real thing. No man was ever so ready to give credit to the other fellow. He always made Garfield and Pinchot feel that they were doing the job. He wanted them to have full credit. That Is the way he attracted and held really big men to him. Mr. Pinchot told the writer : Mr. Roosevelt was most generous in giving credit to other people. He had less pride of opinion than any man I have ever known. His one outstanding characteristic was humility of mind. He was accustomed to say that a thing was not worth fighting for that was not worth being beaten for. He considered it as legitimate to earn a living from politics as from medicine or law provided only that "the politician puts service to the state as his main object." Ability to fill an office, not party "pull," should, therefore, settle a candidate's avail- ability. While a member of the Civil Service Com- A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 117 mission, so unpopular among the politicians, he wrote his sister explaining that he felt it to be his duty to accomplish something worth while either ''in politics or literature" because he had premeditatedly given up the idea of entering a "money-making business." He naturally used every method to remind the people what he had accomplished so that they would keep him at the job. He also drew courage and inspiration from achievement along this line as the lawyer would in winning a case or the merchant in closing a notable sale. After the sweeping Kepublican Congressional vic- tory in 1918 following President Wilson's reelection, the editor of the Metropolitan Magazine found Mr. Roosevelt in bed suffering from "a bad attack of sciatica" with much pain but jubilant over the vic- tory, which he said was not so sweeping as to give the reactionaries too much confidence. And referring to himself and the Progressives, he said, "And don't forget that we did a lot to bring this victory about." He was greatly dependent on his friends for en- couragement. He was nominated by acclamation in 1904 and he seemed to be almost as unanimously popular with the people of the nation; but even then he at times seriously doubted whether he would beat Judge Parker. At one of these depressed times he confessed anxiety in a letter to John Hay but concluded that whatever came, "How can I help being a little proud when I contrast the men and the considerations by which I am attacked, and those by which I am defended?" 118 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He was really aggravated by the constant charges that his public career was a mere accident; and it was a jubilant voice which declared to Mrs. Roose- velt, after his sweeping victory in 1904, "Now, my dear, I am no longer an accident." He had, however, no false and artificial notions about his own gifts and ability. He felt a keen re- sponsibility to the Creator who had intrusted him with gifts. He said one time: I know the very ordinary kind of man I am to fill this great office [President]. I know that my ideals are commonplace. I can only insist upon them as fundamental, for they are that. Not in the least doing anything great, I can try, and I am trying, to do my duty on the level where I am put, and so far as I can see the way, the whole of it. He was far more tractable than most people im- agined. The editor of the Metropolitan said that next to his intense "patriotism the thing we felt about the Colonel was his modesty and perfectly natural feel- ing of being on a footing of equality with everyone in the office from the office boy up." When it was suggested that an article on "Labor" was too long, he graciously and promptly tore up the first ten pages. Mr. Van Valkenburg told the writer : He was never satisfied with a speech, but would work it over again and again, after posting himself very care- fully on the subject. He never delivered a speech until he had submitted it to a group of friends, who often cut out long passages. He would heartily thank them and say the speech was greatly improved. A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 119 ^'Bill" Sewall told me, ''He would not argue at all but would own up immediately if in the wrong." Mr. Pinchot insisted that it did not hurt his pride to "reverse himself when found wrong." The Hon. Oscar Straus gave me an illustration of President Roosevelt's promptness in changing his mind when new and convincing evidence was pre- sented. Before Mr. Straus came in the Cabinet the President had openly and vigorously supported the bill to provide a literacy test for immigrants. Mr. Straus was opposed to the bill and gave, among others, the following reason : Some of the worst immigrants that enter our shores can read and write, while often the best can do neither. Many Europeans are illiterates because of bad economical con- ditions. When they have ambition, under those circum- stances, to come to America they usually aspire to secure an education and see to it that their children are promptly and properly educated. To prove this, he showed that there was more illiteracy among American born than among foreign born. When a strong Boston organization called upon the President, urging him to again back the bill, he told them that Mr. Straus had presented evidence that had caused him to change his mind and he withdrew his support. John Hay, while Secretary of State, wrote in his diary, November 20, 1904, that he had just gone over the President's message and made many suggestions and omissions, adding, "He accepted my ideas with that singular amiability and open-mindedness which forms so striking a contrast with the general idea 120 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION of his brusque and arbitrary character" (Washburn, p. 118). Mr. Stoddard, his intimate adviser, during the trying last ten years of his life, when so many thought him stubborn, said to me: "I never met a man in public life who took advice as he did. In fact, he took it far too easily at times." He ap- proached the state which the Master approved when he said: ''Blessed are the meek, for they shall in- herit the earth," but the "meek" were not cringing crawlers. Lawrence Abbott, however, stresses a fact in which others agree when he says : I do not mean to give the impression that he altered his mind frequently. On matters of principle he could be as fixed as adamant. But in methods of putting a principle into effect he habitually sought counsel and was eager to adopt suggestions. He endeavored to find the best way to word and put into effect his deep-rooted convictions, which he seldom changed. Mr. Richberg, a party leader, a close associate in political matters, said: When I first engaged in intimate political work with Colonel Roosevelt in 1913, I was amazed to observe his modesty of judgment, his readiness to consult with others, his consideration for the opinions of less informed men, and his careful deliberation before taking action. Dr. Lambert related an incident of a speech which the President read to him one night : I told him, "You are using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 121 You would accomplish more if you used ridicule instead of abuse." We discussed this for some time and he failed to agree with me. The next morning he greeted me with, "Well, I accepted your suggestions and worked until 3 A. M. to write the speech over." Soon after his installation as President he formed a "newspaper Cabinet," composed of correspondents with whom he discussed the most serious problems. They were pledged to secrecy and when a matter was "released" they agreed to treat it sympathetically. He wanted to get the viewpoint of the masses through the brains of these alert newspaper men. W. Emlen Koosevelt said to me: I once asked Theodore why he associated with so many scalawags such as I met at his house. He replied, "Yes, I know they are not flawless, but they have some noble traits and I want to get their viewpoint." He wanted to see the world through as many eyes as possible. Pastor and pugilist, politician and professional man, college folk and the untutored- all interpreted for him. He refused to accept special favors as due his office or his public position. For example, all firearms carried into Yellowstone Park were to be "sealed" to avoid use. The President promptly turned his over, but being recognized, the gatekeeper handed them back unsealed. But Mr. Roosevelt insisted that he be treated just as any other citizen, and his guns were sealed. He never put his own interests first— like his Lord he always sought the common good. 122 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION On his return from Africa he received two thou- sand invitations to lecture in various places and for fabulous sums. But he saved himself instead for public service and refused all of these invitations. After the way was closed for him to fight in France an invitation from high officials came urging him to visit that land. If ovation-hungry, he rejected a feast, for he said : ''They would give me a great reception. ... I have a horror of being a spectator while other men are fighting." When the Rough Riders were organized, Secretary of War R. A. Alger, a loyal friend of Mr. Roosevelt, proposed that he be made colonel while Leonard Wood, who knew military tactics and could do the actual training, be made lieutenant-colonel. But he refused to accept an office he could not fill and went in instead as lieutenant-colonel. Mr. Roosevelt campaigned efficiently for Benjamin Harrison, who wanted to give him an undersecre- taryship in the State Department. But Blaine, the Secretary of State, whom he had once opposed, and who was unreconciled, refused to approve the plan. Only an obscure place on the unpopular Civil Service Commission was offered ; but he saw an opportunity to serve and did not hesitate a moment. Selfish pique had no place in his life; he took the humble place as quickly as the conspicuous if it was then his largest place of service. When the heaviest disappointment of his life came in the refusal of President Wilson to allow him to fight he immediately issued a statement to the men who had offered to enlist under him : A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 123 As good American citizens we loyally obey the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the American army and navy. The men who have volunteered will now consider them- selves absolved from all further connection with this move- ment. Our sole aim is to help in every way in the success- ful prosecution of the war, and we most heartily feel that no individual's personal interest should for one moment be considered save as it serves the general public interest. There is here no sulking or bitterness coming from poisoned pride. He did not require political agreement as a sign of ability as do some small, selfish politicians. Mr. Thayer was once embarrassed by the cordial friend- ship of his old classmate because he felt compelled to confess that he had not voted for him at the previous election. "Bill," said Mr. Koosevelt, "the man who can write The Life of Cavour can vote for anybody he pleases so far as I am concerned. What has your politics to do with my appreciation of your great book?" Another zealous supporter was pro- testing against his friendliness with Lodge while that senator was opposing some administration measure. Mr. Roosevelt replied, "I should talk to Lodge about books if we disagreed on the Ten Com- mandments." Governor Hadley, of Missouri, was a loyal sup- porter in the Chicago convention but refused to fol- low him out of the party. Mr. Roosevelt was big enough to recognize the Governor's unusual di- lemma and felt no blame for him when others could not excuse him. Dean Lewis, an eyewitness, tells us that when Hadley came to say good-by and to 124 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION declare his alignment with Taft, all of the other men stood like graven images, not even noticing his pres- ence. But Mr. Roosevelt greeted him cordially and took him aside for a private talk. ''There was not a trace of resentment in his manner, and I do not think he felt resentment." He opened a window into his heart when he wrote his political adviser, Mr. Richberg: You really please me when you say that you do not be- lieve that I care for the political cost to myself. My dear Richberg, I think I can conscientiously say that I have always been willing to sacrifice my own political chances for a national object which I consider of sufficient weight. That was indeed the attitude of a sincere disciple of the Nazarene. He as rigidly enforced his ideas of justice when he was to suffer as he would when another was the victim. Through a peculiar pro- vision in the Massachusetts primary law, the eight delegates at large pledged to Mr. Roosevelt were elected, yet at the same time through the failure of Mr. Roosevelt's friends to vote on the subject of actual candidates the popular vote of the State, which the primary also provided for, favored Mr. Taft. Mr. Roosevelt immediately issued a statement saying that he would expect his eight delegates to follow the instructions of the popular vote and sup- port Mr. Taft. He seemed never to think of himself first. When his carriage was hit by a trolley in Massachusetts and a secret service man was killed, he looked first after the injured and then gave instructions to notify A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 125 the Associated Press that the President was unin- jured, so that the possible fears of the people might be allayed. His own shin bone was so injured that he suffered pain and inconvenience from it for the rest of his life, but he said nothing of it at the time. During a friendly boxing bout with a cousin of Mrs. Roosevelt, while he was in the White House, a glancing blow extinguished the sight in one eye. He did not mention the matter for years, saying after- ward that he feared the knowledge of the mishap would make the young man feel badly. After an operation, in the spring of 1918, he lost the hearing of one ear, but the public did not know that. "Bill" Sewall said to me : He was never what I considered a sturdy man. His en- ergy and will carried him forward. He never thought of taking care of himself but just did what he wanted to do if it was a part of his day's work. But the time came when he taxed himself too greatly. He admitted to me that his South American trip was evidently a mistake — but that was stated confidentially. His self-forgetfulness is vividly shown in his South American sickness. A canoe was caught in the rocks, and he, working waist-deep in the water, injured the shin bone which had been hurt in the Massachusetts trolley wreck. Fever developed and he, "in his weakened condition, was attacked by a veritable plague of deep abscesses." He was so ill that he could not be moved, and since the provisions were rapidly diminishing and no supplies could be secured in the neighborhood, he seriously considered taking his own life rather than detain and endanger 126 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION the whole party. But finally they moved with Mr. Roosevelt in a canoe covered with a canvas and so weak he could not splash water in his face. But Kermit wrote : ''He was invariably cheerful and in the blackest times ever ready with a joke. ... He gave no one any trouble." When he was shot at Milwaukee, while campaign- ing as the Progressive candidate for President, he at first sank back, but seeing the crowd struggling with his assailant, quickly forgot himself and aris- ing, said, "Do not hurt him, but bring him to me." Someone then urged him to go at once to the hos- pital ; but he insisted that the waiting crowd in the hall must first be considered and went there. When ready to speak he pulled his speech out of his pocket to find it perforated with the bullet. One hundred sheets of paper had probably saved his life. He was shocked for a moment as he recognized this fact, but quickly recovered and went on with his speech. He talked for an hour and a half while bleeding from a bullet in his breast which, by the way, he carried to his death. He was not, however, merely impulsive even in this, for his rare foresight was used even here, as is shown in a note to Henry White, former Ambassador to Italy and France, who called him "foolhardy" : You know, I didn't think I had been mortally wounded. If so, I would have bled from the lungs. But I coughed hard three times and put my hand to my mouth; as I did not find any blood, I . . . went on with my speech. He seemed to prei)are for everything. Mr. Van Valkenburg told me : A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 127 He was attendin;; a celebration of his dear friend. Father Curran, at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. The Father, Theo- dore, and I were riding in a motor through the cheering crowds. The President was standing up bowing to the crowd and singing a Negro ditty while he did so. Sud- denly a big fellow rushed up and jumping on the running board reached for Mr. Roosevelt. In a moment the Presi- dent caught him and by jiu jitsu, threw him off in a flash. I asked him, "How could you act so quickly?" He replied, "I think out and talk over with Mrs. Roosevelt such possible attacks in advance and am ready when they come. I was thus also prepared for the shooting at Mil- waukee." As an outstanding leader he recognized his indebted- ness to the public and so safeguarded himself. In the Milwaukee speech with death facing him and even while increasing the risk by speaking, he said: ''I tell you with absolute truth, I am not thinking of my own life, I am not thinking of my own success. I am thinking only of the success of this great cause." Continuing, he said : I do not care a rap about being shot, not a rap. I have had a good many experiences in my time, and this is only one of them. What I do care for is my country. I wish I were able to impress upon our people the duty to feel strongly, but to speak truthfully of their opponents. I say now that I have never said on the stump one word against any opponent that I could not substantiate, nothing that, looking back. I would not say again.^ Only the poise that comes from unselfish service inspired by the faith in the Master could make such a declar ation while facing death. ^Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, Lawrence Abbott, p. 297. 128 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He depreciated the credit given him for his self- forgetfulness when shot, and said: But a good soldier or sailor, or for the matter of that, even a civilian accustomed to hard and hazardous pursuits, a deep-sea fisherman, or railway man, or cowboy, or lum- berjack, or miner, would normally act as I acted without thinking anything about it. I believe half the men in my regiment at the least would have acted just as I acted. Think how many Bulgars during the last month have acted in just the same fashion and never even had their names mentioned in bulletins. He immediately remembered his future engage- ments and recalled ex-Senator Beveridge to take his speaking dates. He affirmed that now, as in the sixties, it is "not important whether one leader lives or dies. It is important only that the cause shall live or win. Tell the people not to worry about me, for if I do go down another will take my place." And again: "If one soldier who happens to carry the flag is stricken, another will take it from his hands and carry it on." Is it any wonder that the beckoning and inspiring ideal of such a life was Abraham Lincoln? When he was inaugurated as President in 1904 he wore a ring containing a lock of Lincoln's hair, a new evidence of his finely tempered sentimental nature. He had received it with a letter from John Hay, who assured him that the hair in the ring had been taken from the head of Abraham Lincoln by Dr. Taft on the night of the assassination and that he himself had received it from the son of Dr. Taft. He as- A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 129 sured him further, as he urged him to wear it, that Mr. Roosevelt was ^'one of the men who most thor- oughly understood and appreciated Lincoln." Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Roosevelt's monograms were both engraved on the ring. John Hay knew Lincoln as well as any man through his intimate acquaintance as his secretary, and he knew Mr. Roosevelt from his youth up; hence the tribute was a high one, and its full effect was not lost, for afterward Mr. Roosevelt, referring to the fact that the ring was on his finger when the Chief Justice administered the oath of office taken when he was sworn in as President of the United States, said he often reminded John Hay that the presence of the ring at that time deeply im- pressed him. He affirmed that it led him to secretly resolve to constantly interpret the Constitution in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln as a ^'document which put human rights above property rights when the two conflicted." A little later, he explained to Henry F. Pritchett that the vision of Lincoln greatly affected as he seemed to see him in the "different rooms and halls." He explained that "so far as one who is not a great man" could do so he modeled after the "great" Lincoln and tried to follow his policy. Then he bursts out in a wish for Lincoln's invariable "equanimity. I try my best not to give expression to irritation but sometimes I do get deeply irritated." He was so absolutely true to his convictions and so earnestly supported them, no matter whether suc- cess or failure faced him, that he appeared to some 130 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION practical men as stubborn. Mr. McGrath, his secre- tary during the "Progressive" days, told me : Mr. Roosevelt knew before campaigning in 1912 that he would be defeated. Yet he kept a happy and hopeful spirit, affirming that his party was right. Though he carried a large personal vote, few others were elected, and he knew that this meant the ultimate collapse of the party. Never- theless, he loyally spoke for the local candidates in 1914 as a personal debt to them. During all of these disappoint- ments he showed no irritability and never became sour. Though blow came after blow, yet he was never even groggy. He was standing on the Rock of Ages and so stood firmly. He never — even for the sake of harmony — "swal- lowed" his convictions. Even after returning to the Republican Party, he retained his Progressive social program. Mr. Van Valkenburg was called to the hospital to criticise his "keynote" Maine speech in 1918. The doctor allotted him fifteen minutes but Mr. Roosevelt held him for an hour while he talked over the speech. When it was completed, "Van" found that it contained all the items of social plans contained in the original Progressive j)latform and wrote Mr. Roosevelt that the reactionaries would never approve it. But later, he wrote "Van" that he had submitted the speech to three noted standpat Republican leaders who had opposed him as a Pro- gressive and added, "The joke is that they approved every word of the speech without a single sugges- tion." It is possible to be egotistically stubborn about A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 131 simplicity and a much boasted "democracy." One can be as objectionable in ill-fitting clothes and crude manners as in the habiliments of a fop. Mr. Koose- velt accepted the customs of English royalty like a gracious gentleman while among them in an official capacity. He was the representative of the United States at the funeral of Edward VII ; and his secre- tary, fearing he would object to some of the proposed trappings and pomp, called him into conference when his representatives could not agree about "parade" details. He replied : Why, Mott, I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but I am here as an ambassador, not to do what I like but what the English people like, as the contribution of my country to the respect which the world is paying to the memory of the King. If the people want m© to, I'll wear a pink coat and green-striped trousers!* But there was no flunkeyism about his own home. He did not even have a "butler" or a "footman." Rosy-cheeked girls answered the door, while colored Charley Lee handled the "reins" or the "wheel." An old-fashioned cook — no foreign dignitary — prepared the meals. A "good-fighting man" General advised Mr. Roose- velt, when he entered the Spanish War, to get a pair of black-top boots for full dress, as they were "very effective on hotel piazzas and in parlors." He af- firmed : "I did not intend to be in any hotel. . . . I had no full-dress uniform, nothing but my service uniform." ^Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, Lawrence Abbott, p. 297. 132 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION But when the standing of his country was at stake he could insist on the smallest details of social etiquette. At a White House state dinner, Holleben, the German ambassador, suggested that Prince Henry, as a Hohenzollern representing the Kaiser, should walk out to dinner first. Mr. Roosevelt re- plied, curtly, ''No person living precedes the Presi- dent of the United States in the White House." He always longed for the quiet of home life, which many believed he did not covet. He wrote Kermit, after the Progressive defeat, that while people would not believe that he had not been so happy for years as since the election, yet it was true. He enjoyed being free from engagements and having the oppor- tunity to "stay out here with mother." He never put too large confidence in popularity. He tasted its highest tide on his return from his African trip. It was my privilege to witness the hilarious and almost universal welcome given him in New York at that time. The whole country ac- claimed him. But he kept his head and said : ''It is a kind of hysteria. They will be throwing rotten eggs at me soon." He was right. Very soon the "man on the street" who had a little while before shouted friendly acclamations, now talked about "the poor back-number who thought he was God Al- mighty." At this low tide of popularity a man put up an autographed photo of Mr. Roosevelt at auction and had difficulty in getting twenty-five cents for it. Lord Morley, after his visit to America, sent back such a laudatory note that Roosevelt was embar- rassed. Morley wrote: A HUMBLE SELF-CONFIDENCE 133 My dear fellow, do you know the two most extraordinary things I have seen in your country? Niagara Falls and the President of the United States — both great wonders of nature. Mr. Koosevelt feared such praise would be misunder- stood and bring a reaction, so he said about it : That was a very nice thing of Morley to say, so long as it is confined to one or two of my intimate friends who won't misunderstand it! Just at the moment, people are speaking altogether too well of me. . . . Reaction is per- fectly certain to come under such circumstances, and then people will revenge themselves for feeling humiliated for having said too much on one side by saying too much on the other. And discussing his popularity in the midst of its highest tide in 1906, before he had met any reverses, he reminds a friend in a letter that he is not think- ing about his popularity, for he felt that if he was at that time popular, it would not be long before he became unpopular. He concludes : "I am not pay- ing heed to public opinion. I am paying heed to the public interest.'' Publicity always brings a dangerous experience. It will search out all the weakness of habit or trait in the individual. Limelight is likely to go to the head. It may become an opiate, and when gone may drive one to foolish sensationalism for its recovery or cause one to sit in soured and dispirited idleness. But Mr. Koosevelt proved his unegotistical self- confidence by such a devotion to his country that no victory could overturn or no defeat sour him. Through all conditions and with all available aid 134 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION he persevered to bring in better wsijs and days. He gathered all available evidence — he valued advice as he understood its source, and he viewed all sides before he came to a decision. But when he had reached a decision, he proceeded with patience and perseverance to carry it out with a self-confidence that did not question his ability or the ultimate out- come. That is the mark of a Christian leader who believes in the call of God and the sufficient *'grace" that accompanies the call. It is the confidence of Paul, who affirmed, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me." d CHAPTER VII A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND "The highest type of philanthropy is that which springs from the feeling of brotherhood, and which, therefore, rests on the self-respecting, healthy basis of mutual obliga- tion and common effort." — Theodore Roosevelt. A man that hath friends must show himself friendly. —Prov, 18. 24. IN a letter never published, and loaned to the writer by Mr. Bishop, Mr. Roosevelt differenti- ates between "sentiment" and sentimentality in answering a charge that he discounted both : I regard sentiment as the great antithesis of sentimen- tality, and to substitute sentiment for sentimentality in my speech would directly invert my meaning. I abhor senti- mentality, and, on the other hand, think no man is worth his salt who isn't profoundly influenced by sentiment and who doesn't shape his life in accordance with a high ideal. Some German sympathizers mistook Mr. Roose- velt's association with the Kaiser and so tried in a personal visit to smother his intelligence by appeal- ing to a blind admiration and thus win his support for their cause. Mr. Roosevelt acknowledged the courtesies shown him by the Kaiser on his visit to Germany and admitted that he corresponded with him but concluded, "Indeed, sirs, my relations with 135 136 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION the Kaiser have been exactly the same as with the King of the Belgians. Good afternoon." Sentiment is clean, strong affection backed by in- telligence and fed by respect. It is the basis of patriotism, happy life, and friendship. Without it one is marked as either heartless or brainless. It does not make one soft or mushy but gives poise and ballast to the powers. The Man of Galilee loved John and wept over Jerusalem, but he also called the religious leaders ^^whited sepulchers" and lashed the grafting dealers out of the Temple. Theodore Koosevelt was a consistent, tender, and affectionate friend, but he too was a fearless assailant of evil and an ardent advocate of righteousness. Christ's disciples normally illustrate both traits. Mr. Roosevelt always kept his feelings susceptible to impressions ; he was never hard. He quickly saw the pathos of the Negro freedmen who fought with Jackson in 1812, "who were to die bravely as free- men only that their brethren might live on ignobly as slaves." They were to "shed their blood for the flag that symbolized to their kind not freedom but bondage." For at that time the United States per- mitted slavery. He was not averse to expressing his affection for his friends. President Butler told me that in private he was exuberant in his manifestations. After say- ing of Mr. Riis that, next to his father, he was the "best man I have ever known," he added, "I learned to love him like a brother." The newspaper men were all knit to him by genu- ine affection. A taxicab driver overheard one news- Undenv A FAMOUS TRIO AT CHAUTAUQUA. NEW YORK: JACOB A. RIIS (ON LEFT), THEODORE ROOSE- VELT, AND (BISHOP) JOHN H. VINCENT. A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 137 paper man at Sagamore Hill say to another on the day of the funeral, ^'Brace up, Bill, we'll soon be in town." ''Shut up, you fool," blubbered the other. ''You're crying yourself just as hard as I am." Frank Crane said of Mr. Roosevelt, "He was a friend, conceived of as a friend in a passionate and personal way as no other statesman in American history except Lincoln." He had learned of Him who said that if one did not love his brother whom ''he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?" He drew friends to him as honey-hearted flowers do the bees. He fellowshiped with them as naturally as boys flock together in droves. His magnetism was friendliness aglow — the cold hearted never move others. Said Henry A. Wise Wood: As I stood by the open grave I did not think of Roose- velt the soldier, the orator, the author, the naturalist, the explorer, the statesman, the leader of men, or the former President of the greatest of republics. I could think of him only as a friend and brother in whom elements were so mixed. He was deeply moved by others' sorrows. When Deal Dow, the foster son and nephew of "Bill" Sewall and Mr. Roosevelt's partner in Dakota, died, he wrote "Bill" immediately and said, "He was one of the men whom I felt proud to have as a friend." He then proceeds, "His sincerity, . . . his courage, his gentleness to his wife, his loyalty to his friends all made him one whose loss must be greatly mourned." 138 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION While on his Yellowstone Park trip with John Burroughs, George Marvin, one of the teamsters, died. When he returned to Mammoth Hot Springs, the President looked up the young woman to whom the teamster had been ^^engaged" and tried to com- fort her. He "sat a long time with her, in her home, offering his sympathy and speaking words of con- solation," wrote Mr. Burroughs. The War Department, to save the twenty-five dol- lars, the cost of cabling, had issued an order that the names of soldiers wounded and killed in the Philip- pines should be sent by mail. The mothers of all the soldiers were thus kept steadily anxious. Mr. Riis determined to correct the matter and, going to Oyster Bay, found a dinner party arranged but he was immediately invited to participate. When the guests were seated, he engaged in a discussion so that during a lull the President might hear the case. When the President thus learned the facts, he or- dered General Corbin, who wanted to wait until he returned to Washington, to issue the order arranging for names of the wounded and killed to be cabled promptly, saying, "These mothers gave the best they had to their country and deserve every considera- tion." The traits required in his friends were not speci- fied, but they were nevertheless very real and, fully realizetl, were such as were commonly found in only real disciples of the Great Teacher, for nearly all of his intimate friends were either active churchmen or else were raised in a distinctly Christian home. The following were loyal churchmen : George W. Perkins, A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 139 Gifford Pinchot, Senators Beveridge and Lodge, Gen- eral Leonard Wood, Governor Henry Allen, Ray- mond Robbing, and Dr. Alexander Lambert. All his secretaries were raised in vital religious homes, while most of them were active members of the church. Mr. McGrath assured me that criticism by clergy- men hurt Mr. Roosevelt more than that from any other source. He felt that they '^should be more careful in circulating poorly authenticated rumors. He felt he had a right to expect hearty support from them in his hard fight for righteousness." He had many highly valued friends in the ministry. He wrote the English ambassador that he would not choose the companionship of those merely known in high finance as compared with Professor Bury, or Admirals Peary or Evans, or Rhodes, the historian, or Selons, the big game hunter. Continuing, he says : The very luxurious grossly material life of the average multimillionaire whom I know does not appeal to me in the least. From the standpoint of real pleasure I should selfishly prefer my old-time ranch on the Little Missouri to anything in Newport! He required richness of soul and recognized the Father's son behind a grimy face as quickly as in a home of culture. Dr. Lambert told me that Mr. Roosevelt had plenty of temper but he was in absolute control of it. ^'I have watched him work on an adversary with such infinite patience and persistency that I would 140 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION turn away with disgust and afterward say, ^Theo- dore, why didn't you give that man a piece of your mind and let him go?' He would reply, 'Then he would go away to oppose me, but now he is with us.' " Lawrence Abbott said, "While in controversy, he often got 'mad,' . . . but he never stayed 'mad' nor cherished resentments of any kind." At Chicago, Mr. Thayer says, people were closeted with him constantly, and every little while he would come out into the reception room and speak to the throng there. "No matter what the news, no matter how early or late the hour, he was always cheerful." A relative once said, "I have never in my life heard a cruel word from his lips. He dislikes and despises many people, but even when he wants to annihilate them he is never mean or cruel or petty about it." W. Emlen Roosevelt told me that his aged mother was cheered every Sunday after church during the summer because the President of the United States had time to call upon her. He added : My mother was a Quakeress, very devout and an earnest student of the Bible, and, like Theodore, she used her imagination in the study of it. They always had vigorous discussions about Bible incidents, verses, and interpreta- tions. Each would frequently convince the other. What a beautiful thoughtfulness was shown in this call! He displayed the same kindly Christ-like thoughtfulness everywhere. Charles W. Thompson, a newspaper correspondent I A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 141 on his campaigning train in 1912, accidentally cut his finger while opening a mucilage bottle and in- fection threatened bad results. At Portland, Oregon, Mr. Roosevelt was leading the procession through the hotel toward the great banquet room, when, said Mr. Thompson to me : He spied me, and holding the whole throng up, pushed through the crowd, put his hand affectionately on my shoul- der and said: "Charley, how is the hand? I am anxious about it. Don't you think you had better return home?" He talked with me, a humble newspaper man with a hurt hand, for several minutes while the whole line was held up. Was it any wonder we loved him? When Senator Hanna was taken ill the President was under his heaviest burden of duties, but he slipped away nevertheless to make a call on the sick man. The Senator was deeply moved and wrote a letter of warm appreciation for the personal call from so busy a man. He assured him that such attention ^'were drops of kindness that are good for a fellow," for they "touch a tender spot." Jacob A. Riis, once an emigrant tramp, though of a fine Danish family, was being entertained at Christmas breakfast in the White House when he happened to mention his sick mother in Denmark longing for her boy. Mrs. Roosevelt, with tender solicitude, said, "Theodore, let us cable over our love to her." And then said Mr. Riis: Consternation struck my Danish home village when a cable from the President of the United States was received, which read: 142 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION "The White House, December 25, 1902. "Mrs. Riis, Ribe, Denmark. "Your son is breakfasting with us. We send you our loving sympathy. "Theodore and Edith Roosevelt." He was always sensitive to the comfort of his friends and as gentle as his Master. Mr. Riis had just recovered from a long sick spell when he visited Oyster Bay. Previous to his illness he easily kept up with the long strides of the President. They started out for a walk, but Mr. Riis fell behind and the President, suddenly remembering his friend's long illness, dropped back and Mr. Riis says, "took my arm, walked very slowly, telling me something with great earnestness to cover his remorse." At another time, Mr. Riis wore a medal given him by his king, at a great diplomats' dinner, but for some strange social reason no one else wore a medal. The President, noticing Mr. Riis' embarrassment, came over and pressing his arm affectionately said, "I am so glad that you honored me by wearing your medal." This same trait is illustrated by his treatment of visitors to the AYhite House. Colonel W. H. Crook recounts the visit of Ezra Meeker to the White House, accompanied by his prairie schooner drawn by oxen, in which he had spent two years in traveling from Tacoma, Washington. The old man, once wealthy, had lost his fortune. President Roose- velt went out to the wagon, bareheaded on a crisp November day, to look over the outfit with Mr. Meeker. He watched the collie dog go through his A COUKTEOUS CHKISTIAN FRIEND 143 tricks. He met the wife, "and the woman in the wagon was made to feel by his courteous cordiality that he felt it an honor to meet her.'' Mr. McGrath said to me, "Mr. Roosevelt never showed any smallness in success or failure — he took both alike — he had no feet of clay. It was not true in his case that 'No man is a hero to his valet.' " Mr. Loeb added : "So many thought that Mr. Roosevelt was ruthless and dictatorial. He was not but was the most considerate of men." He was genuinely worthy of the "Blessed" which was promised to the "meek," for he was never pre- tentious, officious or self assertive. Mr. Riis describes a farmer and daughter who were viewing the pictures in Governor Roosevelt's wait- ing room when he arrived. Instead of speak- ing to the folks waiting to see him, he walked over to the farmer and acted as guide and then shook hands with him as he left without making himself known. Then he turned to the waiting politicians and dealt with them according to their deserts. Again, while riding in an elevated train, he arose to give a working girl his seat but would not allow Mr. Riis to tell her who he was. One day at his Metropolitan Magazine office, a lady was ushered in with a letter of introduction from a friend. He read the letter and then, since no one was waiting to see him, for one half hour he talked about the sins of the administration at Washington. Finally the lady said, "That is interesting, but when can I see Colonel Roosevelt?" He told the incident on himself glee- fully a few minutes later. 144 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION A young friend of mine arranged to give his grand- father a treat by showing him the house where his idol, Theodore Roosevelt, lived. But when they ar- rived the gate was closed. He walked up to the house and asked a servant if he could not bring his aged grandfather into the grounds. Mr. Roosevelt overheard the conversation and came out to meet the party. The young man introduced all the group save one, when Mr. Roosevelt with perfect ease said, "I have not met this gentleman.'' It was the chauf- feur. There was no acting; it was only the spon- taneous outspeaking of his nature. He treated all alike — as common members of God's family. Mr. Roosevelt recognized no ^'blue-blooded" su- premacy — only the red blood of high endeavor gave standing with him. He mingled freely with all types and conditions of people in a genuinely broth- erly way in order that he might learn from and help all. Mr. Roosevelt was once asked why he was so popular with his soldiers and replied, *'I do not know except that I always slept with my men in the trenches." Mr. Cheney, his long-time neighbor, ven- turing an explanation of his grip on the people, con- tinues : "He never permitted a letter to go unan- swered." He was by handclasp and correspondence so much in touch with the people that "when he ap- peared before a crowd he was looked upon as a personal friend." "And when receiving visitors he gave the same hearty consideration to his gardener at Sagamore Hill that he would the most prominent visitor." i A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 145 When Mr. Roosevelt became police commissioner, he lived with the police just as intimately as he did with his soldiers. One of them said, ^'He made me feel that he would sooner be seen in the company of me and my kind than in the company of ambassa- dors and kings." A captain asserted : Every man who really tried to do right, or, having gone crooked, reformed and showed he was trying to do right, always received a fair chance. He detested cowardice and shirking and the milk-and-water man, but he always stuck to the man who proved he was doing or trying to do his job.^ He came into a group of woodsmen in Maine, many of them old and some not even able to write their own names ; but he was soon one of them, said "Bill" Sewall. He immediately found '^the real man in very simple men. He didn't look for a brilliant man." He took them as they were. Mr. Roosevelt greatly enjoyed his Masonic lodge, where "Brother Doughty," the gardener on a neighboring estate, was Worshipful Master. "In the lodge he was over me, though I was President, and it was good for him and good for me." His "Master" mingled so nat- urally with his townsfolk that they called Him "the carpenter." In the same way Mr. Roosevelt tells us Mrs. Roose- velt belonged to a church society which she fre- quently entertained at Sagamore Hill and even several times at the White House. ^From The Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 167, 168, by Herman Hage- dorn. Pubhshed by Harper & Brothers. 146 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION "The brakeman's wife or the butcher's wife" are not distinguished as such. The "guild," he tells us, has no "social rank" because they have a common social interest. And that was to render service in the name of mankind's Great Elder Brother. Senator Lodge well said that he had "a breadth of human sympathy as wide as the world, limited by neither creed nor race. . . . He was equally at ease in the Sorbonne or addressing a group of men in a mining town." Mrs. Robinson gave an unconscious testimony to his understanding of the people when she told the following: I will always remember the workman who approached me one day and said to me: "I want to shalte hands with you. You are the sister of my best friend. I have never met Colonel Roosevelt but he is nevertheless my best friend. I knew that if ever I wanted to write to him for advice he would answer." He had absolutely no sympathy with attacks on any race or creed. He greatly offended the South by entertaining Booker T. Washington, a Negro, at din- ner. He placed in his Cabinet the only Hebrew who has ever held that position. He, like Woodrow Wil- son, was one of the few noted men who had a Roman Catholic private secretary and defended him against all attacks. He was much exercised because Taft, as a Unitarian, was read out of the orthodox group. In his early days a young men's Republican Club of which he was a member proposed to blackball a high-grade Jew of good family. Mr. Roosevelt heard A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 147 of it and reminded them that they were there as Re- publicans and Americans and ^'to exclude a man because he is a Jew is not decent." He affirmed that as soon as race and creed came in he would quit. Mr. Riis reports an auditor as saying: "Roosevelt was pale with anger. The Club sat perfectly still under the lashing." There was no blackball after he had finished. The first skirmish of the Rough Riders resulted in eight killed, and Mr. Roosevelt gloried in the true democracy shown in those who died, for all classes were represented. In one grave were placed "In- dian and cowboy, miner, packer and college athlete," one from the lonely West without noted ancestry and others from the noted families of "Stuyvesants and Fishes." They had been equal in "daring and loyalty." They illustrated the absence of classism and the spirit of unity in our nation. He hoped to preserve the same spirit of democracy and remove any possible class chasm by universal military training, for he said : I want to see Mrs. Vanderbilt's son and Mrs. Astor's son with Pat and Jim of Telegraph Hill, sleeping under the same dog-tent and eating the same food. I want to see the officers selected from among them on the strict basis of merit without regard to anything else. Then we will have a democratic system. Many wondered how he was able to secure the con- servative Elihu Root for his Cabinet. Mr. Root was often assailed, and once Mr. Roosevelt defended him by showing that he gave up a law practice of flOO,- 148 ROOSEVELT'S FvELIGION 000 a year to enter the Cabinet, which sacrifice would amount to one half million dollars at the end of the term if he remained that long. Continuing, Mr. Roosevelt said: "He has worked so as to almost wear himself out. I am obliged continually to try to get him to ease up and to persuade him to go rid- ing with me." Mr. Roosevelt found great joy in sealing the truth of his assertion that in Christian America one could climb from the lowest place to the highest. As President, therefore, he found great satisfaction in raising successively Young and Chaffee to be lieu- tenant-generals. When General Young, who was then retired, found that General Chaffee was to hold the place once filled by him, he sent his three stars and a note that they were presented by "Private Young to Private Chaf- fee." The two began together in the ranks and "each had grown gray in a lifetime of honorable service under the flag, and each closed his active career in command of the army." Mr. Roosevelt never forgot old friends in high or low estate. "Bill" Sewall had not seen Mr. Roose- velt for sixteen years when he came to Bangor after succeeding William McKinley as President. The modest backwoodsman would not himself reopen the fellowship but came to town and remained within reach. When President Roosevelt came out on the hotel balcony to speak, his first word was a request for someone to find "Bill" Sewall and bring him to the hotel. The President had a long and hilarious visit with him in a private room, talking over old A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 149 times, and the association again became intimate. A week later ''Bill" got a letter thanking his wife and daughter for ''some hunting socks that they knit for him." In the same letter "Bill" was invited to visit him in Washington. "Bill" and wife and his two older children, their married daughter and hus- band and the grandchild went. They were met by an "aide," comfortably located, and then went to the White House, to find the President out horseback riding. Finally his quick step in the hall was recog- nized and coming into the room in his riding clothes, "Bill" said, "It seemed as though these sixteen years that lay between had never been and we were all back in the happy ranch days again." The President took "Bill" all over the White House and was told that he had a "pretty good camp." Mrs. Roosevelt then guided them about the city to see the sights. "Bill," noticing the embarrassment of his "women folks" when people looked at them in the President's box at the theater that evening, "thought it was perfectly natural — the people had found something green from the country." "Bill" told me that when the President was inau- gurated his whole family came down again. Gifford Pinchot, the cultured college graduate and man of wealth, and "Bill" both told me of a luncheon given to thirty of Mr. Roosevelt's most intimate friends the day before he relinquished the Presidency, for both of them were there. Mr. Pinchot told me that busy as the President and Mrs. Roosevelt were while preparing to leave the White House, they did not forget during the last days to send each friend 150 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION an intimately personal gift to remind them of the association at Washington. His friendship for the newspaper men was not of- ficial but very genuine. Once when the Illinois Bar Association gave a banquet they excluded the news- paper men, said Mr. Leary. As soon as Mr. Roose- velt learned about it he told the toastmaster that these ^^boys" were in his "party" and he withdrew to eat with them in the grill below. And he only returned when the committee of arrangements apolo- gized and provided for the newspaper men. Mr. Roosevelt was not a mere "election-time" friend. He wrote "Mr. Dooley" (Peter Finley Dunne) one time that "if a man is good enough for me to profit by his services before election, he is good enough for me to do what I can for him after elec- tion." And it didn't make any difference to him whether the name was "Casey or Schwartzmeister, or Van Rensselaer, or Peabody." The last two had no right to lord it over the other two; all were equally Americans. After the nomination of Justice Hughes Mr. Roose- velt gave careful consideration to the matter and decided to support him. Some Progressives imag- ined that they would display unusual loyalty to Mr. Roosevelt by helping to defeat Hughes. The Philadelphia North American, always a loyal Roose- velt supporter, assured its readers that such actions had no sympathy from Mr. Roosevelt. It went on to show that the ex-President understood that Jus- tice Hughes' election would mean that if he failed as President, a Democrat would succeed him, and if A COUETEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 151 he had a successful administration he would be re- elected. Hence Mr. Roosevelt would, in either cir- cumstance, not have another chance until 1924, when he would be sixty-six, too old to expect a nomination. Then the editorial concluded that, in spite of these facts : He is giving his utmost endeavors to insure the election of Mr. Hughes, which means the definite closing of the door of opportunity upon himself. A Progressive who re- jects this example adopts a strange means of proving his fidelity. Almost in the first mail, the following letter came to the editor; Dear Van: Your editorial, "Last Thoughts," summed up the whole case, as only The North American can do it. What you said about me touched me deeply and pleased me much. I shall keep the editorial: you speak of me as I should like to have my children's children believe I was entitled to be spoken of. He illustrated Christian fidelity in his pledges. He was very leal to the "home" folks and town. The Rev. Charles R. Woodson, once the pastor of the Methodist church at Oyster Bay, wrote me that be- fore Mr. Roosevelt went abroad he promised on his return to lecture with stereopticon pictures about his African trip. He gave it as promised at the Opera House and repeated it the next day for the children. "He refused to give this lecture anywhere else," wrote Mr. Woodson, "though offered |4,000 a night to do so. He said to me at his home at the 152 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION time, 'This is my compliment to the people of my own town' and he added: 'Any time I can be of service to the churches of Oyster Bay, do not hesitate at all to call upon me. I will be ready always to render that service to the extent of my ability.' " Mr. Cheney assures us that the "servants" were solicitously cared for. One time Noah Seaman, the superintendent of the estate, whom Mr. Roosevelt treated "almost like a brother both in public and private," was critically ill. Mr. Cheney notified the President of the fact and he sent a specialist from Washington to treat him "and his prompt action at the time probably saved Seaman's life." His Rough Riders always held an unusually warm place in his heart. Senator Bard took a Californian over to see the President and started to present him when Mr. Roosevelt cried out, "Why, hello, Jim! How are you?" and he grasped the man's hand heartily. Then they talked for a time; and as they went out, the President called out, "Come up to din- ner to-night, just as you are." Then after a pause, as though it was an afterthought, he shouted, "And be sure to bring Bard with you." When the President visited Yellowstone Park with John Burroughs he arranged to stop over in the little town of Medora, near which lay his old ranch. He delivered an address and then men, women, and children shook hands while he called many of them by name. One old resident was greeted: "How well I remember you! You once mended my gunlock for me — put on a new hammer." The old man was delighted. A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 153 Everyone in trouble felt free to go to Mr. Roose- velt. One of his Rough Riders wrote the President that he was "in trouble" because he had shot an- other "lady" while he was shooting at his "wife," He made no other explanations. Evidently the damage was slight and later the fellow promised to cease drinking and never drank again. Mr. Roose- velt lent another Rough Rider two hundred dollars for lawyer's fees after he had been arrested for horse-stealing. Very soon the money was returned with the explanation, "The trial never came off. We elected our district-attorney." The President laughed, for he then understood as he had surmised — that it was politics and not real guilt that landed his friend in jail. Whenever he gave financial aid he used another individual as a medium to save embarrassment to the one helped and pledged secrecy from the one representing him. Mr. Cheney recounts a time when he received a letter from the President, asking him to investigate someone who had made an appeal for help, because it was Mr. Roosevelt's custom never to refuse anyone who was actually in need of aid. He then specifies by saying : If the members of a once unfortunate Oyster Bay family are living, they will now know that the groceries, coal, and rent money provided for them came through funds furnished by a President of the United States. It may also be stated that a certain lady very close to the Roosevelts sent a check once a month, through my wife, for three successive years, to pay the rent of a poor woman residing in Oyster Bay. 154 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Mr. Cheney further tells of the destruction of two houses in Oyster Bay by fire. Mr. Roosevelt, hearing of it, sent for his two neighbors and lent them the money without interest, to rebuild their homes. He was under very severe criticism because he would not dismiss General Smith without a trial when it was rumored that he had issued an order in the Philippines to ^'kill and burn and make a howling wilderness of Samar." In due time he was tried, convicted, and discharged in an orderly way. Dur- ing the scorching fire of abuse Professor Albert Bush- nell Hart wrote a friendly letter to Mr. Roosevelt, who replied that in the midst of "the well-nigh ter- rible responsibilities" he must naturally lose all anxiety about any personal outcome but must fear- lessly do the right as he saw it. He concluded, how- ever, that if he could keep the esteem and regard of such men as Professor Hart, he would be en- couraged and feel "that I have deserved it." This he said would be a sufiicient reward no matter what the outcome was. George H. Payne as a youthful newspaper reporter visited Mr. Roosevelt, expecting to spend fifteen fearful and unsettled moments. He remained two hours and testifies ; Instead of the aloofness and the reserve that I had expected, I was warmed and thrilled by the simplicity of the n^an who was apparently anxious to make himself understood to a younger and unknown man. A recruit in camp during the Cuban war once ac- costed him: "Say, are you the lieutenant-colonel? A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 155 The colonel is looking for you." He did not correct or condemn the bungling soldier but unceremoni- ously said to him, "Come with me and see how I do it." And so he trained the raw soldier tactfully and at the same time won a friend. Dean Lewis, out of a long friendship, says that while Mr. Roosevelt was "uniformly courteous and unassuming, there was a dignity in his intercourse which prevented familiarity by any except lifelong friends." While on campaigns he was pleased by the shout "Teddy" ; yet no one ever thus addressed him personally. Though he called a great many intimate friends by their first names, yet only when they had known him all their lives and were prac- tically of the same age did they call him "Theodore." A newspaper man, conceited by his assignment to Oyster Bay, began to boast of his familiarity with Mr. Roosevelt, said Mr. Thompson to me. One day, during an interview with the boys, this "fresh" re- porter remarked, "Colonel, I suppose you will go to the polls to-morrow and vote the Democratic ticket." Immediately Mr. Roosevelt froze up ; his eye flashed, and he replied, "I am ready to answer any sensible questions but not a fool's queries." He would say no more, and for days would not again see the "boys" ; the "upstart" had to leave Oyster Bay. Loose in- timacy was never permitted. Regardless of any one he condemned the custom of using political pull to secure pardons for unques- tioned criminals. He speaks of men of high stand- ing as urging clemency, and said that they included two United States senators, a governor, two judges, 15G ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION an editor, and "some eminent lawyers and business men." He further explained that in some of the cases such as "where some young toughs had com- mitted rape on a helpless immigrant girl," and an- other where a wealthy and prominent physician had betrayed a girl and then persuaded her to practice abortion, "I rather lost my temper." This righteous anger led him to write some of the petitioners for such pardons that he was sorry he could not instead add to the penal sentences. He then gave the facts out, "for," he adds, "I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure." Their anger at this pro- cedure "gave me real satisfaction." No one in the world could "lord it over him," as will be vividly illustrated by the following, related by the Hon. Charles E. Hughes. It occurred when Mr. Roosevelt and the Kaiser were attending the services connected with the funeral of King Ed- ward: After the ceremony, the Kaiser said to Colonel Roosevelt: "Call upon me at two o'clock; I have just forty-five minutes to give you." "I will be there at two, your Majesty, but unfortunately, your Majesty, I have but twenty minutes to give you." Dr. Lyman Abbott in his Reminiscences gives this testimony to Mr. Roosevelt's spirit of cooperation on The Outlook : During the five years of our association he proved him- self an ideal exemplar of the spirit and value of team work, that he was a cordial collaborator with his fellow editors, that he never sought to impose upon us the authority which 1 A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 157 his reputation and his position had given him, that he was the friend of every one in the office.* Like the Great Teacher, he was, because of respect for others, always a natural and full member of any group he joined. He tried to tie up all of his "party" to his program and do cooperative work and was severely criticized for dealing and working with such men as Quay. But while Mr. Roosevelt often secured valuable assistance in this way, he never compromised his convictions or swerved from an upright standard in the least degree. If he had, they would have uncovered it in the Progressive campaign and the "Boss" Barnes trial and would have "broken" him. But he went out with an un- sullied escutcheon. Soon after Mr. Roosevelt's election Senator Quay called on him and said, "Most men who claim to be reformers are hypocrites, but I deem you sincere." That formed a basis for team work, and often after- ward Quay aided the President. Speaking to Sena- tor Beveridge afterward, he said: "I confess that I have a personal liking for Quay. He stands for nearly everything I am against, but he is straight- forward about it and never tries to fool me." When death approached he sent for Mr. Roosevelt and asked him to look after the Delaware Indians whose blood ran in his veins. At his demise the President sent Mrs. Quay a telegram: Accept my profound sympathy, official and personal. Throughout my term as President Senator Quay has been ^Reminiscences, Lyman Abbott, p. 443. 158 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION my stanch and loyal friend. I had hoped to the last that he would, by his sheer courage, pull through his illness. Again accept my sympathy. Theodore Roosevelt. Because of what the President considered a brutal attack on another senator he withdrew a dinner in- vitation to Senator Tillman and they became avowed enemies. Knowing this and desiring to defeat the bill forbidding railroad rebates, the Standpat Re- publicans so arranged matters that the advocacy of the bill would be in Tillman's hands. But enmity did not spoil "team work" and the bill was passed, the President remarking, ^*I was delighted to go with him or with anyone so long as he was traveling my way — and no longer." Like every friendly and courteous man, he loved animals. John Wesley insisted that there must be a place in heaven for his faithful horse. During a round-up on the plains a calf too weak to follow its mother was carried by Mr. Roosevelt in front of the saddle two or three times. When finally it was decided that it could not be taken along, he insisted that the mother-cow be left be- hind with it, rather than allow it to starve on the plains. President Roosevelt writes Ethel an interesting account of a "rescue." Sloan, the secret service man, and he were en route to church when he saw two dogs chasing a kitten. He drove the dogs off with his cane while Sloan captured the "kitty." Then the President inquired from the smiling spectators if the cat belonged to them, but not finding an owner, he went down the block with the kitten in his arms A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 159 until he saw "a very nice colored woman with a little girl looking out the window of a small house" and gave her the kitten. Then, straightening his clothes and brushing his silk hat, he went on to church in a better frame to "worship.'' His gentleness was preserved and strengthened and his wisdom was magnified by his love for chil- dren. One day, after he had left the police job, two lads came to headquarters — not knowing that he had resigned — to see Commissioner Roosevelt, feeling sure that he would lift suspicion from and get justice for them when everyone else had failed them. His "spirit" still prevailed and the boys were not dis- appointed. Dr. Iglehart also tells of the little daugh- ter of the Rev. W. I. Bowman, who, on entering the train ahead of her mother, and knowing Mr. Roose- velt and seeing a vacant seat by his side fearlessly climbed into it. Though he had a manuscript in his hand, he laid it aside and began to talk to the little girl. When the mother, finally catching up with her little girl, reproved her for taking the liberty of thus seating herself, Mr. Roosevelt restrained her and said he was gratified to see that she knew him and sought his company. Mr. Roosevelt then arose and gave his seat to Mrs. Bowman and the little girl and went to sit with a colored man. While calling on Queen Alexandra subsequent to the funeral of King Edward, he heard "little squeals in the hall." When he left the Queen, he found Prince Olaf waiting outside the door and recog- nized the "squeals." The "royal" boy would not go 160 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION to dinner but waited to have a "romp" with Mr. Roosevelt, who said, "I tossed him in the air and rolled him on the floor while he shouted with de- light." The noise of the "romp" had attracted the Queen, who came out and looked on with distinct pleasure in her face. Thomas A. Robbins, a prominent business man, re- counts the visit of Mr. Roosevelt to his house for a formal breakfast with prominent men. While he was taking off his own overcoat Mr. Roosevelt rushed up three flights of stairs with the "boy" and was soon stretched out on the floor with the lad before a miniature electric train and was saying, "That's right. Tommy, safety first." He had forgotten all about the waiting dignitaries downstairs. Edward Bok, in his Autobiography, describes an experience when his "lad," who had nearly died with typhoid fever, was told that he could have for his Christmas present anything he requested. When told to think about it, he replied: "But I know already. I want to be taken down to Washington to see the President." The trip was finally arranged, and Mr. Roosevelt turned away from various groups of importunate callers during business hours to talk and visit in a familiar way with the lad. The nation can always trust a man whom youth seeks out in this way. He was constantly forging through a crowd to give attention to a crippled or a sick child. An in- curably sick little girl was carried on a stretcher to the curb in a Portland, Oregon, street so that she could see the President. He noticed her, stopped his A COURTEOUS CHRISTIAN FRIEND 161 carriage, ran over and kissed her and then the pro- cession moved again. During the summer of 1905 amidst heavy duties he stopped for a day and visited a children's hospital dedicated to the cure of tubercular bone disease. He then broke a very rigid rule and issued an appeal for financial aid for the institution. The same sum- mer he accepted the vice-presidency of the Public Schools Athletic League and wrote the president, General G. W. Wingate, that the systematic athletic drill given the boys was "a service of utmost impor- tance not merely from the standpoint of the physical but also from the standpoint of the ethical." It was as natural for him to glow with friendliness as for the stars to shine, and he was as true. He cul- tivated his human nature to be sensitive to the needs of humanity as the artist does his aesthetic nature to be sensitive to beauty. He responded to appeals- expressed or unexpressed— as readily and as satisfy- ingly as the mountain-fed springs do to the thirst of the traveler. He poured out helpful fellowship in the full confidence that God was humanity's Father and he felt that therefore no kindness fell on unproductive soil. He was a friend to man because man was a member of his Father's family. CHAPTER VIII THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE "The rule of brotherhood remains as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life for which we strive." — Theodore Roosevelt. They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. — Isa. 41. 6. MRS. CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON, the sister of Mr. Roosevelt, in a brief ad- dress at the exercises when the corner stone was laid for the restoration of the old family home in New York, said : As Washington was known as the father of his people, and as Lincoln was known as the saviour of his people, so my brother will be known as the brother of his people. That was an apt and inspired title to give Mr. Roose- velt, and it completely fills the Christian ideal. Washington proclaimed the doctrine of man's equal brotherhood by establishing the republic, Lincoln set- tled its sincerity by freeing the slaves, and Roosevelt applied it practically by banishing the practice of giving special privileges to favored folk. Henry W. Stoddard, editor of The Evening Mail, New York, said to me : The biggest thing Mr. Roosevelt did for his nation was to establish the equality of all before the law. He asserted 162 THE BKOTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 163 and confirmed the right to regulate capital and to allow neither rich nor poor, high nor low, as such, any special and peculiar privileges. Wealth felt itself to be supreme and had secured special consideration and was exerting abnormal power. The ability of the government to rectify this condition had been established by John Marshall, but the truth was sleeping and the masses seemed helpless. Mr. Roosevelt began the fight early and won the signal victory, that settled the matter, in the Northern Securities case. He set the nation free for further development by thus fixing in a practical way the native equality of all citizens of America. The next greatest thing he did was to awaken the sense of responsibility and the ideal of man's brotherhood in all the world by steady and sane appeals that finally put the spirit of war into the nation. A large part of the people lacked it because rocked to sleep in a selfish security which admitted no responsibility for the world's condition. He did not believe that God was a respecter of persons. He refused to be counted as different from his fellows; he was in all matters very much like other people. He always minimized his native gifts. In refusing to aid Mr. Richard Watson Gilder gather material about his boyhood he admitted that he always shrank from having a sketch of his ^'younger days" prepared. 'Terhaps my reason is that . . . they were absolutely commonplace. ... It was not until I was sixteen that I began to show any prowess or even ordinary capacity." To Julian Street he disclaimed being a genius either as a writer or an orator, and added, "If I have anything at all resem- bling genius, it is a gift of leadership." Then he added, with a serious air: "To tell the truth, I like to believe that, by what I have accomplished 164 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION without great gifts, I may be a source of encourage- ment to American boys." Mr. McGrath, once his trusted secretary, told me : He had such great intellectual gifts that he caught things so quickly and could hold them so reliably that it took less time to become informed than it did most men. He had time, therefore, for his family and humanizing pursuits which other men doing the same amount of work would not have had, and he was wise enough to follow them. Nothing could deprive him of the exercise he needed, so that his nerves might be under control. He knew that his physical condition would affect both his mind and temper. He constantly spent himself to have the best pos- sible mental equipment so that he could meet his responsibilities. President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, told me that one day, two years after Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presi- dency and during a visit he remarked, incidentally, ''Theodore, if you are not careful, you will dry up mentally. Most office-holders allow details to occupy their attention and cease reading." A few days after that President Butler received a note from Mr. Roosevelt in which he said, "I reviewed my reading after you spoke to me about it and on the way to Oyster Bay, I made a list of the books I could re- member having read during the past two years." The list, which he made from memory, contained nearly three hundred titles and authors. Among them were Herodotus, ^schylus, Euripides, six vol- umes of Mahaffy's Studies of the Greek World, Ma- han's Types of Naval Officers, Nicolay's Lincoln and two volumes of Lincoln's speeches and writings, Ba- THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 165 con's EssaySy five of Shakespeare's plays, Paradise Losty two of Maspero's volumes on Early Assyrian, Chaldean, and Egyptian civilizations, Dante's In- ferno, Lounsbury's Shakespeare and VoltaAre, Tom Sawyer, Wagner's Simple Life, various books on the Boer War, Pike's Through the Sun-Arctic Forest, London's Gall, of the Wild, Fox's The Little Shep- herd of Kingdom Gome, Wister's The Virginian, and so on. The list when perused seems almost unbe- lievable. His mental alertness and furnishing were not an accident. J. H. Spurgeon, editor of the Philadelphia Ledger, told me that when he returned from Europe with Mr. Roosevelt on one occasion there were for some reason four captains from the German navy on board. They gave a dinner to Mr. Roosevelt and "invited two or three of us who happened to be on board. I noticed that Mr. Roosevelt conversed with these captains about their navy and told them in detail many facts which even they themselves did not know about their own navy. He was thoroughly posted concerning it." He early felt his responsibility to his fellows and so employed his gifts where they would best de- velop. In his first message to Congress he said : When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood re- mains as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life for which we strive. Each man must work for himself, and unless he so works no outside help can avail him; but each man must remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that while no man who 166 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or anyone else, yet that each at times stumbles or halts, that each at times needs to have the helping hand out- stretched to him. Once in speaking of his belief in God, he said, "And by God I mean the brotherhood of man." Speaking to college students, he i'ecognized the added ability an education gave them and remarked : "From those to whom much has been given we have biblical authority to expect and demand much, and the most that can be given to any man is an educa- tion." "Perhaps not a little of our affection for him arose from the fact that he was very human, which is only another way of saying that he had faults," said his trusted friend, Dean Lewis. Jacob A. Riis adds : And has he, then, no faults, this hero of mine? Yes, he has, and I am glad of it, for I want a live man for a friend and not a dead saint. They are the only ones, I notice, who have no faults. A trusted friend of Mr. Roosevelt said to me that Mr. Roosevelt once told him that the greatest battle in his life had been with his temper, and that he had never been able to control it completely until he en- tered the White House. He seldom displayed his feelings, but there is abundant evidence that he often felt the lack of ap- preciation shown by his fellows. He wrote a friend : In the [Barnes] libel suit, that has just ended, the thing that to me was most painfully evident was that at least THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 167 nine tenths of the men of light and leading and a very- marked majority of the people as a whole desired my defeat. In the same letter he naively tells a story of Confed- erate days which suggests that he sometimes grew dispirited in the conflicts. Dr. Polk, then of New York, was inspector-general in the Confederacy and was sent to the rear just before Appomattox to hurry up the stragglers. He spoke to one lank, half -starved soldier as he plowed through the mud : ''Hurry up, my man, hurry up." Whereupon the North Caro- linian looked gloomily at him, shook his head, and remarked as he walked by, "If I ever love another country, damn me." Naturally, this real human being craved for com- mendation and approval. Lawrence Abbott, out of an intimate knowledge, writes: No man that I have known liked personal approval more than Roosevelt. He had a kind of childlike responsiveness to commendation and praise. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but I think he was really hurt when those to whom he was attached were displeased with him. After receiving a letter of commendation from the late D. D. Thompson, then editor of the North- western Christian Advocate, he wrote him : No man who is President ought to wish any further re- ward; but if I wished for one, I could imagine none greater than to receive your letter and feel the spirit that lies be- hind it. Now, my dear sir, you have throughout my term as President given me heart and strength in more ways than one, and I thank you most deeply. 168 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He was greatly encouraged when the so-called "common" people were found backing him. He wanted to be at home with them as was the "Car- penter of Nazareth." In a letter to Trevelyan he recounts the visit of three "back-country farmers," who after much effort had succeeded in getting to him and explained that they "hadn't anything what- ever to ask." They came merely to express their belief "in me" and "as one rugged old fellow put it, 'We want to shake that honest hand.' Now, this anecdote seems rather sentimental as I tell it. . . . They have made me feel that I am under a big debt of obligation to the good people of this country." He coveted the confidence of the people. Jacob A. Riis reports Mr. Roosevelt as feeling that coming into the Presidency from the Vice-Presidency he did not really have back of him the votes of the people. "He would like to sit in the White House elected by the people." He merely wanted it as a vote of confidence. He himself said previous to the election of 1904: "I do not believe in playing the hypocrite. Any strong man fit to be President would desire a renomination and reelection after his first term," just as McKinley, or Cleveland, or Wash- ington did. While "it is pleasant to think that one's countrymen think well of him," yet he only wants the office if "decent citizens will believe I have shown wisdom, integrity, and courage." He seldom gave way to the "blues," but he never- theless had to battle them. Mr. Loeb told me, "He had times of depression usually caused by the fact that things did not come along as fast as he had a THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE IGD right to expect." His faith in God restored his hope- fulness. Mr. Stoddard said, ''He greatly needed to have men show that they had confidence in him." Mr. Roosevelt wrote ''Bill" Sewall, "Sometimes I feel a little melancholy because it is so hard to persuade people to accept equal justice." He was able to overcome lowness of spirit by keep- ing himself in such excellent physical trim that he secured the benefits of the exalting thrills which come from enjoyable, vigorous exercise. And he fully appreciated all the details of his vacation periods and their possible fellowship with friends. Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard spent seven weeks with Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt at Trinidad, West Indies. Mrs. Stoddard, who was up at sunrise the first morning to enjoy the flowers at their best, found Mr. Roose- velt already reveling in the color, artistry, and fragrance of the wonderful gardens, before the dis- tracting noises began. He was very careful to do the things that kept him distinctly human. He was genuinely grieved by the charge that he was "war mad," and greedy to fight, and told Julian Street ; Every man has a soft and easy side to him. I speak now out of the abundance of my own heart. I'm a domestic man. I have always wanted to be with Mrs. Roosevelt and my children and now with my grandchildren. I'm not a brawler. I detest war. But if war came, I'd have to go, and my four boys would go too, because we have ideals in this family.^ iTaken from Julian Street's The Most Interesting American, by permission of the Publishers, The Century Co. 170 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Most folk with his make-up would refuse to appear in motion pictures, since he loathed the bizarre and avoided mere display. But he saw an opportunity to extend his influence in a proposition to make a film reproducing his life. At the same time, how- ever, his heart went out to the ''soldier boys" and he stipulated secretly that all the profits should go to the "Red Cross" or other war organizations during the war. When the armistice was signed he felt that the "boys" would need entertainment more than ever, and then directed that the profits should con- tinue to be so used "until all of the men are returned to their homes from the war." He was never stilted nor was he starched with artificiality. Though somewhat surprised, he yet entered into the spirit of a meeting held on his ship while visiting Porto Rico by a club made up mostly of enlisted men in honor of our "comrade and ship- mate, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States." The gathering reminded him of his lodge at Oyster Bay where the "shipwrights, railroad men, and fishermen" he met were of the same type. He mingled with folks in a normal way — he was a real human being who could be a brother. He recounts the visit of one of his prize-fight friends who "explained that he wanted to see me alone," and then sitting down, offered him an ex- pensive cigar. When informed that he did not smoke, he said, " Tut it in your pocket.^ This I accordingly did." Here is the real spirit of camaradrie. He had no patience with the truckler, and so he THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 171 said, ^'It is just as much a confession of inferiority to feel mean hatred and defiance of a man as it is to feel a mean desire to please him overmuch." It is a confession in either case "that the man is not as good as the man whom he hates and envies or before whom he truckles." Like Lincoln, he saved himself from heavy strain by a real enjoyment of fun. It must, however, al- ways be clean. One day while visiting him, Lawrence Abbott was surprised to see the President leap out of his chair and grasp Senator Tom Carter by the hands and go dancing back and forth over the floor chanting : "Oh, the Irish and the Dutch — They don't amount to much, But huroo for the Scandinoo-vian." Mr. Roosevelt afterward explained that Senator Carter was a "standpatter" who considered him (Mr. Roosevelt) a "visionary crank," and therefore they differed in politics. Mr. Roosevelt continued: Now, Senator Carter is Irish and I am Dutch, and we thought it was a very good joke on us. So every time we have met since, unless there are too many people about, we are apt to greet each other as we did just now. He laughed much as he recounted the interpretive nicknames given by his Rough Riders to each other. He tells us that a fastidious private, an Easterner, was called "Tough Ike," while his bunkie, a rough cowpuncher, was called "The Dude." A huge red- headed Irishman was called "Sheeny Solomon," while one of the best fighters, a young Jew, was called 172 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION "Pork Chops." A very quiet fellow was called "Hell- Roarer," while a profane scamp was titled "Prayer- ful James." He was so human that he could interpret all kinds of folks. Senator Hoar once called on the Presi- dent and in horrified accents asked if he knew any- thing about "this man Daniels whom you have ap- pointed to be marshal of Arizona?" Mr. Roosevelt answered: "Yes, I think so. He was a member of my regiment." "Do you know," asked Mr. Hoar, im- pressively, "that he has killed two men?" The Presi- dent, with a startled look, said, "Is that so? I must call him on the carpet immediately, for he only told me about killing one." The Senator left, know- ing that he had lost his case. He frequently "joked" people out of court. In his Pacific Theological Lectures, he affirms: "My plea is for the virtue that shall be strong and that shall have a good time. You recollect that Wes- ley said he wasn't going to leave all the good time to the devil." His happy spirit kept him so human and young that he was always the "Big Brother" of the boys, and the service which Mr. Bok proposed toward the end of Mr. Roosevelt's life would have been ideal. In his Autobiography Mr. Bok relates how he in- formed Mr. Roosevelt that he wanted to invest twenty-five thousand dollars a year in boyhood "who will be the manhood of to-morrow," by paying him that salary as head of the Boy Scouts. Immediately the plan appealed to Mr. Roosevelt, who at first sug- gested that "there are men in it that don't approve THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 173 of me at all." Warming to the plan to build the four hundred thousand Scouts to a million, he asked, "You mean for me to be the active head?" and was reminded that he could be nothing else. After a while he replied: I'd love doing it; by Jove! it would be wonderful to rally a million boys for real Americanism as you say. It looms up as I think it over. Suppose we let it simmer for a month or two. But when the "month or two" had elapsed, Mr. Roosevelt had crossed to the other shore, and Mr. Bok's splendid plan became impossible. He was aroused as in no other way by anyone's questioning his integrity. When vigorous opponents questioned his actual fighting in Cuba, he imme- diately collected evidence from ofiQcers and privates and gave their irrefutable testimony wide circu- lation. I sat near him in Madison Square Garden when he spoke in favor of the candidacy of John Purroy Mitchel for mayor of New York. While urging hearty support of the war a rough voice interrupted, "Why aren't you over there?" The audience would have handled the interrupter roughly, but Mr. Roose- velt quieted them with, "Let me handle him." In- dignation was white hot. He had written Theodore Jr., "It is very bitter to me that all of you, the young, should be facing death while I sit in ease and safety." All knew how eager he was to go abroad and fight. But he controlled himself and said with the bite he alone could put into it : 174 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Listen, you creature. They would not let me go, but I sent my four sons, every one of whose lives is a thousand times dearer to me than my own. And then you dare to ask me, an American father, such a question? He could use satire when necessary, as when some- one had made an exasperatingly false charge and he was asked: Will you reply? "To that miserable creature?" he asked. "I doubt if it's worth while. He reminds me of a cock- roach, creeping over the marble floor. It is just a question whether it is better to crush the cockroach or to refrain from staining the marble." But, like "Another," he could take abuse in si- lence when it was aimed at him as a leader of the people. During the Progressive campaign, Mr. Roosevelt was called a Benedict Arnold, a Judas Iscariot, and every other creature that wild lan- guage could describe, but he went straight on feeling their stabs but enduring them like a good soldier. When McKinley was assassinated, many charged the deed to the abuse of the press couched in cartoon and editorial. When Schrank, who shot Mr. Roose- velt, was arrested, he asserted that he was impelled by the abusive charges in the newspapers. Mr. Roosevelt told intimate friends that he expected this abuse to bring a physical attack upon him. He detested the scandalmonger and character as- sassin. In his Pacific Theological Lectures he straightly charges that the man "who poisons their minds is as reprehensible a scoundrel ... as the man who poisons their bodies." Again he says: THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 175 I abhor a thief and I abhor a liar as much as I abhor a thief. I abhor the assassin who tries to kill a man; I abhor almost equally the assassin of that man's character. The infamy of the creature who tries to assassinate an upright and honest public servant doing his duty is no greater than the infamy of the creature who tries to as- sassinate an honest man's character. He insisted that not only is the man wronged, but the public is wronged by being made to think that all public officials are crooked so that even a crook will be put in office by the saying, ^'Oh, well, I guess he's no worse than the rest ; they are all pretty bad." If you once get the public in such a frame of mind, you have done more than can be done in any other way toward ruining our citizenship, toward ruining popular govern- mental honesty and efficiency {Realizable Ideals, p. 142). Mr. Roosevelt was never unreasonably hard on a sincerely repentant man or one who was on the wrong side because of ignorance, or limited privi- leges. But if a man who had mental and moral privileges was crooked, Mr. Roosevelt would not spare him. He held no grievances to be repaid later. Mr. Stoddard said, "If he had a difference with another person and a conclusion was reached after a 'talk,' the matter was closed with him if it was with you." Charles E. Jefferson quotes Burne-Jones as saying, "Make the most of our best for others — that is the universal religion." This might easily have been the motto of Mr. Roosevelt. General Leonard Wood said, when the cornerstone was laid for the restora- 176 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION tion of the Roosevelt homestead, which is to be used for Americanization in lower New York: The motto of Mr. Roosevelt was "I serve." It interprets his whole career. It speaks from all his deeds. If we can impress it on the hearts of childhood together with his ideals, then our nation will last forever. The Rev. Henry L. Everett, a Jersey City clergy- man, tells of a visit President Roosevelt made to Williams College. Mr. Everett was chairman of a student reception committee, which gave him the op- portunity for a personal chat. Mr. Roosevelt asked him where he expected to invest his life. "I an- swered, ^I will become either a lawyer or a minis- ter.' '' Promptly the President replied : "Fine ! you can make either of them a ministry. You young men won't believe it, but real success in any line must be service." The Master said, "I am among you as he that serveth." Mrs. Robinson said to me : While my father saw that Theodore received an intellectual training, that was secondary. His main emphasis was along social and religious lines. My father himself endeavored to use any unusual knowledge or privileged position or fine culture for the benefit of those in a less privileged position. He never gave immediate material aid to an applicant; but, taking the address, he would send some member of the family to investigate the real need. He taught Theodore that while he might leave him enough wealth to be independent of remunerative toil, he must labor just the same in some line of service for his fellows. Again she told me, "I never asked my brother to THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 177 do a single thing for me that he refused to do. It mattered not how busy or how difficult my request, he did it joyfully and never with complaint." He was greatly disgusted with the mere money- getter. He was an aristocrat by birth, but he used the culture and confidence this gave him to strengthen him for service. Referring to the charge that he wanted to be ''king of America" after his long tour in Europe, he replied that his accusers either did not know him or did not understand the position of a king, who was a "cross between a Vice- President and the leader of the 400." To further em- phasize his repugnance he remarked: "I felt if I met another king I should bite him." He referred to one particularly fussy monarch he met as "nothing but a twittering wagtail." He enjoyed and learned from actual fellowship with all kinds of people in all walks of life. The French ambassador, Jusserand, often went swim- ming with him in Rock Creek. He wrote Miss Carow about a unique picnic arranged by her sister, Mrs. Roosevelt: "Spec [Von Sternberg, the German ambassador, whom he greatly loved] rode with Edith [Mrs. Roosevelt] and me looking more like Hans Christian Andersen's little tin soldier than ever." He had come out in his Hussar uniform to present his credentials as ambassador. After the ceremony was over, Mr. Roosevelt said, "I told him to put on civilized raiment, which he did." Then he remained a» couple of days and we "chopped and shot and rode together." While discussing hunting one day in Europe he 178 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION told King Haakon of Norway about acting as a "deputy" under "Sheriff" Seth Bullock when they gathered around the body of a dead desperado as English bird hunters might and say, "My bird, I be- lieve." Then Mr. Roosevelt suddenly decided to see this "royal life" through the eyes of a comradely plainsman, and he cabled Seth Bullock, of the Da- kotas, to meet him in London. Kermit tells us that the first remark "Seth" made on arriving was that "he was so glad to see father that he felt like hang- ing his hat on the dome of Saint Paul's and shooting it off." He was at home with all types and interrogated them for information and utilized it for service to his fellows. One day, going through the White House, he found a group of painters at work and asked them, "How much do you get a day?" They replied, "Three dollars and twenty-five cents." Then he said, "That is mighty good pay for such pleasant work." He then took a brush, covered a good sized space with paint and told them he once thought he would like to be a painter because "you can see some- thing accomplished with each stroke of the brush." Mr. Thompson told me that he had seen him again and again on long trips go out of his way to shake hands with some humble laborer. "It was not stage play but it was as natural as his attention to chil- dren, whom he dearly loved." He felt akin to every- body, as does the true son of God. When he visited the Panama Canal while it was under construction, he went everywhere among the men, splashing through mud and ignoring dangers THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 179 and asking questions and refusing to be feted and entertained. He became one of the men in very- spirit. One day a group of machinists cried out, "Teddy's all right," and he instantly replied : You are all right, and I wish there were enough of me to say it with all the force I feel. Every man who does his part well in this work leaves a record worthy of being made by an American citizen. You are a straight-out lot of Americans and I am proud of you.* He lifted their work into the realm of patriotism and made it rightfully appear as necessary as his own. It will be remembered that afterward he had a bronze medal made for every worker on the canal which was presented in a dignified way. Lyman Abbott told me that Mr. Roosevelt rarely missed the weekly conference-luncheon while on The Outlook. He would enter into the discussions heartily and in a commonplace way call out the opinions of the youngest men present : He would listen too if they said anything worth while. If the conference drifted into mere talk, he would not be impatient or say a word, but would quietly take something out of his pocket and begin reading. He would not easily acquiesce even in a discussion with a dear friend. But he was patient in hearing and answering the argument of anyone. He would never ride them down ruthlessly with "superior" wisdom and a dogmatic conclusion. Dr. Lambert, 'Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, from Theodore Roose- velt: The Boy and the Man, by Jamea Morgan. Copyright, 1907, by The Macmillan Company. 180 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION usually his hunting companion and always his inti- mate friend, talked with me freely along this line: Theodore never let go of himself. He did nothing care- lessly. He was one of the surest shots in America because he always used good judgment and self-control. He could pick off a bear amidst a pack of dogs when only the rarest skill could do it. He often excelled because he acted quickly. But he was never boastful, nor did he exultingly talk about himself. We once had a long and animated controversy over whether he had hit a bear in the right or left side. I showed him where the bullet had come out on the right side. He was certain that he had hit the bear on that side. Dr. Rixey and all the rest agreed. Theodore turned to me and said, "Do you mean to tell me that what I saw was not so?" The discussion was getting heated and so I dropped it. The next day Theodore opened it up again. He had the evidence of the bullet which opposed the evi- dence of his sight. That showed that evidence could not always be trusted, and he was perplexed. Finally I said, "You know a bear is very lively, and he was dodging from right to left, striking at the dogs. You aimed at the right side but just as you shot the bear jumped and your bullet hit him in the left." He finally acquiesced. He would stick for his view of a matter but had so trained himself that he was not irritable about it. He applied justice in every case without respect to the standing or race of the individual or group under consideration. Almost prophetically, he had a contest with the National Republican Committee when in his early twenties he was a delegate at Chicago. The National Committee had nominated ex-Senator Powell Clayton for permanent chairman, while Mr. Roosevelt led a group of sympathizing THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 181 ''boss-busters" determined to elect ex-Congressman Lynch, a Negro. He asserted in an address that only two delegates to the convention had "seats" on the National Committee and that it was a reflec- tion on their (the delegates to the convention) ''capacity for government" to allow this committee, in those circumstances, to name a presiding officer for the convention. He would not be content to salve over a sore; he would undertake to cure it. Lillian Wald, of the Henry Street Settlement, tells how Mr. Roosevelt at one time endeavored to stop a soup-kitchen in her neighborhood, since it was more or less of "an in- sulting answer to a distress that was based on the fundamental question of poor pay for hard jobs." She said that Mr. Roosevelt always went to the heart of the matter and investigated the actual conditions in the "sweat-trade" through his visits into the homes of the "sweaters." Corporations, on the one hand, continued to claim peculiar privileges, while on the other, "labor" often grew arrogant. Mr. Roosevelt endeavored to be a real brother to each and to put them on a brotherly basis. To the grasping and "divine-right" capitalist, he would quote Lincoln: Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed but for labor. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights. . . . Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is de- sirable; it is a positive good in the world, Let not him who 182 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus, by ex- ample, showing that his own shall be safe from violence when built. Mr. Roosevelt made his impartiality very clear in a message to Congress: *'We are neither for the rich man as such nor for the poor man as such. We are for the upright man, rich or poor." But he also recognized the fact that legislation frequently favors one class as against another, and so he proposed : "According to our ability we intend to safeguard the rights of the mighty, but we intend no less jealously to safeguard the rights of the lowly." When a financial flurry and possible panic was threatened by the "money interests" if he in- sisted on certain enactments, he announced that he had always put down mobs without question as to their origin, as he "could no more tolerate wrong committed in the name of property than wrong com- mitted against property." He was criticized be- cause he gave names as he "coupled condemnation of labor leaders and condemnation of certain big capitalists, describing them all alike as undesirable citizens." After severely arraigning the "divine- right" owners of the anthracite coal mines he was as unsparing in arraigning the labor-union forces for insisting on putting a man out of the govern- ment printing office because he was not a union man. He openly condemned a certain industry which by new machinery and combinations of factories greatly increased its production and profits without giving the employees any of the benefits. He said : "This THE BROTHER OF HIS PEOPLE 183 represented an increasing efficiency with a positive decrease of social and industrial justice." In the face of labor's helplessness, when confronted by gigantic production organizations, he said : While we must repress all illegalities and discourage all immoralities, whether of labor organizations or of corpora- tions, we must recognize the fact that to-day the organiza- tion of labor into trade unions and federations is necessary, is beneficent, and is one of the greatest possible agencies in the attainment of a true industrial, as well as a true political, democracy in the United States. He urged, while President, that the two groups should confer as "partners": It is essential that capitalist and wage-worker should consult freely one with the other, should each strive to bring closer the day when both shall realize that they are properly partners and not enemies. Here is a nucleus for the plan, afterward so largely adopted, of providing for governing "councils" or "boards" made up of owners and laborers in fac- tories, mills and mines. He believed and practiced the doctrine which Paul preached at Athens, that God "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17. 26). CHAPTER IX PUBLIC DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED "Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife . . . reso- lute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods." — Theodore Roosevelt. Who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me. —Isa. 6. 8. THERE was no sly stepping, nor subtle speech, nor smooth subterfuges in Mr. Roosevelt's life plans. He walked and worked in the open. He cared nothing for personal cost when righteousness was under consideration. When first a candidate for the Legislature he visited a saloon with the "ward leader." When asked by the saloonist to support a lower license, he made inquiries concerning the prevalent rate, and being convinced that it was too low, he promptly de- clared that he would work for a higher one. After being elected he introduced such a bill, and the Re- publicans were panic-stricken, as it was as "ad- vanced" as prohibition legislation would have been on the East Side in 1900. He was just as frank in other directions, and as late as 1915 opposed a New York State bill making Bible-reading in the schools compulsory. He called it a fanatical move. While a member of the Legisla- ture, he risked the vigorous opposition of the Catho- Copyright, Underwood & Underwood Studios, New York MR. ROOSEVELT'S FAVORITE PHOTOGRAPH (and the choice of his closest friends) DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED 185 lies by blocking a long-permitted grant to a "Catho- lic Protectory." When refusing to announce himself as a candidate for President in 1912, he said that his decision was not final, for, "If the people should feel that I was the instrument to be used at this time, I should ac- cept even although I knew that I should be broken and cast aside in the using." Senator Piatt tried to frighten him away from his "franchise bill" by classing him with the then much-condemned and greatly ridiculed Populists of Kansas and warned him that he could never be elected again since the corporations would not con- tribute to his campaign and without their aid it was thought that a successful campaign could not be conducted. He cared not for the threatened penalty but drove the bill through the Legislature and caused the first break— which never closed— with the stand-patters. He wanted no special consideration even when misfortune struck him. For example, when he was shot. Governor Wilson magnanimously offered to cease campaigning, but he promptly replied : Whatever could with truth and propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was shot can with equal truth and equal propriety be said against me now, and it should so be said; and the things that cannot be said now are merely the things that ought not to have been said be- fore. This is not a contest about any man— it is a contest concerning principles. When his death was announced, Mr. John Wood- bury, the secretary of the class, sent to the class of 186 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION 1880 as applying to Mr. Roosevelt, a section from Bunyan, as follows : Then he said, "I am going to my Father's, and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not re- pent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to he a witness for me that I have fought His battles who now ivill he my rewarder." He, like Paul, had his sears ; and he was sore weary, as was Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, concerning whom the above was written. He never made a test for others he was not willing to endure himself. When he discovered that army officers were loafing physically and so were incapable of prompt out-door leadership if needed, he issued an order requiring every active officer to ride horse- back one hundred miles in three days. When vigor- ous protests were made to arouse sympathy for some corpulent generals, the President himself, in com- pany with Surgeon-General Rixey, rode one hun- dred miles in one day over the Virginia roads, which were frozen in ruts and while a snowstorm held sway for half the day. In the same way he was submerged for about seventy minutes in one of the first of the modern submarines, during which time he calmly made a thorough examination of the vessel. Concerning this trip, he said : ^'I went down in it chiefly because I did not like to have the officers and enlisted men think I wanted them to try things I was reluctant to try myself'^ DUTIES FEAKLESSLY PERFOKMED 187 While police commissioner he frequently spent the whole night— often going forty hours without sleep —in patroling the city so that he might actually enter into the life of the policeman. He always wanted to be sure that his orders were "fair" and never arbitrary. He never reckoned "success" as a necessary proof that he was right. When duty's door opened, he en- tered and walked forward, one step at a time. After the "Progressive" defeat, which many believed would "break" him, he wrote in his AutoUography — a work which was received by the public with scant en- thusiasm and interest— explaining that his ideal was formed on "service" to be rendered without any notion of appreciation or applause. He affirmed that the real public servant "will do the thing that is next when the time and the need come together" and not ask what the future will bring him. He will not, Mr. Roosevelt insisted, be disturbed if another gets the credit for doing what he started or made pos- sible, but will be happy in the consciousness that by doing well he has prepared the way for the other man who can do better." Dr. Lambert said of him : He would risk following a decision even though it promised total annihilation if it failed. He was willing to take such a responsibility because he believed in the final support of the people. Nothing, however, could affright him when a decision had been reached. He would say, "I have gone into it and I dare not back down now." He therefore never condemned himself when an honest effort was apparently futile. And so he 188 KOOSEVELT'S KELIGION wrote Senator Hanna, after his "Anthracite Strike" appeal failed, that he was "down-hearted over the result. But I am glad I tried anyhow. I should have hated to feel that I had failed to make any effort." His confidence rested on the certainty of justice triumphing in the end, for he told Mr. Riis : It is a matter of conviction with me that no frank and honest man could be in the long run entangled by the snares of plotters, whatever appearances might for the moment indicate. This claims the promise, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." He was not unsusceptible to defeat and victory. He felt keenly the injustice done by the critics of Admiral Dewey and expected similar treatment, and so expressed himself even while at his high tide of popularity. At an entertainment on board the ship when ex-President Roosevelt was returning from Africa, Homer Davenport told of a cartoon he had drawn in defense of Admiral Dewey while the bitter criticism was at its height. Dewey, seeing the car- toon, sent word that he wanted to see Mr. Davenport, and greeting him, immediately threw himself on the "sofa in a paroxysm of weeping." Mrs. Dewey ex- cused him, explaining that the public abuse had sent the Admiral near to nervous prostration. She said, "We had decided to go to Europe, never to set foot on American soil again, and had actually packed our trunks when we saw your cartoon. We have now decided to stay in America." Mr. Roosevelt heard Mr. Davenport repeat this ( DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED 189 story and followed him on the ship program, paying high praise to the Admiral. Lawrence Abbott, who happened to be with him, writes that after the ad- dress : I happened to be next to him, and immediately on taking his seat he turned to me and recalling the numerous times in the month or two preceding in which he had remarked that he was "going down like Dewey" — said, sotto voce, "Lawrence, they may treat me like Dewey, but I'll tell you one thing, I shall neither weep nor shall I go to Europe." He felt deeply that every American citizen should enter politics. He had contempt for the man who shirked in public affairs. So he said : Again, when a man is heard objecting to taking part in politics because it is "low" he may be set down as either a fool or a coward; it would be quite as sensible for a militiaman to advance the same statement as an excuse for refusing to assist in quelling a riot {American Ideals, p. 111). He believed that what was due "Caesar" should be rendered him as God's due should be rendered him. Lawrence Abbott, whose intimacy with Mr. Roose- velt on his journey through Europe gives him a right to speak, asserts that Mr. Roosevelt did not want to enter politics again but hoped to "retire to Saga- more Hill and devote himself to his literary pur- suits." But obedience to his sense of political duty drew him in again. It was Governor Charles E. Hughes who finally persuaded him to take the first step and help pass the Direct Primary bill which ultimately led him to be the candidate for State 190 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Convention chairman against Vice-President Sher- man. He wrote Senator Lodge that he would gladly have gone into such a contest twenty years before, but that an ex-President ought never to have been com- pelled to go into such a contest. He affirmed that while such ^'political business" was utterly repug- nant to him, nevertheless he could not stay out of it when he saw that the interests of the decent peo- ple were at stake. In referring to America's task in the Philippines, in the speech nominating William McKinley for President, he said: Is America a weakling to shrink from the world-work to be done by the world powers? ... No! we challenge the proud privilege of doing the work that Providence allots us, and we face the coming years high of heart and resolute of faith that to our people is given the right to win such honor and renown as has never yet been granted to the peoples of mankind. Mr. Roosevelt had much to do with our presence in the Philippines since he, as assistant secretary of the navy, brought the fleet to efficiency, picked Dewey, and gave him orders to go to Manila and take the islands. All now admit that our entrance was providential, since it put us into world affairs and made it natural for us to join in the World War and help save civilization, as well as secure an influence which, if wisely used, may help bring permanent peace everywhere. Furthermore, our ability to rule so successfully in DUTIES FEABLESSLY PEHFOHMED 191 the Philippines by Christian methods disproved the claim of Japan that only Prussian "might" could civilize such people as the Koreans, blood brothers to the Filipinos. This example of successful admin- istration may have helped Japan to change her tactics. All of these things also help establish the neces- sity of "foreign mission" work. If we must fight for the brotherhood, then we must also send the truth which will bring men to act like brothers. Mr. Roosevelt had warmest sympathy with the "foreign" work of the church. George H. Payne, Editor of the Forum, tells of a trip to Boston with Mr. Roosevelt on the day after his decision to be a candidate for the nomination in 1912, when "he was a very sad man" because duty compelled his candidacy. On receiving enthusiastic assurances of success he replied, ^It may be possible, but we must be prepared to lose — it is our duty to make the fight' " Mr. Roosevelt was so clean and straight that he put full confidence in entire frankness. Mr. Bishop told the writer of an enemy's attempt to misuse his own remark that Mr. Roosevelt had a "boy's mind" to break their friendship. What Mr. Bishop said was, "What he thinks, he says at once, thinks aloud, like a boy." The trouble-maker, a fellow police com- missioner, reported him to Mr. Roosevelt as saying, "You have a boy's mind and it may never be devel- oped." Mr. Bishop was right, for Mr. Roosevelt put a simple trust in open honesty. In referring to a group of Wall Street men who 192 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION were determined that he should not be nominated in 1904 he said that after he had uncovered their secret efforts to displace him they were helpless, for while they seemed to have power when working ^'under cover" they became "quite helpless when fighting in the open by themselves." The sense of being right sustained him. Yet he was greatly cheered by letters such as came from Secretary Hay, who was in Germany seeking health after his nomination. Mr. Hay congratulated him on his nomination speech in Chicago in 1904, where he had combined "conscience and authority." Secretary Hay re- joiced that he had the courage to speak plainly to "Our master — the people." He noted the fact that it was easy to condemn corporations or peculiar groups, but that it took unusual courage, rarely found among public men, to call the people as a whole to; account. It greatly cheered Mr. Roose- velt to have it recognized that back of all his public work was a sincere devotion to righteousness, guided by a godly conscience. He insisted that honesty and character, and not political partiality, should decide fitness, and so he lays down the rule on becoming President that "no political, or business or social influence of any kind" would affect him when he was measuring the honesty or efficiency of a public official. Worth alone weighed with him; he trained himself to recognize it. He did not mince matters in dealing with un- worthy individuals. When a senator brought a DUTIES FEAKLESSLY PEKFORMED 193 widely known "boss" to meet President Roosevelt, he received such a cold reception that he angrily blurted out, "You treat me as though I were a thief." The President replied, "Well, since you remind me of it, I know that you are one." ' He always wanted the untarnished truth. When becoming Governor he determined to get an imj)artial report concerning the State canal graft. He ap- pointed two well-known Democratic lawyers to in- vestigate and instructed them to spare no one. After months at the task they reported that actual criminal acts could not be located and that therefore prosecu- tion was impossible, but that the whole management should be changed. The people knew this report was unbiased and were satisfied, though, otherwise, they would have required the designation of a specific culprit. While he asserted positively that, without flinch- ing, he would enforce the laws "against men of vast wealth just exactly as I enforce them against or- dinary criminals," he wanted the multimillionaire still to understand that this purpose was ultimately for his benefit. So he declared in a "Progressive" statement : I want my multimillionaire opponents to know that the things I propose are not intended to hurt them but to help them. What I am striving for is to help their children and their grandchildren; that in the future years they may find it possible to live in this country with safety. He refused to see the sister of a convicted officer of the army who wanted to plead for a pardon, say- ing that sympathy for the officer's "folks" must not 194 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION interfere with the administration of a fair justice. He insisted that, after a careful survey of the evi- dence, he was sure the ofScer in question was "en- tirely incompetent to remain any longer in the serv- ice." He closes with : It would not be fair to do for one man who had influential friends anything I would not do for the man who has not a friend in the world. I try to handle the army and navy on the basis of doing absolute justice and showing no favoritism for any reason. He refused to single out the case of his son from those of the other boys who had fallen in France and to permit the empty notoriety coming from bringing the body home. He wrote General March: Mrs. Roosevelt and I wish to enter a most respectful but most emphatic protest against the proposed course as far as our son Quentin is concerned. We have always believed that "Where the tree falls, There let it lie." We know that many good persons feel entirely different, but to us it is painful and harrowing long after death, to move the poor body from which the soul has fled. We greatly prefer that Quentin shall continue to lie on the spot where he fell in battle and where the foeman buried him. After the war is over, Mrs. Roosevelt and I intend to visit the grave and then to have a small stone put up by us, but not disturbing what has already been erected to his memory by his friends and American comrades-in- arms. He was not a dreaming idealist but a practical DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED 195 doer of duty born of ideals. His motto as repeated to me by Mr. Bishop was, ^^I want to do the ideal thing, but if I cannot do it, I will come as near the ideal as possible." He greatly grieved some reform- ers because he refused to introduce a liquor local- option bill into the Legislature of which he was a member. He insisted that if he pushed it at that early date he would not only waste his time but would cheapen himself and lose his influence and ability to carry through other reforms promisingly pending at that time. He never acted without foresight. Kermit in writing about the African trip and his preparations for it records in the Metropolitan Magazine: It was often said of father that he was hasty and In- clined to go off at half-cock. There was never anyone who was less so. He would gather his information and make his preparations with painstaking care, and then when the moment came to act he was thoroughly equipped and pre- pared to do so with that lightning speed that his enemies characterized as rash hot-headedness. He carefully viewed all the possibilities when act- ing and knew that the Panama project might lose him the Presidency. When, therefore, this possibil- ity was predicted, while he was a candidate for the nomination in 1903, he replied in a letter to a Georgia man that the building of the Panama Canal ranked with the Louisiana Purchase in importance. He therefore admitted in this letter that if it were necessary for him to retire from public life as a re- sult of his insistence upon building the Canal, he would be glad to do so if the project was finally 196 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION successfuL He explained that he said this because he believed that a public man ought not to be con- cerned about the length of his term, but about the accomplishment during the time he was in office. The whole letter enforced the fact that he was anxious to render public service and not to obtain or retain place by merely pleasing the people. He always carried the spirit of military obedience into his public work, serving the people as soldiers did the flag. That is why he was so ready to enter the actual fighting ranks. He compared his injury at Milwaukee to that of a sailor or soldier in actual combat. Hence, his instructions to the Rough Riders might fit anyone entering public service. When they were about to be mustered in and could still with- draw, he said : Once you are in, you've got to see it through. You've got to perform, without flinching, whatever duty is assigned to you, regardless of the difficulty or the danger attending it. You must know how to ride, you must know how to shoot, you must know how to live in the open. Absolute obedience to every command is your first lesson. No matter what comes, you mustn't squeal.^ He had the same self-effacing courage and confi- dence in acting for his nation. Venezuela had bor- rowed nine and one half million dollars in 1896 from a German bank to build a railway, and in 1901 was far behind with interest. Great Britain also had a claim for one and one half million, and Germany, iFrom The Life and Meaning of Theodore Roosevelt, by Eugene Thwing, p. 97. DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED 197 adding a claim for damages for riots against her subjects in 1898, succeeded in securing the coopera- tion of Great Britain in blockading the ports of Venezuela and demanding immediate payment. On December 8, 1902, a German fleet destroyed Puerto Cabello. Secretary of State Hay's protest proved un- availing. President Roosevelt knew that Germany kept Great Britain from arbitrating the question. He sent for Holleben, the German ambassador, and told him that unless Germany consented to arbitrate within ten days, he would send Admiral Dewey and his fleet to protect Venezuelan territory. The am- bassador suggested this might mean war, but Mr. Roosevelt said it was too late to discuss the matter. When one week had elapsed and no word came, the President warned Holleben that Dewey would start in two days. The arrogant Kaiser, being notified, recalled the steel-like will of Mr. Roosevelt and, seeing that he meant business, immediately proposed arbitration. The President magnanimously allowed him to take the credit for initiating the proposal, but nevertheless kept Germany from getting a foot- hold on this continent. He had a very severe strain on his independent Americanism when he was compelled to refuse to visit the Pope. Vice-President Fairbanks had previously requested an audience with the Pope, who granted it on condition that he should not visit his own, the Methodist, church in Rome. Mr. Fairbanks indig- nantly refused. Ambassador Fleishman was re- quested to arrange an interview for Mr. Roosevelt with the Pope and was asked to notify Mr. Roose- 198 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION velt that he would be welcomed on the same terms proposed to Vice-President Fairbanks. Mr. Roose- velt immediately answered that the ''Holy Father" had the right to make any conditions he thought best, but reminded him that, ''I must decline to make any stipulations or submit to any conditions which in any way limit my freedom of conduct." J. C. O'Laughlin, a newspaper man, having met Mr. Roosevelt in Egypt, became one of his secretaries on the tour ; and since he was a Roman Catholic, he volunteered to precede the party and undertake to arrange the interview. Merry Del Val, the papal secretary, is reported as follows by Mr. O'Laughlin in his book Through Europe with Roosevelt : Continuing, I said to Mr. O'Laughlin, "All I ask is this: Can you assure me that Mr. Roosevelt will de facto not go to the Methodists, thus leaving aside the question of what he may consider to be his rights in the matter?" Mr. Roosevelt interpreted this to be discreditable double-dealing and deception. In speaking about it he said that Merry Del Val told Mr. O'Laughlin that he could have the "audience" with the Pope if he would secretly agree not to visit the Methodists while it would be publicly announced that there had been no such agreement. He imagined that this would save the ex-President's ''face." Mr. Roose- velt then concludes that even a ^'Tammany boodle alderman" would not have dared to make such a proposal. He did not blame the Catholic Church as a whole, for evidently the church was not to blame. It is as foolish to blame the Protestant Church for DUTIES FEAKLESSLY PERFORMED 199 what a few leaders do as it is to blame the Catholic Church in the same way. Few Presidents have had more intimate friends among priests and laymen in the Catholic Church, and they had aided him greatly. It took real courage to risk their enmity. But his impartial spirit would not permit him to make such an unfair bargain. Mr. Van Valkenburg said to me : Mr. Roosevelt hated fewer people than anyone I ever knew. He was not able to cherish personal animosities. He attacked individuals only as representatives of a dan- gerous idea or organization. He always counted himself the spokesman or repre- sentative of a ^'cause" and dedicated himself so com- pletely to it that even his warmest personal feelings were not, as a rule, allowed to influence or retard him. Gladstone had almost as stormy a career as Mr. Roosevelt. Once when asked the source of his regu- lar poise he took the interrogator into his bedroom and pointed to a Scripture verse which faced him every morning. It was: ''Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee." Something similar doubtless pre- served Mr. Roosevelt, for his faith was as solid and his knowledge of the Scriptures as intimate. In a heartening letter to Kermit on December 3, 1904, we catch a vision of his sustaining "faith." He urges him not to despair because at various times in school and in business '^fortune will go against anyone." pe urges him to keep up his courage and keep 200 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION pegging away and things will ''always take a turn for the better in the end." He writes in the same vein to "Ted," who has struck a ''blue" time at school. He remarks that as one grows older, "the bitter and sweet" follow each other pretty closely. We must, he urges, "grin and bear it" and "flinch" seldom but keep earnestly at our work until luck changes. Dean Lewis illustrates Mr. Roosevelt's im- perturbable poise by describing a visit to him during the Chicago Convention, when it took him twenty minutes to struggle through the jams in the hotel, which were shouting, "We want Teddy," to get to his room. The roar of the crowds inside and out of the hotel, together with the playing of half a dozen bands, did not move him. He found Mr. Roosevelt alone, sitting in a rocking chair, reading. "As I came in he looked up quietly, and I saw that the book which he held in his hand was Herodotus, the Greek historian." Rabbi Menzes, in speaking of the un- ruffled manner in which Roosevelt received criticism, likened him to Lincoln, who once said: If I were to try to read, much less to answer, all the at- tacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I can, and I intend to keep on doing so to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference! He did not fear death in the path of duty but was ready to meet it as an incident in the regular course of life or as a price to be paid in battling for the right. The loss of Quentin without doubt hastened DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED 201 his own demise; but when it was reported, his un- selfish message was : Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die, and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are part of the "Great Adventure." He had earlier made the same heroic declaration when it seemed certain that duty to the public would ultimately compel him to enter the Presidential con- test in 1912, when he was trying to avoid it. He said : The right motto for any man is "Spend and be spent," and if, in order to do a job worth doing from the public standpoint, he must pay with Ms own life, actual life on the field of battle, or political life in civic affairs, he must not grudge the payment. . . . My attitude is not a pose; I am acting as I do because, according to my lights, I am endeavoring, in a not too-easy position, to do what / believe the interests of the people demand. He would refuse nothing which divine guidance (''lights") imposed. He was a man of prayer and doubtless found the light that did not fail. He was led through the burdens and dangers of the cam- paign of 1912 into his most unpopular period. But he walked on unafraid and was "led" finally to his most influential period, that of the war days. He was as calm through the days of jeering as through those of cheering. Mrs. Robinson said to me: My brother had no fear of death in the path of duty. He never thought of it as a dark door. He believed in divine guidance. He did not define it or talk about it ex- 202 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION cept as he would call it, "according to my light." But, fol- lowing this, he never feared the ultimate outcome. Julian Street, who knew him for years and was frequently with him during the last days, writing in Collier's, said that he never even heard him mention death until the last year before his demise. He then concludes that his reference to it must have come from ''a premonition that the end was perhaps nearer than those about him supposed." Continuing, he describes Mr. Roosevelt as he lay in the hospital a few days after his operation, reading a book when he remarked, ^'Lying here, I have often thought how glad I would be to go now if by doing so I could only bring the boys back safe to Mrs. Roosevelt." He indeed avoided no task but lived every day as though it were his last. Though his health was broken, he would not admit it, but drove his flagging strength to the limit in efforts to speed up the war. He gave the keynote speech in Maine, writing it while on a bed of pain, addressed the Republican State Convention on the very day that Quentin was killed, and when his sorrow almost crushed him earnestly urged the reelection of Mayor Mitchel, and supported, in a great speech at Carnegie Hall, the reelection of Governor Whitman. His last appear- ance was to deliver an address in honor of a Negro Red Cross unit. On the great day of rejoicing — Armistice Day — he was compelled to return to the hospital with the acute pain of inflammatory rheu- matism. But he mended sufficiently to spend his day of delight, Christmas, with children and grandchil- DUTIES FEARLESSLY PERFORMED 203 dren at Oyster Bay. He spent his last evening with his family and at eleven retired, asliing his personal attendant, James Amos, to ''put out the light." At four o'clock Amos noticed unnatural breathing, but when he reached his side he was gone. His favorite text was, ''And walk humbly with God." This faith- ful disciple and good soldier did so, and "was not, for God took him," even as he did Enoch of old. Such an end well fitted such a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The Hon. James M. Beck well said at a memorial service, "We cannot believe that a beneficent God, who in physical nature permits nothing to be wasted, should permit the destruction of such a soul." Only pigmies can stand in the presence of this pure and serviceable soul and declare that death destroyed him. He who died on Calvary and rose on Easter morn so real that sincere souls recognized him was indeed the "first fruits." This chapter may well close with the words of the comrade-son, Kermit, who wrote for the Metro- politan : When In a little town In Germany my brother and I got the news of my father's death, there kept running through my head with monotonous insistency Kipling's lines: "He scarce had need to doff his pride Or slough the dross of earth, E'en as he trod that day to God So walked he from his birth In simpleness and gentleness and Honor and clean mirth." That was my father, to whose comradeship and guidance So many of us look forward in the Happy Hunting Grounds (Metropolitan Magazine, October, 1920). ^ CHAPTER X PREACHED AND PRACTICED HIGH IDEALS "As you know, my whole concern at this time is practi- cally the same concern that Amos and Micah and Isaiah had for Jerusalem nearly three thousand years ago." — Theodore Roosevelt. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. — Isaiah 58. 1. *' X AM charged with being a preacher. Well, I I suppose I am. I have such a bully pulpit," -■- said Mr. Roosevelt, referring, of course, to his great political audiences. He was afraid, however, in claiming to be a preacher, of being counted pre- sumptuous or of seeming to lay claim to a peculiar abundance of an artificial piety which some people believe should characterize the preacher. Mr. Loeb said to me: "Mr. Roosevelt was essen- tially a preacher of righteousness. He was a little sensitive, however, about having that title applied to him lest people would think of him more as a talker than a doer." After declaring to Dr. Iglehart that the Christian ministry was the "highest calling in the world," he said: I consider it my greatest joy and glory that, occupying a most exalted position in the nation, I am enabled simply 204 HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 205 and sincerely to preach the practical moralities of the Bible to my fellow countrymen (Iglehart, p. 297). Gifford Pinchot said to me : Roosevelt was the greatest preacher of righteousness in modern times. Deeply religious beneath the surface, he made right living seem the natural thing, and there was no man beyond the reach of his preaching and example. In the sight of all men he lived the things he taught, and millions followed him because he was the clear exemplar of his teaching. He wanted results more than anything else and so acquired a remarkable directness of speech. Senator Lodge traced his exhortatory gifts back to his ancestors when he said of Mr. Roosevelt : The blood of some ancestral Scotch Covenanter or of some Dutch Reformed preacher facing the tyranny of Philip of Spain was in his veins, and with his large opportunities and his vast audiences he was always ready to appeal for justice and righteousness. Jane Addams said he was a "veritable preacher of social righteousness with the irresistible eloquence of faith sanctified by work." The European Addresses delivered during his re- turn trip from Africa were practically ^'sermons," and Lawrence Abbott says in his Introduction to the book which contains them, ^'I call them sermons because he himself uses the phrase, 'I preach/ " and he further on proves their right to this designation when he says : And yet the Sorbonne lecture, delivered by invitation of ♦he officials of the University of Paris, . . . saturated as 206 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION it was with moral ideas and moral exhortations, was a com- plete success. And again: "The speech was an appeal for moi^al rather than for intellectual or material greatness." ^ He was so strenuous in his phrases and figures concerning America's unwillingness to enter the war that the newspapers asked him to modify them. He refused and explained to Van Valkenburg : "As you know, my whole concern at this time is practically the same concern that Amos and Micah and Isaiah had for Jerusalem nearly three thousand years ago." He was not materialistic but spiritual in esti- mating values. When ready to leave the Presidency, a score of propositions came to him. One corpora- tion offered him one hundred thousand dollars a year to act as its president. But he turned them all down to become associated with a clergyman (Lyman Abbott), in whom he had great confidence, on a re- ligious paper. The Outlook, at one thousand dollars a month. He did so because its atmosphere was con- genial. He here frequently discussed religious sub- jects and always gave his contributions a high moral tone. He was very much afraid of commercializing his personality and thus tincturing the purity of his messages. Mr. McGrath told me that he refused fabulous sums for Chautauquas, "because it looked to him as though he were capitalizing his career, which he said did not belong to himself but to the people." ^Lawrence Abbott, African and European Addresses, p. 23, Introduction. HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 207 Mrs. Henry A. Wise- Wood, with a woman's insight, saw this element in him when she said : Roosevelt is to the mind what the tuning fork is to the ear. When one wishes to strike the true note of American- ism, he needs only to touch Roosevelt as the choirmaster touches his tuning fork. He had that subtle, spiritual something which is as elusive and yet is as real as the fragrance of a vio- let. It was the result of a carefully guarded and nourished spiritual life. It was the basis for his sturdy championship of right, as love is for the courage the frail female exhibits in defense of her young. Gififord Pinchot endeavors to explain it when he asks: ''What explains his power? Life is the answer," and then after describing his happy spirit, his clean life, his sturdy activities, and his keen sensitiveness ''to every phase of human exist- ence," he concludes, "In Roosevelt, above all men of his time, the promise of the Master was fulfilled: 'I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.' " As a boy, he was taught to listen to a sermon so that afterward he could reproduce its outline and discuss the legitimacy of its Scripture basis. And so he learned to test a preacher's effectiveness. Mrs. Robinson described to me the family Sunday school in her childhood home : Every Sunday afternoon at five o'clock we had a Sunday school in our own home. Father presided as teacher and the children of our household formed the class. Each child had a personally owned Bible. All had attended church 208 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION that morning and the first matter for discussion was the sermon we had heard. It was the duty of every one of us to bring in an abstract of that sermon, and the boy or girl who had the best one was highly praised by our father; that was a great prize. We would then look up the Scrip- ture and the context would be explained, and we would discuss it freely, reading selections from our own Bibles. It was a cheery, happy hour, enriched by our father, who thus made sermon-hearing very attractive and profitable. ^^Right" standards were imbedded in his very na- ture. William Bayard Hale followed Mr. Roosevelt through every detail of his life in the White House for a whole week and then tried to describe the tre- mendous amount of tasks performed, and concludes : ^' 'I couldn't do it otherwise/ the President said to me when I expressed my astonishment at the candor and publicity that prevailed. ... 'I rest everything on the righteousness of my cause.' " He gave himself utterly to everything he advo- cated. Just before the editor of the Paris Matin re- turned from a visit to this country, he asked Mr. Roosevelt if he had any message and he replied : I have no message for the French people. I have given them the best I had [his four sons]. But if they speak of me over there, tell them my only regret is that I could not give them myself. He was always literally ready to give his life for a cause as did the early martyrs. Albert Shaw, in referring to Mr. Roosevelt's first '^stumping" tour in the interests of President McKinley, traces his ef- fectiveness to conscientiousness : He was not naturally a good public speaker, but in the HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 209 course of this tour, through sheer earnestness, sincerity, and energy, he won his audiences and acquired his reputa- tion — always afterward sustained — of being a very effective campaign speaker. Mr. Roosevelt was constantly inspired and sus- tained by his high ideals, which he believed would ultimately prevail and for which he fought. To a Christian mission school in Luxor, Egypt, he said, ^'A practical man without ideals is a curse. The greater his ability, the greater the curse." In closing a chapter in his AutoUograpJiy , which de- scribes his romps with the children and the alto- gether happy home life he enjoyed, he enforced the fact that no success approached that which is open to men and women "who have the right ideals." This group, he says, will see that the ordinary every- day ''homely things" ''count most." He had never met Mr. Riis until that newspaper reporter had printed his ideals of helpfulness in a book titled. How the Other Half Lives. That book drew these two men together as a magnet does a needle, and Mr. Roosevelt called on Mr. Riis and offered to help. Explaining the call, he said, "I be- lieve in realizable ideals and in realizing them, in preaching what can be practiced and then in prac- ticing them." Those were the sort Mr. Riis had of- fered. Mr. Roosevelt's intense conviction is shown in a sentence in The Great Adventure : "Unless men are willing to fight and die for great ideals, . . . ideals will vanish and the world will become one huge sty of materialism." 210 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He developed this idea in his epochal address at Carnegie Hall just after he had agreed to enter the primaries against President Taft : In order to succeed, we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt, he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is, "Spend and be spent." It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. Here is the spirit of a Paul who was willing to be ^'offered up." The Hon. James M. Beck said ; When he entered public life he found this nation sunk in a sordid materialism, due to our amazing prosperity as a nation, which had somewhat obscured the great ideals to which the republic was dedicated. Roosevelt, in the spirit of an ancient prophet, preached the higher life, both for nation and for individual. In The Great Adventure he pleads that those who cannot go into the trenches shall realize the need for a loftier idealism than we have had in the past. . . . There has been in the past in this country far too much of that gross materialism which, in the end, eats like an acid into all the finer qualities of our souls. HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 211 The news of Quentin's death came on the morning of the day when he had agreed to preside and make the keynote address at the Republican State Con- vention at Saratoga. In spite of his heart-breaking sorrow, he went to the convention, saying: "It is my duty. I must go." He followed the set speech with an extemporaneous exhortation in which, among other things, he said : Our young men have gone to the other side, Very many of them to give up in their joyous prime all the glory and all the beauty of life to pay the greatest price of death in battle for a lofty ideal. Now when they are doing that, cannot we men and women at home make up our minds to try to insist upon a lofty idealism here at home? . . . I am asking for the idealism which will demand that every promise expressed or implied be kept — that every pro- fession of decency, of devotion that is lofty in words should be made good in deeds. His sorrow, the product of devotion to ideals, spurred and did not retard him in urging others to follow them. Mr. Hagedorn carried a letter to "Bill" Sewall from Mr. Roosevelt in which he said : "I want you to tell him everything good, bad, and indifferent. Don't spare me the least bit." "Bill" then wrote, "I could not see a single thing that was not fine in Theodore." After speaking of the firm advocacy of his convictions which some people called stubborn- ness, "Bill" emphasizes Mr. Roosevelt's teachableness but admits that "he had strong convictions and was willing to stand up for them," and could not be shaken out of them. He was inspired and stabilized 212 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION by his convictions. He kept corrupt leaders nervous ; for if he saw a thing that looked wrong, he spoke out loud and proposed a remedy and pushed to get it into vogue, no matter who was affected. He was always consistent and declared : Any man who preaches to others should rightly be re- quired to show that he has himself, according to his power, acted upon the doctrines he preaches and that he has not lightly changed them or lightly adopted them. Since he "preached" such doctrines critics won- dered if he really practiced them. One day Mr. Roosevelt asked George H. Payne if he had seen the charge of intemperance which had been made against him. He answered in the nega- tive and suggested that it was not worthy of his notice. Mr. Roosevelt then replied : That might he if it were not for the fact that day after day I am receiving letters like this one that I have in my hand, from mothers saying that they had taught their boys to look up to me, and that it was a shock to them to learn that I had been unfaithful to my trust. I owe them a refu- tation. Lawrence Abbott calls attention to the fact that in the "intemperance" libel suit, under regular legal procedure, Mr. Roosevelt might have compelled his accuser to submit his evidence and when he failed to prove his charges, merely collect damages. But instead, he opened his whole life for complete in- spection, so that the public could see whether there was any basis for the charges. That such was his HIGH IDEALS PKEACHED 213 sole purpose is shown by his request to the court that the convicted owner of the newspaper who had made the scurrilous charges should be relieved from a heavy penalty after he had apologized. Harvey D. Hinman was the Progressive can- didate for Governor of New York in 1904 and was bitterly opposed by the ''machine." Mr. Roosevelt, in supporting him, charged that William Barnes, the Republican "boss," had formed an alliance with the Democrats in the interests of political and busi- ness crookedness. Barnes then sued him for libel. In collecting evidence Mr. Barnes had the advantage of a long and intimate acquaintance in Albany. His information went back to the days of Piatt, with whom he had worked. He had access to Mr. Roose- velt's 150,000 letters, which his lawj^ers scrutinized carefully. Mr. Roosevelt was kept on the grill of the witness stand for ten days. His memory was marvelous. Once they read a letter, written years before, with a bad implication to it, and Mr. Roose- velt asked, ''Isn't there an interlineation there in pen and ink which reads as follows ?" and he quoted words which banished all suspicion. They examined his relations with "Boss" Piatt and went through the campaign contributions of 1904 in trying to show that Mr. Roosevelt had dealt in crooked politics, but they failed to find a flaw or a misstep. Judge Andrews charged the jury to decide "whether there had been an alliance between Barnes and the Democratic leaders and whether Barnes had worked through a corrupt alliance between crooked politics and crooked business." "For two days the 214 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION jury deliberated," says Dean Lewis, ''and then re- turned a verdict which accepted Roosevelt's state- ments as true." Mr. Roosevelt in his "thanks" to the jury, after they brought in a verdict, so expressed his apprecia- tion of the "obligation" you "men representing every sphere of political belief have put me under" : There is only one return that I can make, and that, I assure you, I will try to make to the best of my ability. I will try all my life to act in public and private affairs so that no one of you will have cause to regret the verdict you have given this morning. The trial consumed two months and cost Mr. Roose- velt personally fifty-two thousand dollars to defend his honesty against a "boss" who thought he could "break" him. No moral leader can speak confidently and effectively without the consciousness of recti- tude which sustained Mr. Roosevelt. Someone has said that a man may fight for his home but not for his "boarding" house. Mr. Roose- velt, desiring to perpetuate the nation, recognized the fact that abiding love of country could alone be insured by real homes built by a sacrifice and by owners desirous of having children in them. Hence, in France, while "preaching," he assailed the liberty allowed the lawless socialists, and in the same way arraigned the childless homes — both as dangerous diseases of the republic. He expressed his contempt for the dodger who re- fuses to be a parent by saying, "But the man or woman so cold as to know no passion and a brain HIGH IDEALS PKEACHED 215 so shallow and selfish as to dislike children is in effect a criminal against the race." His known tenderness toward woman safeguards his exhortation concerning "motherhood." After en- forcing the necessity of every worthy man being gentle and unselfish toward his wife, he says, "But exactly as he must do his duty, so she must do her duty." He then explains that if the American race is to go forward, every normal home should endeavor to have at least four children in it, since many would not marry, others would be unwillingly deprived of offspring, and many children would die in infancy. He concludes : "I am sure you agree with me that no other success in life — not being President or being wealthy — can compare with the knowledge of men and women that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up to call them blessed." In speaking to the French on "race suicide" he said: Even more important than ability to work, even more important than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that the chief of blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings in biblical times and it is the crown of blessings now. It is difficult to condemn conditions in a country while an honored guest. But a genuine prophet dare not even then refrain, and so Mr. Koosevelt assailed the unrestrained Socialism prevalent in France: The deadening effect on any race of the adoption of a 216 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION logical and extreme socialistic system could not be over- stated; it would spell sheer destruction; it would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler immorality, than any existing system.^ His fearless warning bore fruit; for the Briand ministry took heart and forbade a monster public demonstration already announced, with incendiary posters, to take place under the direction of the Revo- lutionary Group. For the first time in fifteen years the police and soldiers were authorized to use their arms in self-defense against this group. So his preaching bore prompt fruit. He spoke in the same unrestrained way in Egypt when, under the plea of a Nationalist movement, Boutras Pasha, the British representative, was as- sassinated. Two hundred students had surrounded Mr. Roosevelt's hotel and shouted fierce threats ; but, like the ancient prophets, he was unmoved. A won- derful welcome in London did not smother his preach- ing zeal, and so he dealt with the Egyptian question again and arraigned some of the side-stepping "statesmen" in Great Britain. ''While you have been treating all religions with studied fairness and impartiality," he said, "the Moslems have used this as a basis for an anti-foreign attack, so that they could destroy all religions but their own." He con- cluded : It was with this primary object of establishing order that you went into Egypt twenty-eight years ago. ... If you feel you have not the right to be in Egypt, if you do not wish to establish and to keep order there, why then, by all ^Lawrence Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 165. HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 217 means get out of Egypt. ... If, as I hope, you feel that your duty to civilized mankind and your fealty to your own great traditions alike bid you stay, make the fact and your name agree. . . . Some nation must govern Egypt. I hope and believe that you will decide that it is your duty to be that nation.^ Though Mr. Roosevelt was charged with being a meddler in this ease, he never explained that his speech had been read and approved, with a request that he deliver it, by Sir Edward Grey, the foreign minister. He never gave any consideration to the effect of an act or address on his future but implicitly obeyed the inner voice. He admits that after he returned to the Legislature for the third term he found him- self unconsciously asking, ^'How will this or that af- fect my career?" and was for awhile tempted to trim, until one day, in utter disgust, he declared, "I will do my day's work as it comes along and let the ca- reer take care* of itself." He could not "do evil that good might come." Mr. Riis records him as saying : No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of ex- pediency. ... As soon as a politician gets to the point of thinking that to be "practical" he has got to be base, he has become a noxious member of the body politic. That species of practicability eats into the moral sense of the people like a cancer. When urged by politicians to soften the prosecu- tion of the Negro soldiers guilty of the Brownsville »/6»d., p. 151. 218 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION murders in order that the Negro voters might not be offended, he writes Silas McBee : As you know, I believe in practical politics, and, where possible, I always weigh well any action which may cost votes before I consent to take it; but in a case like this, where the issue is not merely one of naked right and wrong but one of vital concern to the whole country, I will not for one moment consider the political effect. Previous to his own campaign for the Presidency in 1904 he found crookedness and graft in the Post Office Department. The politicians suggested that a few guilty ones should be punished and the depart- ment then be quietly cleaned up. He refused to con- sider such a plan and put a Democrat in as one of the assistant investigators so that no whitewashing would be done. Among the crooks caught was a State senator in New York State. It happened that the chairman of the Republican State Committee was a partner in the firm that profited from this senator's crookedness and the ^^senator" warned Mr. Roose- velt that if the ''case" was not dropped, he would lose the State in 1904. Mr. Roosevelt wrote him that he was more interested in carrying the State than any- one else but that ''I will not let up on any grafter no matter what the political effect might be." The next year, a senator, afterwards expelled for dishonesty, wrote the President in the interests of a crooked client. He received the prompt information that President Roosevelt would under no "pressure" from political sources or because of "party expediency" refrain HIGH IDEALS PKEACHED 219 from punishing any evildoer, "whether he belongs to my party or any other." He wrote a wonderful testimony in a private letter to his son Kermit, containing this sentence, "I never did one thing personally that was not as straight as a string." When his campaign for President was put on he picked Cortelyou as national chairman because "he will manage the canvass on a capable and also on an absolutely clean basis, and my canvass cannot be managed on any other lines either with propriety or advantage." One of the most crucial tests of Mr. Koosevelt's integrity came at the 1912 Chicago Convention. Only twenty-eight votes were needed to nominate him. One night a group of Southern delegates waited upon him and promised to give him thirty- two votes provided only that they then could vote with the "stand-patters" on organization. Mr. Koose- velt did not hesitate a moment but said in a clear voice : Thank the delegates you represent but tell them that I cannot permit them to vote for me unless they vote for all progressive principles for which I fought and by which I stand or fall. Mr. Van Valkenburg told me that Mr. Koosevelt said, "They don't seem to understand that I am not running for President but am standing for a prin- ciple." Another who was present said that "strong men broke down under the stress of that night." Some pleaded all night with him, insisting that once 220 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION he was nominated, he could handle the situation and rid himself of the "stand-patters." But, finally, after answering all arguments and desiring to close the matter, he had to warn two or three persistent pleaders that though he loved them like brothers, yet if they continued their urging, it might bring about a break in their friendship, since he could not yield against his convictions. The Germans exasperated Mr. Roosevelt almost beyond endurance during the Barnes trial. Mr. Bowers, his chief counsel, had warned him against making any vigorous anti-German statements until the trial was over, since two of the jurors were Ger- man-Americans. News was suddenly brought that the Lusitania had been sunk. He tried hard to keep quiet and walked up and down the floor in his host's home in Syracuse. Finally he declared: "Well, it doesn't make any difference. It is more important that I be right than to win this suit." Awakened at midnight with a request for an interview, he gave the reporters a blistering indictment of the Germans. The next morning he told his counsel that he feared this interview would so alienate the two jurors as to insure losing the case, but concluded that it could not be helped if it did, since he must be true to his convictions whatever the cost, since his personal welfare "was second to the interests of the American people." He never gave way to pettishness. He vigorously opposed the nomination of James G. Blaine while a delegate to the National Convention, but returning to New York, he refused to bolt the ticket, saying. J HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 221 ^'I did my best and got beaten, and I propose to stand by the result.'' Mr. Van Valkenburg recounted to me a stirring incident that uncovered Mr. Roosevelt's methods to hear the call of duty and his answer to it ; I was in New York in conference with Frank Munsey and George W. Perkins when Mr. Roosevelt telephoned me that he wanted to see me at nine-thirty the next morning. We had all agreed that if Woodrow Wilson were nominated, the Progressives would have small chance. When I arrived at Oyster Bay Mr. Roosevelt said: "The whole family spent the afternoon yesterday in a conference as to whether I should accept the Progressive nomination. I told the children that it would mean social ostracism^ — friends of a lifetime would suspicion and 'cut' them; that it would embitter powerful business men who would impede and block their success. I told Mrs. Roose- velt that dear old Judge White would not call on her again, that Root and all the old crowd would forsake us. And I told them that it would all end in my defeat and loss of standing in the party. But after all this dismal picture, the family voted unanimously for me to run." Then he turned toward me and said: "Van, this ends my public career. I had hoped I m.ight serve the public for a long while. But duty calls and I must enter this fight as a soldier goes into battle and there risks his life. I am no better, and must be willing to 'die' for my country." Suddenly he turned toward the door and said, "Let me bring Edith in," and soon he came back hand in hand with Mrs. Roosevelt, like lovers that they were, and asked her to tell me about the decision. She recounted the incidents and added, "Though we know the outcome is defeat, I am serenely happy ; and whatever comes now, it is all right." It was holy ground on which we stood. Mr, Roosevelt accepted the call as God-sent and without question went forward in the way as he found it marked out, step by step. 222 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He never considered his own interests. Mr. Thompson asked him what he thought his chances were to be nominated in 1916. He replied that if there had been any ''chance, I killed it by my tour of the West advocating preparedness and Americanism. The convention will adopt these issues; but when nominations are made a convention will always pass over a pioneer, he has made too many enemies, and will pick a ^safer' man." And he knew that fact when he started the tour. Mr. Roosevelt read character and so picked his associates. He usually forgave his adversaries, but Mr. Stoddard told me of a nationally known writer who had published a widely circulated article making serious charges against Mr. Roosevelt. Later he wanted to apologize and renew friendship, but Mr. Roosevelt was unwilling, saying: "He has known me eight or ten years in an intimate way. If when he thus knew me he could make such charges, he proves himself to have a character I dare not trust in the future." He had a very unusual test of his integrity when, as Governor, his warm friend, Jacob A. Riis, among many others, urged him to grant a woman murderer a reprieve, since it seemed revolting for a female to be executed. She had killed her stepdaughter with- out provocation and had tried to kill her husband. Governor Roosevelt eventually refused the request and wrote Mr. Riis, "Whatsoever I do, old friend, believe it will be because after painful groping I see duty in some given path." He had to fight constantly for his ideals. Even HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 223 when police commissioner, he had politically blind associates who put policy before principle and so he said : I have endless petty rows with Fitch and Parker, very- irritating because so petty, hut very necessary; the battle for decent government must be won by just such inter- minable grimy drudgery. When it became necessary to form a new party Dean Lewis, who was on the ground, tells us : ^'The decision to form an independent party was made by Roosevelt and by no one else." He took responsi- bility promptly. With such a character, tireless energy, and ideals of service of course he moved the people and ulti- mately to action. He dedicated his magnetism to the service of humanity. John Burroughs tells about meeting a Catholic priest in Bermuda who had been on a platform in New England when Mr. Roosevelt spoke and who said, "The man had not spoken three minutes before I loved him, and had anyone tried tp molest him, I could have torn him to pieces." After the "libel" suit "Boss" Barnes heard Mr. Roosevelt speak at Carnegie Hall and was soon on his feet shouting and applauding. When reminded of it he replied, "No one can resist the magnetism of that man." Mr. Roosevelt was not beyond being moved him- self or he could not so easily have moved others. When he left Oyster Bay in the fall of 1905, follow- ing his inauguration as President, and after spend- ing the summer there, he had an unusually affecting 224 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION experience. For the first time the village was deco- rated and the school children and neighbors accom- panied him to the train and sang, "Farewell to our neighbor, President Roosevelt," and "God be with you till we meet again." The New York Tribune said, "The President had tears in his eyes while he thanked his neighbors who gathered at the railroad station" to bid him farewell. He told them how much he "appreciated their demonstrations of friend- ship" and that "they have been very helpful to me." Mr. Taft, in his Introduction to Dean Lewis' Life of Theodore Roosevelt, tells of a cartoon that hung in Mr. Roosevelt's room at the White House, in which an old farmer with a pipe was seated in front of a fire reading a long executive message of the President, and underneath was the legend, "His favorite author." This cartoon contained the kernel of truth as to the atti- tude of the plain people in the country toward Theodore Roosevelt's ideals.^ He honestly loved the "people." Mr. Loeb, his secretary, told me that the first time Mr. Roosevelt saw this cartoon, he exclaimed: "By George, Billy, that's the fellow I have been trying to reach all my life. I hope the cartoon represents the fact !" Lawrence Abbott further illustrates his hold on the people when he tells about looking out the train window during the night and seeing farm- houses lighted with groups in front waving flags at the passing train. "It was as if they had waited up iFrom The Life of Theodore Roosevelt, by William Draper Lewis. Copy- right, by The John C. Winston Company. ff Undenvood & Underwood Stu THE EARNEST TREACHER" IN ACTION HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 225 to bid a welcome and a good-by to a brother, though they knew he would be unseen and unseeing." Ciemenceau made an earnest plea to President Wilson to send Mr. Roosevelt over during the war since "he is an idealist, imbued with simple, vital idealism. Hence his infiuence on a crowd, his 'pres- tige,' to use the right expression." He paid for his power and he used it well. The New York Globe editorially regretted the fact that the laudations of Mr. Roosevelt centered their emphasis on the fact that his chief service was as a "preacher" — a ^'champion of moral ideals," while ''it was as a doer of the word rather than as its preacher that our dead leader and friend wishes to be regarded as worthy." It is so easy to minimize the preacher as a mere theorist. It is forgotten that the preacher has always carried the torch and blazed the trail at every forward step mankind has taken. Moses had a slow tongue and was given Aaron to preach. Recall the leadership of such preachers as Elijah, who dethroned Baal and saved Israel ; John the Baptist, who prepared the way for the great Saviour ; Savonarola, who acted as surgeon to a cor- rupt church; the Revolutionary preachers, who whipped the slothful to enlist ; Henry Ward Beecher, the scorpion-like assailer of slavery; and the army of ridiculed pastors who gave us a "dry" America. Few men in history have had both the gift of the seer and that of the practical organizer as did Mr. Roosevelt. But he had to picture the "Promised Land" and exhibit the weakness of the enemy before he could get the people to go forward. 226 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He early recognized that sins enervated both the individual and the nation. In speaking of the capable, well-disciplined army of Cromwell, he says, "No man swears but he pays his twelve pence; if he be drunk, he is set in the stocks or worse." His own habits proved his estimate of right living ; and while he tried to enforce their value, yet he never coerced anyone. Lawrence Abbott said to me, "Mr. Roosevelt so earnestly desired to help people find the road to spiritual success and happiness that he yearned over them with affection." He thus reached and aroused the best in them. "At no time was he a driver," said Mr. Pinchot to me. "He set an example in life and efforts and in- spired us to fullest endeavor to keep up with him." By encouragement and faith he really wrought many transformations among the wild characters he knew in the West. Mr. Loeb told me of a tough character with a prison record who joined the Rough Riders. He evidenced complete amendment in the army, and President Roosevelt later gave him an im- portant office. Someone said to the ex-tough, "The President has taken an awful chance on you," and he replied, "No, the Colonel's confidence in me is what is going to keep me straight." He worked similar transformations in the nation as a whole. Public Opinion said at the time of his death : It Is not merely that Mr. Roosevelt changed the laws — a man of smaller influence or a national legislature under no moral conviction might have done that; his great achievement was that he changed the mental attitude of HIGH IDEALS PREACHED 227 the people and brought "big business" itself to repentance and to the ways of righteousness. Oscar Straus said to me that Theodore Roosevelt could appeal to the conscience of the people as could no other American except Lincoln. Professor Harry Thurston Peck had been severely arraigned by Mr. Roosevelt, and smarting under it, declared that when Mr. Roosevelt left the Presidency, his wish will no longer be law to a hundred thousand office holders. His denunciations and his eulogies will be listened to with only scant attention. ... It will be a strange thing for him to learn the lesson that the power which he exer- cises is the power of an office and not the power of an in- dividual man. Was he right? All agree that the last ten years of Mr. Roosevelt's life, while possessed of little po- litical power, were the most influential of his career. I once said to Colonel Roosevelt: You have done more for practical righteousness than any other one man in the last generation. You have preached but you have also backed it with such a clean and upright life that you could fight vigorously without fear of being "stopped" by a blow on a blemished place in your character. No man has put more righteousness into laws and practices than you. He listened calmly but his eye lighted with pleasure as he bowed his appreciation. And that fact explains the effectiveness of his preaching. CHAPTER XI WAS HE A CHRISTIAN? OTHERS' TESTIMONY Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. — 1 Tim. 6. 12. MR. ROOSEVELT'S friends all agree that he was very reticent in talking about or dis- cussing the subject of personal religion. Not a single influential friend has hesitated to de- clare the conviction that Mr. Roosevelt's religion was an indispensable part of his being. As Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler put it, ^'He never paraded his re- ligion or his faith but both were very fundamental with him." His fear of using religion as a cloak made him go almost to the other extreme of neglecting to posit the fact that his ideals and his strenuous righteous- ness were both the fruits of his faith. He also so stressed the necessity of applying the doctrine of James, "Show me your faith by your works," that some were likely to forget that his "faith" was fed by worship, Bible study, prayer, and Christian as- sociates as roots are by soil, sunshine, and moisture if a tree bears fruit. He did use the "means of grace" as food for his faith but so unobtrusively that people did not notice it and hence often lost sight of the fact that he was a full-orbed "Christian." 228 A CHRISTIAN? OTHERS' TESTIMONY 229 ^ So many of the people who were constantly asso- ciated with him were so marked as Christians that they are qualified to recognize and affirm Mr. Roose- velt's discipleship. This chapter will therefore deal largely with the "testimony" of his friends which came in answer to personal requests. In talking with me Kermit said : It was inherent in father to be reserved about the subject of personal religion. He claimed that actions "talked" in religion as in everything else. These told of his faith in a clear way. Mrs. Robinson also affirmed; My brother seldom talked about doctrinal subjects in re- ligion. He had a profound faith which he believed would show itself in his actions. In my judgment he led in an absolute and exact way the life that is laid down for a Christian. He believed that a Christian life was the one to lead. He believed absolutely in the value and necessity of churches and that worship on Sunday was helpful and essential. In answer to a letter, President Harding, himself an ardent member of the Baptist Church, wrote : I am convinced that Theodore Roosevelt had a devout be- lief in God and though a consistent churchman he never paraded his belief, but it was evident in his writings, in his speeches, and in his conduct. His clean personal life is the best proof of his faith and belief. That he was a close student of the Bible was but natural since he was ever a seeker after truth. Unquestionably he believed in prayer, not only as a means of grace but as a personal help and consolation. 230 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION General Leonard Wood understood Mr. Roosevelt as well as any man who is alive and is himself an earnest member of the Episcopal Church. He wrote me: Theodore Roosevelt was a true Christian. He believed in God and that all peoples must have faith, that a nation forsaking its religion is a decadent nation. He w^as a churchgoer as an evidence of his faith and for purpose of worship. His life, his ideals, and his acts established his faith in God. He was a reader of the Bible. I have no recol- lection of hearing him take the name of God in vain. I be- lieve that he gathered many of his ethical ideas from the Scriptures. His courage was maintained by his sense of righteousness and justice. He was clean in thought and speech; a man of broad sympathy; limited neither by race nor creed. He was a doer of good works and a strenuous advocate of those principles which are laid down in the commandments. Ex-President, now Chief Justice Taf t in a personal letter among other things says, '^Of course, he was a Christian, and a broad Christian at that." That is high tribute when their relations are recalled. ^'Bill" Sewall was raised in the Congregational Church, and told me : "My grandfather was a Con- gregational minister, and he had a near relative who put seven Sewall brothers into the Congregational ministry." He himself did not join the church be- cause of the aggravating friction between the only two churches in his small home town, yet he af- firmed a simple and complete faith in God. Four of his five children are already members. He walked many hours with Mr. Roosevelt in the silences of the woods and on the wide prairies and knew the WiookPoint (Smps ;a - 0^e2c^ ^^^^ o/faA. ^9<^ ^ m H ^ H > W ^ o w p^ p g ^ c ? Q P^ < Q > ti ^ H < ^ W s H ^ hJ CHAPTER XV HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE "If a man is not familiar with the Bible he has suffered a loss which he had better make all possible haste to cor- rect." — Theodore Roosevelt. All Scripture is . . . profitable for teaching, for reproof, for amendment, for moral discipline, to make the man of God proficient and equip him for good work of every kind. —2 Tim. 3. 16, 17 (Moffatt's translation). WHEN he was forty-two years of age, or twenty-one years after his graduation from Harvard, Mr. Roosevelt was inau- gurated Vice-President of the United States. On that occasion the Harvard Republican Club pre- sented him with an appropriately inscribed copy of the Bible. After his death Mrs. Roosevelt sent the American Bible Society a photograph of that Bible with the comment that it was the one book which Mr. Roosevelt always "kept at his hand on the read- ing stand in the north room at Sagamore Hill." Mrs. Roosevelt further added in the letter to the So- ciety : "I should like the world to know how large a part his deep knowledge of the Bible played in my husband's life." Mrs. Robinson told me about the "pigskin" library which Mr. Roosevelt carried to Africa, saying : When my brother decided to make the African trip I requested the privilege of furnishing a pigskin bound li- 305 306 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION brary for him to take along. The first book selected for this library was the Bible; he could not do without that book. He read it a great deal. He counted it a literary masterpiece. He also read it for inspiration and conso- lation. In 1901 Mr. Roosevelt entertained the Long Island Bible Society at his home in Oyster Bay and deliv- ered an address on ''The Influence of the Bible." It is so characteristically compact and so valuable that it is repeated here quite fully: Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes what a very large number of people tend to forget, that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally — I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally — impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teach- ings were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards toward which we, with more or less of resolution, strive to raise ourselves. Almost every man who has by his lifework added to the sum of human achieve- ment of which the race is proud, has based his lifework largely upon the teachings of the Bible. . . . Among the greatest men a disproportionately large number have been diligent and close students of the Bible at first hand. He refers to Lincoln's study of and indebtedness to the Bible, and his industry in reading it until he became a "man of one book" : Lincoln, sad, patient, kindly Lincoln, who after bearing upon his weary shoulders for four years a greater burden than that borne by any other man of the nineteenth century, laid down his life for the people whom living he had served HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 307 so well, built up his entire reading upon his early study of the Bible. He had mastered it absolutely; mastered it as later he mastered only one or two other books, notably Shakespeare; mastered it so that he became almost "a man of one book," who knew that book, and who instinctively put into practice what he had been taught therein; and he left his life as part of the crowning work of the century that has now passed. He insists that intellectual training alone is not sufficient : A man whose intellect has been educated, while at the same time his moral education has been neglected, is only the more dangerous to the community because of the ex- ceptional additional power which he has acquired. ... It is a good thing to be clever, to be able and smart, but it is a better thing to have the qualities that find their expression in the Decalogue and the Golden Rule. It is a good and necessary thing to be intelligent; it is a better thing to be straight and decent and fearless. He declared that the Bible enforces a personal ob- ligation which is measured by one's ability; You may look through the Bible from cover to cover, and nowhere will you find a line that can be construed into an apology for the man of brains who sins against the light. On the contrary, in the Bible, taking that as a guide, you will find that because much has been given you, much will be expected from you; and a heavier condemnation is visited upon the able man who goes wrong than upon his weaker brother who cannot do the harm that the other does because it is not in him to do it. He then quotes a description of the Bible given by Huxley, who describes it as a literary gem, a civilizer, 308 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION a giver of world visions, an insurance for freedom and a teacher of responsibility : One of the highest tributes of modern times to the worth of the Bible came from the great scientist Huxley, who said: "Consider the great historical fact that for three centuries the Book has been woven into the life of all that is noblest and best in our history, and that it has become the national epic of our race; that it is written in the no- blest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and finally that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the ex- istence of other countries and other civilization and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between the eternities? The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed. Down to modern times no State has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties, so much more than the privileges, of rulers are Insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the state, in the long run, depends upon the righteousness of the citizen so strongly laid down. The Bible is the most democratic book in the world. Mr. Roosevelt affirms that the Bible aids good taste in reading, which aid he opines is greatly needed when the level of literary taste was so no- ticeably low : There is the unceasing influence it exerts on the side of good taste, of good literature, of proper sense of proportion, of simple and straightforward writing and thinking. This HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 309 is not a small matter in an age when there is a tendency to read much that, even if not actually harmful on moral grounds, is yet injurious, because it presents slipshod, slovenly thought and work; not the kind of serious thought, of serious expression, which we like to see in anything that goes into the fiber of our character. He pleads for a closer study of a book that will spur one to strong endeavor to make the world better : If we read the Bible aright, we read a book which teaches us to go forth and do the work of the Lord; to do the work of the Lord in the world as we find it; to try to make things better in this world, even if only a little better because we have lived in it. . . . We plead for a closer and wider and deeper study of the Bible, so that our people may be in fact as well as in theory, "doers of the word and not hearers only." He exhibited real skill in studying and teaching the Bible, which will be seen from the outline pre- pared with his own hand and appearing herewith. (See page 310.) It will be interesting to read the verses and see how sturdy and stimulating they are as well as alive with exhortation. The Rev. W. I. Bowman, while pastor of the Meth- odist Church at Oyster Bay, had invited Mr. Roose- velt to address his brotherhood. He promptly agreed to do so and, of course, the church was crowded, as was the space outside. The President arrived on time and brought his own Bible with him. He read as a Scripture lesson 1 Cor. 13, the chapter which Henry Drummond used as the basis for his book. The Greatest Thing in the World, which deals with 310 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION ROOSEVELT TALKS TO MEN'S SOCIETY n- - - I CiiristianBrotiierliood Of Oyster Bay as His Audience. "REAL ESSENCE OF LIFE." Two Hundred Gather to Hear Him at the Methodist Church— BrlnsluR wlfH Htm His Own Bible, the President Drives Down from Sasantore Hill— Selecting His Texts from Mathew and James, He Takes the Words "JiAdRe Not Lest Te Be Judged" as the Burden of His Address— ProgreAS of Oar Country Depends l^pon the Sam of Efforts of In- dlvlduaTs Acting by Themselves, He Says Otster Bat, N. Y., Aug. 7.— President Hooeevelt to-day, in response to an invita- tion of k>nEfitaji.dlng, delivered a talk tant- mount to a sermon before the Christian Brotherhood here, a non-sectarian organi- zation of men that meets in the Sunday school room of the Methodist -church. His subject was "The Real Essence of Genuine Christian Life and Character," and the text he most dwelt on was "Judge not. that ye be not judged." The invitation was extended to the Presi- dent by the brotherhood several weeks ago through the Rev. Charles S. Weightman, the chairman of its committee on religous services and speakers. It was not until 9 o'clock Saturday night that the chairman and Rev. W. I. Bowman, the minister of the Methodist church and president of the brotherhood, were notified that the Presi- dent would come at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Although kept a secret as far as possible, the news spread' and the usual attendance of eeventy-ftye was swelled to 200, which is remarkable for Oyster Bay. The President drove down Irom Saga- more Hill, attended by Secret Service Agent Sloane. He had his own Bible with him and he selected his texts chiefly from Matthew 7 and 2fl and from the epistle of James, expounding text after text. He was presented by the Rev. W I. Bowman. The President's address was as foUowa. "Brother Bowman nas spoken of the fact that I have had a large experience. I think that each one of us who has a large experience grows to realize more and more that the essentials of experience are aliko for all of us. The things that move us most are the things of the home, of the Church; the intimate relations that knit a man to his family, to his close friends; that make him try to do bis duty by his neighbor, by his God are in their essen- tials just the same for one man as for Buother, provided the man is in fiood faith trying to do his duty. "I feel that the progress of our country really depends upon the sum of the efforts of the indi\-idiialrt acting by themsalves, but especially upoa tho sum of the efforts of the indi\iduals acting in xTPPiociations like this for the betterment of themselves, for the betttrment oi tho communities in which they dwell. Thero is naver any difficulty about the forces of evil being organized. Evei^,' time that we get an organization of tlie forces that are painfully 6tri\ing for good, an organization like this, we are doing our Tart to offset, and a little more than offset, the forces of evil. "1 want to read several different texta which it seems to me have especial bearing upon the work of brotherhoods Uke this— upon the spirit in which not only all of us who are members of this brotherhood, but all of us who strive to be decent Christians are" to apply our Chriptianity on weekdays as well as on Sundays. The first verses I want to read can be found in the seventh chapter of Matthew, the first and sixteenth .verses. "First,' Judge not that ye be not judged.* Sixteenth, 'Ye shall know them by tneir fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corruDt tree bring forth good fruit.' " 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' That means,, treat each of us his brethren with charity. Be not quick to find fault. Above all be not quick to jud^e another man who according to his light is striving to do his dutv as each of us nore hopes he is striving to do his. Let us ever remember that we have not only divine authority for the statement that by our fruits we shall be known, but that also it is true that man- kind will tend to judge us by our fruits. HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 311 "It tB an especially lamentable "Ihing to eee ill done by any man who from his aseo- oiations with the Church, who from the fact that be haa bad the priceless benefits of the teachings of the christian religion, ehould be expected to take a position of leadership In the work for good. "The next quotation 1 wish to read to you is found in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, thirty-seventh to fortieth verses, inchicive: 'Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying. Lord, when saw we thee a hungered, and fed thee, or thirsty and gave thee drink. " 'When saw we thee a stranger and took thee iUj or naked, and clothed thee. " 'Or when saw we the sick, or in nrison, and. came unto thee. "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of my brethren ye have done it unto me." "That 18 what this brotherhood means, by trying to worship our Creator by acting toward his creatures as he would nave us act; to try to make our religion a living force in our lives; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. "The next text I wish to read is found in 1. Corinthians, xiii. chapter, beginning with the first verse 'Though I speak with the tongues of man and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.' "And though I have the gift of prophecy; and understand all mysteries, and all fonowl- edge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. " 'And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long and is kind, charity envleth not, charity vannteth not itself, is not puffed up.* * 'And now abldeth faith, hope, oharlty, these three, but the greatest of these is charity * •■LoroacTi of us exercise the largest tole- rance for his brother who is trying, though in a dilTcrent way, to lead a decent life; ^ho is (I'ying to do good in his own fashion; let each try to show practical sympathy T-ith that orotber; not be too oujckto criticize, , "In Oozing I want to read just a fewr. verses from the epistle of James from the' first chapter, twenty-seventh verse: " 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this. To visit tho fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world ' " "If a man will try to serve God the Father by being kindly to the many around him who need such kindness and by being upright and honest himself, then we have the authorfy of the Good Book for saying that we are in honor bound to treat him as a good Christian and extend the band of brotherhood, to him." After the sermon the President bad a reception at which he shook hands with every one present and then asked Mr. Bow- man to take him to Mrs. Bowman in the parsonage next door to the church, with whom he wished to shake hands. He com- plimented the Bowman's en the new par- sonage just eompleCed. Then the Presi- dent drove back to Sagamore Hill about 5:15. The President's visitors yesterday were William Wilmer and J. B. Bishop of New York,.hi^ pereonai friends. The President did not go to Christ Church, the little Episcopal Church he usually attends. His family, however, were there. The Rev. Homer H. Washbume of Christ Oiurch preached a missionary sermon, saying that we Americans do not suf- ficiently attend to the conversion of the heathen. Our immigration laws are such that they do not peiroit sufficient numbers of heathen to come in and so we miss the chance of converting them. The Rev Mr. Washbume also prayed for a lasting peace. 312 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION love. It opens with, 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity [love], I am become as sounding brass or as a tink- ling cymbal." It ends with, ''And now abideth faith, hope, charity [love], these three, and the greatest of these is charity [love]." He then read and com- mented on each passage of Scripture in the order of the outline. The New York Sun reported the address at the time (see pages 310 and 311). Calvin B. Velsor, a local citizen, asked President Roosevelt for the "outline," and he signed it and presented it to Mr. Velsor, who loaned outline (see p. 310) and the above newspaper clipping to the writer. In 1911 Mr. Roosevelt, who had just returned from Africa, agreed to give the Earl Lectures delivered under the auspices of the Pacific Theological Semi- nary, located at Berkeley, California. The founda- tion declares that the lectures are to "aid in securing at the University of California the presentation of Christian truth." They were delivered in the Greek Theater, which seats many thousands, while other thousands stood on the hillsides. The American Bible Society, which was celebrating the Tercente- nary of the King James Version, requested Mr. Roosevelt to take the Bible as the subject for one of the five lectures. He agreed and his third lecture was titled, "The Bible and the Life of the People." The whole course of lectures was called Realizable Ideals and is published under that title by Whitaker & Ray-Wiggin Co., San Francisco. Some material in the lecture was used in the Long Island address ^ / MR. ROOSEVELT'S OUTLINE OF A TALK GIVEN TO A BIBLE CLASS IN OYSTER BAY. HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 3lS on the Bible just reported and hence those sections are not repeated here. He first emphasizes the fact that the Bible had preserved our fathers from a moral decline and had spurred them for and pre- served our purpose in making ethical advances: I have come here to-day, in the course of a series of lectures upon applied ethics, upon realizable ideals, to speak of the book to which our people owe infinitely the greater part of their store of ethics, infinitely the greater part of their knowledge of how to apply that store to the needs of our everyday life. The Vulgate version gave the Bible in Latin, the tongue of learning of the peoples of the West at a time when the old classic civilization of Greece and Rome had first crum- bled to rottenness and had then been overwhelmed by the barbarian sea. In the wreck of the Old World, Christianity was all that the survivors had to cling to; and the Latin version of the Bible put it at their disposal. He affirms that the Bible should be in every home : The great debt of the English-speaking peoples every- where is to the translation of the Bible that we all know — I trust I can say, all here know — in our own homes, the Bible as it was put forth in English three centuries ago. No other book of any kind ever written in English — perhaps no other book ever written in any other tongue — has ever so affected the whole life of a people as this authorized (King James) version of the Scriptures has affected the life of the English-speaking peoples. The man who substitutes the Sunday newspaper for the Bible classifies himself among those with a low type of intelligence: What could interest men who find the Bible dull? The Sunday newspaper? Think of the difference there must be 314 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION in the mental make-up of the man whose chief reading in- cluded the one, as compared with the man whose chief reading is represented by the other — the vulgarity, the shallowness, the inability to keep the mind fixed on any serious subject, which is implied in the mind of any man who cannot read the Bible and yet can take pleasure in reading only literature of the type of the colored supplement of the Sunday paper! Now I am not speaking against the colored supplement of any paper in its place; but as a substitute for serious reading of the great Book it repre- sents a type of mind which it is gross flattery merely to call shallow. It fits one to count in life : "I make my appeal not only to professing Christians/' but to every man who faces life with the real desire not only to get out of it what is best but to do his part in everything that tells for the ennobling and uplifting of humanity. The world needs the spiritual stimulus of the "Book" ; I am making a plea, not only for the training of the mind, but for the moral and spiritual training of the home and the church, and moral and spiritual training that has always been in, and has ever accompanied, the study of the book which in almost every civilized tongue, and in many an uncivilized, can be described as the Book with the certainty of having the description understood by all listeners. He gives the following incident from foreign mis- sions to illustrate the transforming power of Bible truth : A year and a quarter ago I was passing on foot through the native kingdom of Uganda in Central Africa. Uganda is the most highly developed of the pure Negro states in HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 315 Africa. It is the state which has given the richest return for missionary labor. It now contains some half million of Christians, the direction of the government being in the hands of those Christians. I was interested to find that in their victorious fight against, in the first place, heathen- dom, and in the next place, Moslemism, the native Catho- lics and Protestants had taken as their symbol "the Book," sinking all minor differences among themselves, and com- ing together on the common ground of their common belief in "the Book" that was the most precious gift the white man had brought to them. Mere reading of ^'the Book" is not sufficient : I would rather not see a man study it at all than have him read it as a fetish on Sunday and disregard its teachings on all other days of the week. Mr. Koosevelt closes his wonderful lecture with the declaration that true helpfulness can only come from following the example of Christ: Our success in striving to help our fellow men and there- fore to help ourselves, depends largely upon our success as we strive, with whatever shortcomings, with whatever fail- ures, to lead our lives in accordance with the great ethical principles laid down in the life of Christ and in the New Testament writings which seek to expound and apply his teachings. As shown in other places, Mr. Koosevelt began to memorize the Bible when he was three years of age and helped teach his own children to memorize in the same way. Mrs. Roosevelt told a friend that he carried the Bible so thoroughly in his mind that he could quote large sections of it. 316 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Julian Ralph once asked Mr. Roosevelt, "What did you expect to be or dream of being when you were a boy?" And he replied, quoting Scripture; I do not recollect that I dreamed at all or planned at all. I simply obeyed the injunction, "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do with all thy might," and so I took up what came along as it came. Since then I have gone on Lincoln's motto, "Do the best; if not, then the best possible." In his Pacific Theological Lectures, Mr. Roosevelt after quoting a sentence from Huxley giving a high estimate of the value of training children in Bible knowledge, pauses, and before continuing with Hux- ley's further statement says: I am quoting not a professed Christian, but a scientific man whose scientific judgment is thus expressed as to the value of biblical training for the young. In his Long Island lecture he severely condemns the practice in some homes of punishing children by compelling them to commit long passages of Scrip- ture such as sections of Isaiah where he "learns it as a disagreeable task and in his mind that splendid and lofty poem and prophecy is forever afterward associated with an uncomfortable feeling of dis- grace." Continuing, he says: "You can devise no surer method of making a child revolt against all the wonderful beauty and truth of Holy Writ." He also forewarns adults to be careful lest they give children false ideas about the Bible phrases. He illustrates it by the story of a little grandson of the Rev. Dr. Adams, who was very much afraid of HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 317 entering his grandfather's church when it was emp- tied of people. On questioning him they found, said Mr. Roosevelt, that he had heard his grandfather repeat the text^ "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up,'' and he was sure that "zeal" was some kind of a man-eating beast that dwelt in churches and would catch him if unprotected. He took time to tell his own children Bible stories and encouraged them to use their own imagination after they understood the facts, for he declares : "I do not think that it is ordinarily necessary to ex- plain the simple and beautiful stories of the Bible; children understand readily the lessons taught therein." In a letter to Miss Carow he related an incident when he had told the children the story of Joseph. They immediately recognized that it was both foolish and contrary to the instruction thej had received for Joseph to irritate his brothers by telling his egotistic dreams. They had been reading the adventures of the Gollywogs, and Kermit, drawing an analogy, commented about Joseph, "Well, I guess he was simple, like Jane in the Gollywogs," and Ethel nodded gravely in confirmation. Nothing will uncover the meaning of a section of Scripture so certainly as an effort to teach it to others. Mr. Roosevelt doubtless found that out and so he writes Ethel : I am really pleased that you are going to teach Sunday school. I think I told you that I taught it for seven years, most of the time in a mission class, my pupils being of a kind which furnished me plenty of vigorous excitement. 318 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION ^^Bill" Sewall told me that when Mr. Roosevelt was a young lad he was an earnest Bible student, and said: When Mr. Roosevelt was only eigliteen and came to my Maine camp he would go off by himself on Sunday to an isolated point and take his Bible so that he could read it without anyone bothering him. Because of this custom of Mr. Roosevelt, his fellow campers afterward called that spot "Bible Point." He had a Bible on the ranch in the early days and read it regularly. He was an extensive reader of the Bible. I guess he found it, as I did, a source of real common sense. He would quote it frequently in con- versation and always to fit the case in point. He read the Bible to find the right way and then how to do it. Some folks read it to find an easier way into heaven — "to climb up some other way." He always carried a Bible or Testa- ment with him in the early days. While on the ranch he had a Bible and frequently carried it with him and read it regularly. Both Mr. Leary and Mr. O'Laughlin recall hearing Mr. Roosevelt heartily commend the Gideons for putting the Bible in the hotels, and Mr. Leary saw him pick up one in his room, thus placed, and read it with close interest. Mr. McGrath said, "Mr. Roose- velt frequently declared that the Bible was more in- teresting than any book of fiction ever written, and he appeared to enjoy reading it as well." Wade Ellis, whom President Roosevelt selected to break up the greedy "Trusts," told the writer: One day I mentioned "Naaman" in one of our conferences. Mr. Roosevelt immediately said, "Oh, he was the man who went to Israel to get help from their religion and a servant tried afterward to capitalize Naaman's gratitude to collect HIS OPlNlOIvf OF THE BIBLE 319 graft." He was the only man there who recognized Naa- man. I had specialized for years in Bible study but could never make a reference he did not understand. In answering a request as to what books a states- man should read, he once said : "Poetry and novels, but not these alone. If he cannot enjoy the Hebrew prophets and the Greek dramatists, he should be sorry." Dr. Lambert, describing the root and depth of Mr. Roosevelt's interest in the Bible, said to me : Mr. Roosevelt read the Old Testament as real history, He saw and felt the battles as genuine contests and recog- nized the fact that righteousness forearmed the successful The plagues described were not fictional, for numerous simi lar ones have occurred in history. He always found in tense personal interest in the Bible because he was looking for some direction or truth to employ. Things other men would pass by he would see. He was greatly attracted by a study of the prophets in late years because he felt it his call to arouse his own nation to take up her duties in the war and along other righteous lines. He was burdened with his "message" even as were the prophets of old. Mr. Roosevelt based his "preparedness" appeal on Ezekiel thirty-three. He felt it to be his duty to cry out against the nation's sloth and selfishness if he avoided the guilt of a prophet who sees danger but will not speak the warning. "But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, . . . his blood will I require at the watchman's hands'^ (Ezek. 33. 6). In speaking of his contest with dis- honest politicians in his AiitoMography, he refers to the fact that the "creed of mere materialism" 320 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION prevalent in American politics and business for thirty years after the Civil War led many to do things for which they ^'deserve blame and condemna- tion" — though done in accord with "prevailing po- litical and commercial morality." But if they sin- cerely change, he declares, and strive for better things, they should be encouraged. He continues : So long as they work for evil, smite them with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon! When they change and show their faith by their works, remember the words of Ezekiel: "If the wicked will turn from all the sins he has committed, ... he shall not die." Mr. Thayer vividly describes the scene at the Chicago Convention when Mr. Roosevelt was de- feated for the nomination. His supporters gathered in the Auditorium and gave vent to their bitter dis- appointment and their steadfast loyalty to him. Mr. Roosevelt came into the meeting and poured himself out in a "torrential speech" which would arouse their passions instead of appeal to their minds, says Mr. Thayer, and continues, "But it fitly symbolized the situation. He, the dauntless leader, stood there, the soul of sincerity and courage, im- pressing upon them all that they were engaged in a most solemn cause." Then he ended the challenge with the words, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." This Scripture reference is found in Revelation, and pictures the forces of righteousness standing against the forces of evil. It carried as could no other Bible phrase the exact situation as Mr. Roosevelt sensed and described it. . I 5 4 HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 321 It put the audience into an atmosphere above ma- terialism and prepared them as warriors in their contest to sing, ^^Onward, Christian Soldiers." Mr. Thompson said to me: Mr. Roosevelt was afraid to use the Scriptures in the Old Party days, lest the leaders misunderstand and suspect him of hypocrisy, but when the spirituality of men was brought to the surface by the sacrifices and moral issues of the Pro- gressive contest, then the long-treasured Scripture came to the surface and caught a return feeling from the other spiritually minded men. As before shown, Mr. Roosevelt was constantly repeating Micah 6. 8 as containing his creed. The New York Bible Society asked Mr. Roosevelt to write a message to be put into the copies of the New Testa- ment which were presented to the soldier boys go- ing to the front. For this purpose he selected his favorite Scripture and applied it as follows : The teachings of the New Testament are foreshadowed in Micah's verse: "What more doth the Lord require of thee than to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Do justice; and therefore fight valiantly against the armies of Germany and Turkey, for these nations in this crisis stand for the reign of Moloch and Beelzebub on this earth. Love mercy; treat prisoners well; succor the wounded; treat every woman as if she was your sister; care for the little children, and be tender with the old and helpless. Walk humbly; you will do so if you study the life and teachings of the Saviour. May the God of Justice and Mercy have you in His keeping. Theodore Roosevelt. June 5, 1917. 322 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION Such an interpretation of this scripture could only be possible to one who had the spirit of Him who lives in the Book and uncovers its truth to his dis- ciples. He told Tammany when he ran for Governor that if elected he would run the State on the Ten Com- mandments. He styles the Bible in one of his Cali- fornia lectures "as the book which has been for cen- turies the great guide to righteousness and clean living." Mr. James Morgan, one of his biographers, wrote me: "I do not know of any other public man who has made so much use of the Bible texts and exam- ples. He evidenced a wide acquaintance with it." The needs of the poor and neglected always moved him deeply. His own ancestors came over as emi- grants, and the steamer decks crowded with these lonely people would appeal much to him. The Rev. E. Robb Zaring, D.D., the editor of the Northwestern Christian Advocate, gave me the following incident : When Dr. Len F. Broughton, a noted Baptist minister, returned from England, he asked the purser of the ship if he could not hold a service for the steerage passengers. The purser hesitated hut finally agreed. After it was over, Dr. Broughton called on the purser, and the latter, after declaring he had been seventeen years a purser on the seas, said that this was only the second time he had granted a request for a service in the steerage. He said: "The other time it was not a minister but a layman who made the re- quest." When the appointed time came the layman took his own Bible, read several passages from Holy Writ, prayed in three languages, and then spoke to them of America and gave them some seasonable advice, as to their future HIS OPINION OF THE BIBLE 323 careers in this country. Who was the layman? He had once been President of the United States— Theodore Roose- velt. The Great Teacher said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." That as- sertion has been too much muddied by mysticism. It is literally true. Man has a spiritual nature and he needs to keep it cultivated and alert if he enjoys a full life. He can only keep his sense of God's near- ness very real and his own mission clear as he does his daily tasks when he worships in a genuine way. The Bible will help him to do that by delineating a God of love and understanding — by outlining ideals, by bringing to him dependable reassurances, ex- hortations, and promises and always in due season. The Bible is fine literature, but it is something more, and it will demonstrate that something more "to everyone who reads it with a teachable and honest heart.'' It does indeed contain the "bread of life." CHAPTER XVI DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? "Every man who is a Christian at all should join some church organization." — Theodore Roosevelt. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. — Acts 2. 47. RELIGION was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing. It blended with his whole life as color does with the rose. He did not need to constantly proclaim its presence any more than he did his sturdy health. And yet he recognized that it made requirements as certain as did his alert brain. He exhibited the presence of religion in his life in deed and declaration as he did his thought in spoken and written word. But he also just as cer- tainly gave religion credit for early inspiration and direction as he did Harvard for helping him prepare for his lifework. When necessary and opportune Mr. Roosevelt would as naturally announce himself to be a Christian as he would that he was a loyal American. He was not satisfied merely to give evi- dence that he was an American by a consistent life, but he frequently and publicly proclaimed it. But even that was not sufficient ; he further affirmed it by joining organizations known to stand for pure Amer- 324 DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? 325 icanism and then added a share of his talents to make those organizations successful in spreading Amer- ican doctrines. Could he be less consistent with his religion? No, and therefore he announced himself a Christian by joining the church as the institution standing for the Christian religion and organized to spread it in all the world. He did not wait for an opportune time, but facing it as a duty he acted. The writer visited the Rev. Dr. J. M. Ludlow, a re- tired minister living at East Orange, New Jersey, and he told the story of receiving Mr. Roosevelt into church membership: Theodore came to see me quite frequently as a boy. He was delicate-looking but very plucky and full of grit. The traits shown in his manhood were evident as a boy. He stuttered some when talking. When about sixteen years of age he came into my study looking a little more serious than usual and said that he wanted to talk with me about a personal matter. He proceeded: "You know how care- fully I have been instructed in the Bible and in Christian doctrine in my home by my father and devout aunt and mother. I believe in God and my Saviour and in the teachings of the Bible as you preach them and as taught in my home. When a man believes a thing is it not his duty to say so? If I joined the church, wouldn't that be the best way to say to the world that I believed in God?" He was always like that — to see his duty was to do it. He then asked me if he would be allowed to join the church. I told him he would be very welcome. My "Board" elected him to membership on my approval, and a few days afterward I received him into Saint Nicholas Dutch Reformed Church, of which I was then pastor. It will be seen that he wanted to announce his faith in God to the world and he decided that the 326 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION only fair and full way to do that was to join the church. His name was never removed from the records of that church, located on Fifth Avenue at Forty-eighth Street. He gladly aligned himself with church people when he said to Dr. Iglehart, who had appealed to him on a moral issue : You know full well that on moral questions the church people and I are in perfect agreement. Why? I am one of the church people myself, and stand, work and fight for the things which they represent. Our personal friendship is the outgrowth of our mutual support of the things for which the church stands (Iglehart, p. 139). William Allen White wrote me: "I have heard him express a high value upon the churches of our country." Theodore Jr. explained to me : My father had great respect for and confidence in the church. He was, however, little interested in mere dogma, but earnestly lent advocacy when the church had an ethical point at issue. The New York Sun quoted Mr. Roosevelt on his return from South America as expressing his con- viction that Roman Catholic workers and churches should be increased there : A very short experience of communities where there is no church ought to convince the most heterodox of the abso- lute need of a church. I earnestly wish that there could be such an increase in the personnel and equipment of the Catholic Church in South America as to permit the estab- lishment of one good and earnest priest in every village or little community in the far interior. DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? 327 He also urged the advantage not only to the peo- ple but to the Roman Catholic Church itself of a multiplication of Protestant institutions. There ought to be a marked extension and development of the native Protestant churches, such as I saw established here and there in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentine, and of the Young Men's Christian Associations. . . . Not only is the establish- ment of such churches a good thing for the body politic as a whole, but a good thing for the Catholic Church itself; for their presence is a constant spur to activity and clean and honorable conduct and a constant reflection on sloth and moral laxity. Discussing the effect of a church on a community, he admits that mere "religious formalism" has been an enemy to religion from the day of the Pharisees until the present day and then says : Nevertheless, in this actual world a churchless com- munity, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade. He affirms that it is only the exceptional family or individual who reaches high and full ethical develop- ment without the help of the church. But hear him as he writes in The Ladies' Home Journal : It is perfectly true that occasional individuals or families may have nothing to do with the church or with religious practices and observances and yet maintain the highest standard of spirituality and of ethical obligation. But this does not affect the case in the world as it now is, any more than that exceptional men and women under excep- tional conditions have disregarded the marriage tie without 328 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION moral harm to themselves interferes with the larger fact that such disregard, if at all common, means the complete moral disintegration of the body politic. In the West he noticed that a pioneer section dis- integrated if a church was not erected : In the pioneer days of the West we found it an unfailing rule that after a community had existed for a certain length of time either a church was built or else the community began to go downhill. When church membership and work has decreased in the older sections of the country they have gone backward : In these old communities in the Eastern States which have gone backward it is noticeable that the retrogression has been both marked and accentuated by a rapid decline in church membership and work. . . . This has occurred not only in the "poor white" sections of the South, but in the small hamlets of the "abandoned farm" regions of New England and New York. As the people grow slack and dis- pirited they slip from all effective interest in church ac- tivities. But when religious organizations are strengthened such communities revive: The building up of a strong country church or Young Men's Christian Association in such a community often has an astonishing effect in putting such a virile life into them that their moral betterment stimulates a marked physical betterment in their homes and farms. Mr. Hagedorn, the secretary of the Roosevelt Me- morial Association and an extensive editor of Mr. THE OYSTER BAY HOME (CHRIST) CHURCH. 1. The exterior among the trees. 2. The Interior — the Communion Altar. 3. The Fourth Seat from the rear— the 200th Anniversary bronze tablet. DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? 329 Roosevelt's writings, wrote me : ^'Scattered through his speeches and his writings are frequent references to the absolute need of a vigorous religious life in every community." Mr. Roosevelt gave evidence of his convictions in- the review of a book written by Charles O. Gill and Gilford Pinchot on The Country Church in The Out- look for July 19, 1913. He quotes much from the illustrations in the book showing the beneficial ef- fects of the church on a community. Here is his quotation from the book, which is describing a cer- tain country section : After the church was established the public property of the town, once a source of graft and demoralization, be- came a puhlic asset. ... In the decade and a half which has elapsed since the church began its work boys and girls of a new type have been brought up. The reputation of the village has been changed from bad to good, the public order has greatly improved, and the growth of the place as a summer resort has begun. Then Mr. Roosevelt asserts that no community can prosper without the church : Even men who are not professedly religious must, if they are frank, admit that no community permanently prospers, either morally or materially, unless the church is a real and vital element in its community life. In urging the church to give attention to social needs he guards the request by admitting that this, however, will not be sufficient: This does not mean that social life should be divorced from the religious life; Dr. Josiah Strong has pointed out 330 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION that to neglect the spiritual is an even greater blunder than to neglect the physical factor in life. The Methodist General Conference of six hundred or seven hundred delegates journeyed from Balti- more, where it was in session, to participate in the laying of a cornerstone for its American University, and President Roosevelt in addressing them paid high tribute to the ^'energy" of the Methodist Church in the early days of the republic and its "spiritual" influence : Methodism in America entered on its period of rapid growth just about the time of Washington's first Presi- dency. Its essential democracy, its fiery and restless energy of spirit, and the wide play that it gave to individual in- itiative, all tended to make it peculiarly congenial to a hardy and virile folk, democratic to the core, prizing in- dividual independence above all earthly possessions, and engaged in the rough and stern work of conquering a con- tinent. He then pays high praise to the "circuit riders" : The whole country is under a debt of gratitude to the Methodist circuit-riders, the Methodist pioneer preachers, whose movement westward kept pace with the movement of the frontier, who shared all the hardships in the life of the frontiersman, while at the same time ministering to that frontiersman's spiritual needs, and seeing that his pressing material cares and the hard and grinding poverty of his life did not wholly extinguish the divine fire within his soul (The Christian Advocate, January 16, 1919). D. D. Thompson sent President Roosevelt his own Life of John Wesley and called his attention to the DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? 331 relation which Methodism sustained to the labor problem in England and America. In replying he noted the fine social effect of the church on the lo- cality : The beautiful books have come. Mrs. Roosevelt appreci- ates them just as much as I do. I shall be particularly in- terested in what you say in Wesley's Life in reference to the labor problems and the churches. As you know, I have felt very strongly that we needed a well-nigh revo- lutionary change in our methods of church work among the laboring people, especially in the great cities. I can say with perfect truthfulness that wherever we have a thor- oughly flourishing Methodist congregation, where the bulk of the members are artisans and mechanics, I regard the social and industrial outlook for that particular locality as good, just as I feel that a flourishing Young Men's Chris- tian Association movement in connection with a particular railroad opens vistas of hopefulness for that railroad. He would, in no circumstances, limit this state- ment of fact to any one denomination, but merely used this occasion to pay a general tribute to the churches, for in another place he similarly praises the Presbyterian Church. At another time the President wrote Dr. Thomp- son that Americans were unusually interested in the life of Wesley, since "the great church which Wesley founded" has reached its largest development here and its existence coincides with the existence of ^^our national life." Then he says : The Methodist congregations played a peculiar part In the pioneer history of our country, and it would be hard to over-estimate what we owe to the early circuit-riders, no less than to their successors. 332 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION His appreciation of the church's influence in laying the foundation for an enduring liberty is evidenced very early in life by his reference to the contention of the independent churches in Cromwell's time. He was confident that when the local churches insisted on their intrinsic rights to decide about their own doctrines they became ''forerunners in the movement that has culminated in our modern political and re- ligious liberty." Mr. Roosevelt's pastor at Oyster Bay described Mr. Roosevelt's rare consideration for the preacher to whom he listened every Sunday. He wrote in The Churchman : There were friends who said in warning, "You will find him a hard man to preach to; he is so positive in his con- victions." Would that preachers had always so kindly a critic as he — one who could follow what they say, commend utterances that were worth while, and suggest books to read if the views were divergent. This criticism, always in private, might take the form, "I liked that expression; may I use it?" or "While I did not agree with you, I en- joyed your presentation. But have you read such and such a book? It is very illuminating."^ He followed the injunction of his favorite text (Micah 6. 8) and endeavored even in his worship to ''walk humbly with God," for in Washington he at- tended a humble Dutch Reformed church on a side street and a small, unpretentious Episcopal church in Oyster Bay. President Roosevelt's Washington pastor had an eight-year-old boy named John, and he and the boy 'Reprinted from The Churchman. DID HE JOIN THE CHUKCH? 333 were great friends. He insisted to the boy's mother — for the pastor's pew was just in front of him — "It's half my care in church to take care of Johnnie. I don't know what he would do if I did not look out for him." On his return from Oyster Bay Johnnie once asked the President about his boys : "I don't know," said Mr. Koosevelt, "how they are, for when I last saw them they were eating green apples." Dr. Iglehart went down to Washington for a con- ference on Sunday. Secretary Loeb told him that the President would be found in church unless an ankle recently sprained and pretty "severe" would keep him at home. The President, however, appeared in due time, "throwing his arms and pushing and pulling his wounded leg with a perceptible limp at a rapid gait." Dr. Iglehart continues : The ritual service, which was almost as elaborate as that of the Episcopal Church, was participated in scrupulously by the President, who stood, sat, and responded at the proper time. He joined heartily in the singing, which was led by a precentor and organist without a choir. He was the best listener I saw in the house. The weather was in- tensely hot, the mercury at ninety-five, and he kept a large palm-leaf fan in his right hand going to the limit of its capacity every minute of the service. The pastor being absent on this particular Sunday the secretary of the Missionary Society preached a helpful but not brilliant sermon, Dr. Iglehart tells us, and : I walked away with him and commenced to tell him some- thing when he halted me and said, "Let me say something first and then you can go on with your story." He said, "The 334 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION services this morning were enjoyable. The sermon was good and I agreed with him in the points he made that the home is the chief foundation stone of the republic and the hope of the church. . . . After a week on perplexing prob- lems and in heated contests, it does so rest my soul to come into the house of the Lord and worship and to sing and mean it, the hymn, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,' and to know that he is my Father, and takes me into his life and plans. I am sure I get a wisdom not my own and a superhuman strength in fighting the moral evils I am called on to confront." Mr. Roosevelt always partook of the sacred sym- bols of bread and wine in the communion service. When he wrote The Great Adventure, which title refers to death, he recorded his church habits as in- cluding this observance : When I was Governor of New York I was a member of the same Dutch Reformed Church to which two and a half centuries earlier Governor Peter Stuyvesant had belonged; and we sat at communion at a long table in the aisle just as he and his associates had done (The Great Adventure, p. 48). The Oyster Bay rector gives us a very impressive vision of Quentin kneeling at the communion table just before his departure to France. The news of Quentin's death reached his home on Saturday. At eight o'clock on Sunday a service was held for the sole purpose of administering the sacred elements. And though Mr. Roosevelt did not often attend this special service, on the Sunday following his great sorrow he came to the eight o'clock service to seek comfort from fellowship with the Man of Sorrows. The rector describes the scene in The Churchman : DID HE JOIN THE CHUKCH? 335 One recalls that Sunday morning before Quentin sailed, how he came to church for his last communion. We felt it would be the last. We talked otherwise. Then came the letter from abroad in which was written, "I have just been to service in Notre Dame Cathedral. It was fine. But I would rather have been in Christ Church." And then came the cable message, and early next morning, when so many would have stayed away, the parents drew near to the same altar rail. There were no dry eyes, and the words could scarcely be spoken, but their force was there: "Preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." This time also it was a last communion, but we did not know it.* It was the last time Mr. Koosevelt partook of the sacred elements before his death. He did not attend church listlessly but entered into the service heartily and listened to the sermon closely. He literally worshiped ^^in spirit and in truth." As Mr. McLaughlin said to me : "He would use his wonderful power of concentration even in a church and so drive everything else but worship out of his mind." The Rev. Dr. Ludlow related an incident to me which illustrated his religious concentration: As a boy he paid the closest attention during the whole worship period. He so completely appropriated the service that in a book which I wrote and dedicated to him I in- scribed the words: "To the boy in the pew who always worked out what he heard." He respected the position of the "pastor" and gave him due recognition, as shown by Dr. Iglehart, who wrote : iReprinted from The Churchman. 336 KOOSEVELT'S RELIGION When General Baden-Powell was in this country in the interest of the Boy Scout movement, there was an informal luncheon at Sagamore Hill, at which the General and some men prominent in the movement were present. The rector, was invited to meet them. He was introduced as "my pastor" (Iglehart, p. 287). He rarely had an important conference in Wash- ington without having the ministry represented. He had high appreciation for the pastor's character. In depicting the benefits of church attendance, he says: Unless he is very unfortunate he will hear a sermon by a good man, who with his good wife is engaged all the week long in a series of wearing and humdrum tasks for making hard lives a little easier; and both this man and his wife are in the vast majority of cases showing much self-denial and doing much for humble folks of whom few others think, and keeping up a brave show on narrow means (Ladies' Home Journal, October, 1917). Mr. Leary informed me that Mr. Roosevelt greatly deplored the small salaries paid clergymen: Several times in my hearing he severely criticized the church for paying ministers such small salaries. He in- sisted that it was an economic problem and that elemental justice required better consideration for them. He had a great many preacher friends. He always had contempt for the fashionable, easy-going type who appealed largely to neurotic women. He thought that such types were usually overpaid while those who did the real work were underpaid. In his review of ''The Country Church" already referred to, in discussing the failure of churches be- cause of poorly equipped ministers, he says : "You DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? 337 cannot expect good men in the ministry until the ministry offers a reasonable living for the minister and his family." In the midst of his campaigning for Judge Hughes the writer and two minister friends were driving in the vicinity of Oyster Bay and we decided to pay our respects to Mr. Roosevelt, with a call. His sec- retary greeted us at the door to say : The Colonel is very sorry that he cannot see you but he is in the midst of dictating a campaign speech to be re- leased to the newspapers. It must go in to New York on an early mail. He feels sure you will understand. We accepted the situation and, starting to leave, said : 'Tlease tell the Colonel that three ministers came to pay their respects and wish him well." He overheard the word "ministers" and bounded out of his office and with characteristic greeting explained : "I did not know that my callers were clergymen. I could not allow a minister to leave my doorstep without seeing him for at least a moment." Then he explained the unusual task on him at that mo- ment and talked politics rapidly for a brief period and left us so graciously that we went back to our work with a higher vision of our calling. When the war was on he was flooded with invita- tions to speak. He was not in sturdy health ; he was writing constantly and interviewing scores. The above-mentioned trio of ministers called at his city office and invited him to address a large group of city pastors. This appealed to him, for he said : I want to speak to these clergymen, for they will pass 338 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION the message on to others and spread the fire, as can no other group of men. I have just refused to speak at a lay- man's banquet for a Presbyterian minister friend of twenty- five years' standing. If he will accept the situation and not feel that I have slighted him, I will do it. You must, how- ever, first get his consent. We did so, and though the clergyman agreed he yet wrote Mr. Roosevelt a complaining letter, which caused him to immediately withdraw his acceptance of our invitation. He would not grieve his old-time minister friend. Later when this minister better understood the situation he heartily withdrew his complaint and Mr. Roosevelt sidetracked other en- gagements and gave a confidential but very remark- able address to five hundred city pastors. Few of them will ever forget the esteem and confidence ex- hibited in it, both by word and bearing. In his Autohiography he expresses high praise for the chaplain of the Rough Rider Regiment, who he insisted was an ideal man for the position, for he never "spared himself" as he visited the "sick and wounded" and cheered everyone with his ministra- tions. At another time while making an address he pointed to the chaplain and insisted that he was among the finest citizens of the land, for "he is a Methodist preacher of the old circuit rider stock," sturdy and courageous. He further explained that the chaplain was in the war since "his people had been in all our wars before him," and he had there- fore gone in as a natural consequence. He then describes the chaplain's courage as he sits DID HE JOIN THE CHURCH? 339 in the "bomb proof" with shrapnel bursting over his head, calmly breaking coffee beans for his cup of coffee with the butt of his revolver. In speaking at an anniversary meeting of the American Tract Society, which was scattering re- ligious truth in printed form everywhere, he said: "One of the best things done by this society, and by kindred religious and benevolent societies, is supply- ing in our American life of to-day the proper ideals." Continuing, he said that such service could not be bought with money : This is the spirit that lies behind this society, and all kindred societies; and we owe to this society all the help we can afford to give, for it is itself giving to our people a service beyond price, a service of love, a service which no money could buy. He welcomed the day when the various denomina- tions would work together more closely, and rejoiced that they were learning "that they can best serve their God by serving their fellow men, and best serve their fellow men, not hy wrangling among them- selves, but by a generous rivalry in working for right- eousness and against evil." The church to him did not consist of building, preacher, or choir. It was, rather, a place of wor- ship. He did not go to hear a great preacher or a noted choir or see a cathedral structure. Most of his worship was observed in humble buildings with or- dinary music and preaching. He did not excuse the faults of church members, neither did he expect them to be perfect, but he worked through the organiza- 340 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION tion called the church to improve them, receive help, and widen the influence of religion. He did not for- get the "assembling" together in common worship to aid each other to obtain happiness and scatter help- fulness. He was therefore loyal to its services, its aims, and its claims. To him religion and its organ- ized form, the church, was never secondary, but al- ways primary. CHAPTER XVII CHURCH ATTENDANCE AND WORK "I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his works." — Theodore Roosevelt. Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves to- gether.— Heft. 10. 24, 25. MR. ROOSEVELT always acted in line with his belief. When he decided that the Re- publican party was the one most nearly correct, he publicly affiliated with it and identified himself actively with a local party club. Friends ridiculed the poor caliber of its membership. He ignored this criticism and started to improve the members by interesting them in better government. He continued to render his public service through a party organization. He admitted its weakness and faults, but instead of using this to excuse inactivity he exerted himself to make it better. He joined the church in the same practical way. He believed in what the church stood for, and since he believed also in organization he identified himself with a visible body of believers. He did not require perfection in membership, nor was he willing to be a religious "mugwump." He did not stay out because there were so many hypocrites in the church; that would have kept him out of the Republican party. 341 342 ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION He also went to work, for very early he taught a Sunday-school class and continued until he gradu- ated from college. Mr. Washburne, his classmate, wrote me: "I remember that he taught a Sunday- school class when he was in college, which was quite an unusual occupation for a college student.'^ And he encountered some unpleasant experiences in his church work, but acted toward those experiences even as he did in his political clubs. He was teaching in Old Christ Church, where General and Mrs. Wash- ington had attended in 1775, when suddenly he was asked to resign by the new rector. A classmate tells us: The news spread about college like flames through a build- ing. We learned Roosevelt was removed because he was not a confirmed member of the Episcopal Church. Everybody lauded Roosevelt. One Professor actually withdrew from the congregation. But Roosevelt did not take the occur- rence to heart.^ Another "story" already related attributed his ex- pulsion from the Sunday school to the fact that he rewarded a boy for using his fists in a righteous cause. However that may be, he immediately found another Sunday school and continued teaching. He did not get offended because of mistreatment nor break with the church because it was not perfect. If he had not joined a conservative denomination which used laymen very little, he might have been much more active. He once said that if he had been a Methodist he would have sought for a local ^Theodore Rooteveit ^^ ^^t.v'J^'^ oV^^^^u;^'- '-f*. ^^-n^ V •; ^^0^ .-^^^ ^">. V «' aV ' aO^ .»!.'«- *> '*:. **Tr,-^ o.^' o_ * <^. ^v . _ N. MANCHESTER, •^^=!^ INDIANA 46962 »J»>>L'* <^ ^>4^*^ V. A' >!«.i:v ".^ ^.^' >>i V *»: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS llili 011 425 084 3