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THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY 
 
ROOSEVELT 
 
 AN INTIMATE 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 1919 
 
COPYRIGHT, I919, BY WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
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 UCl -7 :9I9 
 
 PCl.A5Sfi001 
 
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 -*■ 
 
 ^ EDITH KERMIT ROOSEVELT 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN finishing the correction of the last proofs of this 
 sketch, I perceive that some of those who read it 
 may suppose that I planned to write a deUberate 
 eulogy of Theodore Roosevelt. This is not true. I 
 knew him for forty years, but I never followed his 
 political leadership. Our political differences, how- 
 ever, never lessened our personal friendship. Some- 
 times long intervals elapsed between our meetings, 
 but when we met it was always with the same inti- 
 macy, and when we wrote it was with the same can- 
 dor. I count it fortunate for me that during the last 
 ten years of his life, I was thrown more with Roose- 
 velt than during all the earlier period; and so I was 
 able to observe him, to know his motives, and to 
 study his character during the chief crises of his later 
 career, when what he thought and did became an 
 integral part of the development of the United States. 
 After the outbreak of the World War, in 19 14, he 
 and I thought alike, and if I mistake not, this closing 
 phase of his life will come more and more to be re- 
 vered by his countrymen as an example of the high- 
 est patriotism and courage. Regardless of popular 
 lukewarmness at the start, and of persistent offi- 
 cial thwarting throughout, he roused the conscience 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 of the nation to a sense of its duty and of its honor. 
 What gratitude can repay one who rouses the con- 
 science of a nation? Roosevelt sacrificed his Hfe for 
 patriotism as surely as if he had died leading a charge 
 in the Battle of the Marne. 
 
 The Great War has thrown all that went before it 
 out of perspective. We can never see the events of 
 the preceding half-century in the same light in 
 ^\•hich we saw them when they were fresh. Instinc- 
 li\ cl>- we appraise them, and the men through whom 
 they came to pass, by their relation to the catas- 
 trophe. Did they lead up to it consciously or un- 
 cxjnsciously? And as we judge the outcome of the 
 war, our views of men take on changed complexions. 
 The war, as it appears now, was the culmination of 
 throe different world-movements; it destroyed the 
 attempt of German Imperialism to conquer the world 
 and to rivet upon it a Prussian military despotism. 
 Next, it set up Democracy as the ideal for all peo- 
 l)les to live by. Finally, it revealed that the eco- 
 nomic, industrial, social, and moral concerns of men 
 are deeper than the political. 
 
 When I came to review Roosevelt's career con- 
 secutively, for the purpose of this biography, I saw 
 that many of his acts and policies, which had been 
 misunderstood or misjudged at the time, were all 
 the inevitable expressions of the principle which 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 was the master-motive of his Hfe. What we had im- 
 agined to be shrewd devices for winning a partisan 
 advantage, or for overthrowing a political adversary, 
 or for gratifying his personal ambition, had a nobler 
 source. I do not mean to imply that Roosevelt, who 
 was a most adroit politician, did not employ with 
 terrific effect the means accepted as honorable in 
 political fighting. So did Abraham Lincoln, who also, 
 as a great Opportunist, was both a powerful and a 
 shrewd political fighter, but pledged to Righteousness. 
 It seems now tragic, but inevitable, that Roose- 
 velt, after beginning and carr3ang forward the war 
 for the reconciliation between Capital and Labor, 
 should have been sacrificed by the Republican 
 Machine, for that Machine was a special organ of 
 Capital, by which Capital made and administered the 
 laws of the States and of the Nation. But Roosevelt's 
 struggle was not in vain; before he died, many of 
 those who worked for his downfall in 1912 were look- 
 ing up to him as the natural leader of the country, 
 in the new dangers which encompassed it. "Had he 
 lived," said a very eminent man who had done more 
 than any other to defeat him, "he would have been 
 the unanimous candidate of the Republicans in 1920." 
 Time brings its revenges swiftly. As I write these 
 lines, it is not Capital, but overweening Labor which 
 makes its truculent demands on the Administration 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 at Washington, which it has already intimidated. 
 Well may we exclaim, "Oh, for the courage of 
 Roosevelt!" And whenever the country shall be in 
 great anxiety or in direct peril from the cowardice 
 of those who have sworn to defend its welfare and 
 its integrity, that cry shall rise to the lips of true 
 Americans. 
 
 Although I have purposely brought out what I 
 believe to be the most significant parts of Roosevelt's 
 character and public life, I have not wished to be un- 
 critical. I have suppressed nothing. Fortunately for 
 his friends, the two libel suits which he went through 
 in his later years, subjected him to a microscopic 
 scrutiny, both as to his personal and his political 
 life. All the efforts of very able lawyers, and of 
 clever and unscrupulous enemies to undermine him, 
 failed; and henceforth his advocates may rest on the 
 verdicts given by two separate courts. 
 
 As for the great political acts of his official career. 
 Time has forestalled eulogy. Does any one now de- 
 fend selling liquor to children and converting them 
 into precocious drunkards? Does any one defend 
 sweat-shops, or the manufacture of cigars under 
 worse than unsanitary conditions? Which of the 
 packers, who protested against the Meat Inspection 
 Bill, would care to have his name made public; and 
 which of the lawyers and of the accomplices in the 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 lobby and in Congress would care to have it known 
 that he used every means, fair and foul, to prevent 
 depriving the packers of the privilege of canning bad 
 meat for Americans, although foreigners insisted that 
 the canned meat which they bought should be whole- 
 some and inspected? Does any American now doubt 
 the wisdom and justice of conserving the natural re- 
 sources, of saving our forests and our mineral sup- 
 plies, and of controlling the watershed from which 
 flows the water-supply of entire States? 
 
 These things are no longer in the field of debate. 
 They are accepted just as the railroad and the tele- 
 graph are accepted. But each in its time was a novelty, 
 a reform, and to secure its acceptance by the Ameri- 
 can people and its sanction in the statute book, 
 required the zeal, the energy, the courage of one 
 man — Theodore Roosevelt. He had many helpers, 
 but he was the indispensable backer and accom- 
 plisher. When, therefore, I have commended him for 
 these great achievements, I have but echoed what is 
 now common opinion. 
 
 A contemporary can never judge as the historian 
 a hundred years after the fact judges, but the con- 
 temporary view has also its place, and it may be 
 really nearer to the living truth than is the conclu- 
 sion formed when the past is cold and remote and 
 the actors are dead long ago. So a friend's outlined 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 portrait, though obviously not impartial, must be 
 nearer the truth than an enemy's can be — for the 
 enemy is not impartial either. We have fallen too 
 much into the habit of imagining that only hostile 
 critics tell the truth. 
 
 I wish to express my gratitude to many persons 
 who have assisted me in my work. First of all, to 
 Mrs. Roosevelt, for permission to use various letters. 
 Next, to President Roosevelt's sisters, Mrs. William 
 S. Cowles and Mrs. Douglas Robinson, for invaluable 
 information. Equally kind have been many of Roose- 
 velt's associates in Government and in political 
 affairs: President William H. Taft, former Secre- 
 tary of War; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge; Senator 
 Elihu Root and Colonel Robert Bacon, former 
 Secretaries of State; Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, 
 former Attorney-General; Hon. George B. Cortel- 
 you, former Secretary of the Interior; Hon. Gifford 
 Pinchot, of the National Forest Service; Hon. James 
 R. Garfield, former Commissioner of Commerce. 
 
 Also to Lord Bryce and the late Sir Cecil Spring- 
 Rice, British Ambassadors at Washington; to Hon. 
 George W. Wickersham, Attorney-General under 
 President Taft; to Mr. Nicholas Roosevelt and Mr. 
 Charles P. Curtis, Jr.; to Hon. Albert J. Beveridge, 
 ex-Senator; to Mr. James T. Williams, Jr.; to Dr. 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 Alexander Lambert; to Hon. James M. Beck; to 
 Major George H. Putnam; to Professor Albert 
 Bushnell Hart; to Hon. Charles S. Bird; to Mrs. 
 George von L. Meyer and Mrs. Curtis Guild; to 
 Mr. Hermann Hagedorn; to Mr. James G. King, Jr.; 
 to Dean William D. Lewis; to Hon. Regis H. Post; 
 to Hon. William Phillips, Assistant Secretary of 
 State; to Mr. Richard Trimble; to Mr. John Wood- 
 bury; to Gov. Charles E. Hughes; to Mr. Louis A. 
 Coolidge; to Hon. F. D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secre- 
 tary of the Navy; to Judge Robert Grant; to Mr. 
 James Ford Rhodes; to Hon. W. Cameron Forbes. 
 
 I am under especial obligation to Hon. Charles 
 G. Washburn, ex-Congressman, whose book, "Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt: The Logic of his Career," I have 
 consulted freely and commend as the best analysis 
 I have seen of Roosevelt's political character. I wish 
 also to thank the publishers and authors of books 
 by or about Roosevelt for permission to use their 
 works. These are Houghton Mifflin Co.; G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons; The Outlook Co.; The Macmillan Co. 
 
 To Mr. Ferris Greenslet, whose fine critical taste 
 I have often drawn upon; and Mr. George B. Ives, 
 who has prepared the Index; and to Miss Alice 
 Wyman, my secretary, my obligation is profound. 
 
 W. R. T. 
 
 August 10, 1919 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. ORIGINS AND YOUTH i 
 
 II. BREAKING INTO POLITICS 25 
 
 III. AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS 46 
 
 IV. NATURE THE HEALER 56 
 V. BACK TO THE EAST AND LITERATURE 69 
 
 VI. APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 83 
 
 VII. THE ROUGH RIDER 109 
 
 VIII. GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK — VICE-PRESIDENT 131 
 
 IX. PRESIDENT i54 
 
 X. THE WORLD WHICH ROOSEVELT CONFRONTED 158 
 
 XI. ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY ^ 169 
 
 XII. THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME 191 
 
 XIII. THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 201 
 
 XIV. THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 214 
 XV. ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 231 
 
 XVI. THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 242 
 
 XVII. ROOSEVELT AT HOME 255 
 
 XVIII. HITS AND MISSES 281 
 
 XIX. CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 303 
 
 XX. W^ORLD HONORS 318 
 
 XXI. WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY? 33^ 
 
 XXII. THE TWO CONVENTIONS 356 
 
 XXIII. THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 389 
 
 XXIV. PROMETHEUS BOUND 402 
 XXV. PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 426 
 
 INDEX 457 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Photogravure Frontispiece i-^ 
 
 Photograph by Pirie Macdonald 
 
 ROOSEVELT IN 1880, AS A SENIOR AT HARVARD COLLEGE 20 
 
 ROOSEVELT THE HUNTER, 1905 So*- 
 
 ROOSEVELT AS A ROUGH RIDER 124^ 
 
 WITH GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER AND LEONARD WOOD 
 1898 128 
 
 IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 152 
 
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 192 
 
 WITH THE RUSSO-JAPANESE PEACE DELEGATES ON 
 BOARD THE PRESIDENTIAL YACHT MAYFLOWER, 
 AUGUST 5, 1905 226'' 
 
 SAGAMORE HILL 256 
 
 THE LAST CABINET MEETING AT WHICH ROOSEVELT 
 PRESIDED 304 
 
 ROOSEVELT AT SAGAMORE HILL 318 ' 
 
 FACSIMILE OF A LETTER OF ROOSEVELT'S WRITTEN AT 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916 424^ 
 
 A FAMILY GROUP 448 
 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY 
 
ABBREVIATIONS 
 
 Autobiography = "Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography." Mac- 
 millan Co.; New York, 1914. 
 
 *^* The titles of other books by Mr. Roosevelt are given without his 
 name as they occur in the footnotes. 
 Leupp = Francis E. Leupp: "The Man Roosevelt." D. Appleton 
 
 & Co.; New York, 1904. 
 Lewis = \Vm. Draper Lewis: " The Life of Theodore Roosevelt." 
 John C. Winston Co.; Philadelphia, 1919. 
 Morgan = James Morgan: " Theodore Roosevelt; The Boy and the 
 Man." Macmillan Co., new ed., 1919. 
 Ogg = Frederic A.Ogg: "National Progress, 1907-1917." Amer- 
 ican Nation Series. Harper & Bros.; New York, 1918. 
 
 i?W5 = Jacob A. Riis: "Theodore Roosevelt; the Citizen." 
 Outlook Co.; New York, 1904. 
 
 Washburn = Charles G. Washburn: " Theodore Roosevelt; The Logic 
 of His Career." Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916. 
 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ORIGINS AND YOUTH 
 
 NOTHING better illustrates the elasticity of 
 American democratic life than the fact that 
 within a span of forty years Abraham Lincoln and 
 Theodore Roosevelt were Presidents of the United 
 States. Two men more unlike in origin, in training, 
 and in opportunity, could hardly be found. 
 
 Lincoln came from an incompetent Kentuckian 
 father, a pioneer without the pioneer's spirit of 
 enterprise and push; he lacked schooling; he had 
 barely the necessaries of life measured even by the 
 standards of the Border; his companions were rough 
 frontier wastrels, many of whom had either been, or 
 might easily become, ruffians. The books on which 
 he fed his young mind were very iew, not more than 
 five or six, but they were the best. And yet in spite 
 of these handicaps, Abraham Lincoln rose to be the 
 leader and example of the American Nation during 
 its most perilous crisis, and the ideal Democrat of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 Theodore Roosevelt, on the contrary, was born 
 
2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 in New York City, enjoyed every advantage in edu- 
 cation and training; his family had been for many 
 generations respected in the city; his father was 
 cultivated and had distinction as a citizen, who de- 
 voted his wealth and his energies to serving his 
 fellow men. But, just as incredible adversity could 
 not crush Abraham Lincoln, so lavish prosperity 
 could not keep down or spoil Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 In his "Autobiography" he tells us that "about 
 1644 his ancestor, ClaesMartensen van Roosevelt, 
 came to New Amsterdam as a ' settler ' — the euphe- 
 mistic name for an immigrant who came over in the 
 steerage of a sailing ship in the seventeenth century. 
 From that time for the next seven generations from 
 father to son every one of us was born on Manhat- 
 tan Island." ^ For over a hundred years the Roose- 
 velts continued to be typical Dutch burghers in a 
 hard-working, God-fearing, stolid Dutch way, each 
 leaving to his son a little more than he had inherited. 
 During the Revolution, some of the family were in 
 the Continental Army, but they won no high honors, 
 and some of them sat in the Congresses of that gen- 
 eration — sat, and were honest, but did not shine. 
 Theodore's great-grandfather seems to have amassed 
 what was regarded in those days as a large fortune. 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 1. 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 3 
 
 His grandfather, Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, 
 a glass importer and banker, added to his inherit- 
 ance, but was more than a mere money-maker. 
 
 His son Theodore, born in 1831, was the father 
 of the President. Inheriting sufficient means to live 
 in great comfort, not to say in luxury, he neverthe- 
 ■ less engaged in business; but he had a high sense of 
 the obligation which wealth lays on its possessors. 
 And so, instead of wasting his life in merely heaping 
 up dollars, he dedicated it to spending wisely and 
 generously those which he had. There was nothing 
 puritanical, however, in his way of living. He en- 
 joyed the normal, healthy pleasures of his station. 
 He drove his coach and four and was counted one 
 of the best whips in New York. Taking his paternal 
 responsibilities seriously, he implanted in his chil- 
 dren lively respect for discipline and duty; but he 
 kept very near to their affection, so that he remained 
 throughout their childhood, and after they grew up, 
 their most intimate friend. 
 
 What finer tribute could a son pay than this which 
 follows? 
 
 My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever 
 knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, 
 tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in 
 us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or un- 
 truthfulness. As we grew older he made us understand that 
 the same standard of clean living was demanded for the boys 
 
4 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 as for the girls ; that what was wrong in a woman could not be 
 right in a man. With great love and patience and the most 
 understanding sympathy and consideration he combined in- 
 sistence on discipline. He never physically punished me but 
 once, but he was the only man of whom I was ever really 
 
 afraid.^ 
 
 Thus the President, writing nearly forty years 
 after his father's death. His mother was Martha 
 Bulloch, a member of an old Southern family, one 
 of her ancestors having been the first Governor of 
 Georgia. During the Civil War, while Mr. Roosevelt 
 was busy raising regiments, supporting the Sani- 
 tary Commission, and doing whatever a non-com- 
 batant patriot could do to uphold the Union, Mrs. 
 Roosevelt's heart allegiance went with the South, 
 and to the end of her life she was never "recon- 
 structed." But this conflict of loyalties caused no 
 discord in the Roosevelt family circle. Her two broth- 
 ers served in the Confederate Navy. One of them, 
 James Bulloch, "a veritable Colonel NewTome," 
 was an admiral and directed the construction of 
 the privateer Alabama. The other, Irvine, a mid- 
 shipman on that vessel, fired the last gun in its fight 
 with the Kearsarge before the Alabama sank.. After 
 the war both of them lived in Liverpool and "Uncle 
 Jimmy" became a rabid Tory. He "was one of the 
 best men I have ever known," writes his nephew 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 9, 10. 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 5 
 
 Theodore ; "and when I have sometimes been tempted 
 to wonder how good people can believe of me the 
 unjust and impossible things they do believe, I have 
 consoled myself by thinking of Uncle Jimmy Bul- 
 loch's perfectly sincere conviction that Gladstone 
 was a man of quite exceptional and nameless in- 
 famy in both public and private life." ^ 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt grew up to be not only a 
 stanch but an uncompromising believer in the 
 Union Cause; but the fact that his parents came 
 from the North and from the South, and that, from 
 his earliest memory, the Southern kindred were held 
 in affection in his home, must have helped him 
 towards that non-sectional, all- American point of 
 view which was the cornerstone of his patriotic 
 creed. 
 
 The Roosevelt house was situated at No. 28 East 
 Twentieth Street, New York City, and there Theo- 
 dore was born on October 27, 1858. He passed his 
 boyhood amid the most wholesome family life. Be- 
 sides his brother Elliott and two sisters, as his 
 Uncle Robert lived next door, there were cousins 
 to play with and a numerous kindred to form the 
 background of his young life. He was, fortunately, 
 not precocious, for the infant prodigies of seven, 
 who become the amazing omniscients of twenty- 
 
 1 Autobiography, 16. 
 
6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 three, are seldom heard of at thirty. He learned very 
 early to read, and his sisters remember that when 
 he was still in starched white petticoats, with a curl 
 carefully poised on top of his head, he went about 
 the house lugging a thick, heavy volume of Living- 
 stone's "Travels" and asking some one to tell him 
 about the "foraging ants" described by the ex- 
 plorer. At last his older sister found the passage in 
 which the little boy had mistaken "foregoing" for 
 " foraging." No wonder that in his mature years he 
 became an advocate of reformed spelling. His sense 
 of humor, which flashed like a mountain brook 
 through all his later intercourse and made it delight- 
 ful, seems to have begun with his infancy. He used to 
 say his prayers at his mother's knee, and one even- 
 ing when he was out of sorts with her, he prayed 
 the Lord to bless the Union Cause; knowing her 
 Southern preferences he took this humorous sort of 
 vengeance on her. She, too, had humor and was 
 much amused, but she warned him that if he re- 
 peated such impropriety at that solemn moment, 
 she should tell his father. 
 
 Theodore and the other children had a great 
 fondness for pets, and their aunt, Mrs. Robert, 
 possessed several of unusual kinds — pheasants 
 and peacocks which strutted about the back yard 
 and a monkey which lived on the back piazza. They 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 7 
 
 were afraid of him, although they doubtless watched 
 his antics with a fearful joy. From the accounts 
 which survive, life in the nursery of the young 
 Roosevelts must have been a perpetual play-time, 
 but through it all ran the invisible formative influ- 
 ence of their parents, who had the art of shaping 
 the minds and characters of the little people with- 
 out seeming to teach. 
 
 Almost from infancy Theodore suffered from 
 asthma, which made him physically puny, and 
 often prevented him from lying down when he went 
 to bed. But his spirit did not droop. His mental 
 activity never wearied and he poured out endless 
 stories to the delight of his brother and sisters. 
 " My earliest impressions of my brother Theodore," 
 writes his sister, Mrs. Robinson, "are of a rather 
 small, patient, suffering little child, who, in spite of 
 his suffering, was the acknowledged head of the nurs- 
 ery. . . . These stories," she adds, "almost always 
 related to strange and marvelous animal adven- 
 tures, in which the animals were personalities quite 
 as vivid as Kipling gave to the world a generation 
 later in his 'Jungle Books.'" 
 
 Owing to his delicate health Theodore did not 
 attend school, except for a little while, when he 
 went to Professor McMuUen's Academy on Twen- 
 tieth Street. He was taught at home and he prob- 
 
ei 
 orou 
 
 8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ably got more from his reading than from his teach- 
 s. By the time he was ten, the passion for omniv- 
 s reading which frequently distinguishes boys 
 who are physically handicapped, began in him. He 
 devoured Our Young Folks, that excellent period- 
 ical on which nian>' of the boys and girls who were 
 his contemporaries fed. He loved tales of travel and 
 ad\ eniure; he loved Cooper's stories, and especially 
 books on natural history. 
 
 In sunmier the children spent the long days out 
 (^f doors at some country place, and there, in ad- 
 dition to the pleasure of being continuoush- with 
 nature, they had the sports and games adapted to 
 their age. Theodore was already making collections 
 of stones and other specimens after the haphazard 
 fashion of boys. The young naturalist sometimes 
 met with unexpected difficulties. Once, for instance, 
 he found a litter of 3'oung white mice, which he put 
 in the ice-chest for safety. His mother came upon 
 them. and. in the interest of good housekeeping, 
 she threw them awa}-. When Theodore discovered 
 it he flew into a tantrum and protested that w^hat 
 hurt him most was "the loss to Science! the loss to 
 Science!" On another occasion Science suffered a 
 loss of unknown extent owing to his obligation to 
 manners. He and his cousin had filled their pockets 
 and whaLe\ cr bags they had with specimens. Then 
 
ORIGIN'S AXD YOUTH 9 
 
 they came upon two toads, of a strange and new 
 variety. Having no more room left, each boy put 
 one of them on top of his head and clapped down 
 his hat. All went well till they met Mrs. Hamilton 
 Fish, a great lady to whom they had to take ofiF their 
 hats. Down jumped the toads and hopped away, 
 and Science was never able to add the Bufo Roose- 
 veltianus to its list of Hudson \^alley reptiles. 
 
 In 1869 Mr. Roosevelt took his family to Europe 
 for a year. The children did not care to go, and from 
 the start Theodore was homesick and little inter- 
 ested. Of course, picture galleries meant nothing 
 to a boy of ten, with a naturalist's appetite, and 
 he could not know enough about history to be im- 
 pressed by historic places and monuments. He 
 kept a diary from which Mr. Hagedom ^ prints 
 many amusing entries, some of which I quote: 
 
 Munich, October. 'Tn the night I had a nightmare dream- 
 ing that the devil was carrying me away and had collorer 
 morbos (si sickness that is not ver\- dangerous) but Mama 
 patted me with her delicate fingers." 
 
 Little Conie also kept a diary: the next entry- is 
 from it: 
 
 Paris. " I am so glad Mama has let me stay in the butiful 
 hotel parlor while the p>oor boys have been dragged off to the 
 orful picture galary." 
 
 ^ H. Hagedom: The Boy's Life of Theodore Roozezelt. Harper & 
 Bros. 19 1 a. 
 
•10 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Now Theodore again : 
 
 Paris, November 26. "I stayed in the house all day, vary- 
 ing the day with brushing my hair, washing my hands and 
 thinking in fact haveing a verry dull time." 
 
 "Nov. 27. I Did the same thing as yesterday." 
 
 Chamounix. "I found several specimens to keep and we 
 went on the great glacier called 'Mother of ice!'" 
 
 "We went to our cousins school at Waterloo. We had a 
 nice time but met Jeff Davises son and some sharp words 
 ensued." 
 
 Venice. "We saw a palace of the doges. It looks like a 
 palace you could be comfortable and snug in (which is not 
 usual) — We went to another church in which Conie jumped 
 over tombstones spanked me banged Ellies head &c." 
 
 "Conie" was his nickname for his younger sister 
 
 Corinne.^ 
 
 November 22. " In the evening Mama showed me the por- 
 trait of Eidieth Carow and her face stirred up in me home- 
 sickness and longings for the past which will come again 
 never aback never." 
 
 The little girl, the sight of whose portrait stirred 
 such longings for the past in the heart of the young 
 Theodore, was Edith Carow, the special playmate 
 of his sister Conie and one of the intimate group 
 whom he had always known. Years later she be- 
 came his wife. 
 
 The Roosevelt family returned to New York in 
 May, 1870, and resumed its ordinary life. Theodore, 
 whom one of his fellow travelers on the steamer 
 
 * She subsequently married Mr. Douglas Robinson. 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH ii 
 
 remembers as " a tall thin lad with bright eyes and 
 legs like pipestems," developed rapidly in mind, 
 but the asthma still tormented him and threatened 
 to make a permanent invalid of him. His father 
 fitted up in the house in Twentieth Street a small 
 gymnasium and said to the boy in substance, 
 "You have brains, but you have a sickly body. In 
 order to make your brains bring you what they 
 ought, you must build up your body; it depends 
 upon you." The boy felt both the obligation and 
 the desire; he willed to be strong, and he went 
 through his gymnastic exercises with religious preci- 
 sion. What he read in his books about knights and 
 paladins and heroes had always greatly moved his 
 imagination. He wanted to be like them. He under- 
 stood that the one indispensable attribute common 
 to all of them was bodily strength. Therefore he 
 would be strong. Through all his suffering he was 
 patient and determined. But I recall no other boy, 
 enfeebled by a chronic and often distressing disease, 
 who resolved as he did to conquer his enemy by a 
 wisely planned and unceasing course of exercises. 
 
 Improvement came slowly. Many were the nights 
 in which he spent hours gasping for breath. Some- 
 times on summer nights his father would wrap him 
 up and take him on a long drive through the dark- 
 ness in search of fresh air. But no matter how hard 
 
12 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the pinch, the boy never complained, and when- 
 ever there was a respite his vivacity burst forth as 
 fresh as ever. He could not attend school with other 
 boys and, indeed, his realization that he could not 
 meet them on equal physical terms made him timid 
 when he was thrown with them. So he pursued his 
 own tastes with all the more zeal. He read many 
 books, some of which seemed beyond a boy's ken, 
 but he got something from each of them. His power 
 of concentration already surprised his family. If he 
 was absorbed in a chapter, nothing which went on 
 outside of him, either noise or interruption, could 
 distract his attention. His passion for natural his- 
 tory increased. At the age of ten, he opened in one 
 of the rooms of his home "The Roosevelt Museum 
 of Natural History." Later, he devoted himself more 
 particularly to birds, and learned from, a taxider- 
 mist how to skin and stuff his specimens. 
 
 In 1873, President Grant appointed Mr. Roose- 
 velt a Commissioner to the Vienna Exposition and 
 the Roosevelt family made another foreign tour. 
 Hoping to benefit Theodore's asthma they went to 
 Algiers, and up the Nile, where he was much more 
 interested in the flocks of aquatic fowl than in the 
 half-buried temples of Dendera or the obelisks and 
 pylons of Karnak. He even makes no mention of 
 the Pyramids, but records with enthusiasm that he 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 13 
 
 found at Cairo a book by an English clergyman, 
 whose name he forgot, on the ornithology of the 
 Nile, which greatly helped him. Incidentally, he 
 says that from the Latin names of the birds he 
 made his first acquaintance with that language. 
 
 While Mr. Roosevelt attended to his duties in 
 Vienna the younger children were placed in the 
 family of Herr Minckwitz, a Government official 
 at Dresden. There, Theodore, "in spite of himself," 
 learned a good deal of German, and he never forgot 
 his pleasant life among the Saxons in the days be- 
 fore the virus of Prussian barbarism had poisoned 
 all the non-Prussian Germans. Minckwitz had been 
 a Liberal in the Revolution of 1848, a fact which 
 added to Theodore's interest in him. 
 
 On getting home, Theodore, who was fifteen years 
 old, set to work seriously to fit himself to enter Har- 
 vard College. Up to this time his education had 
 been unmethodical, leaving him behind his fellows 
 in some subjects and far ahead of them in others. 
 He had the good fortune now to secure as a tutor 
 Mr. Arthur H. Cutler, for many years head of the 
 Cutler Preparatory School in New York City, 
 thanks to whose excellent training he was able to 
 enter college in 1876. During these years of prep- 
 aration Theodore's health steadily improved. He 
 had a gun and was an ardent sportsman, the in- 
 
14 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 centive of adding specimens to his collection of 
 birds and animals outweighing the mere sport of 
 slaughter. At Oyster Bay, where his father first 
 leased a house in 1874, he spent much of his time 
 on the water, but he deemed sailing rather lazy 
 and unexciting, compared with rowing. He enjoyed 
 taking his row-boat out into the Sound, and, if a 
 high head wind was blowing, or the sea ran in white- 
 caps, so much the better. He was now able to share 
 in all of the athletic pastimes of his companions, 
 although, so far as I know, he never indulged in 
 baseball, the commonest game of all. 
 
 When he entered Harvard as a Freshman in 1876, 
 that institution was passing through its transition 
 from college to university, which had begun when 
 Charles W. Eliot became its President seven years 
 before. In spite of vehement assaults, the Great 
 Educator pushed on his reform slowly but resist- 
 lessly. He needed to train not only the public but 
 many members, perhaps a majority, of his faculty. 
 Young Roosevelt found a body of eight hundred 
 undergraduates, the largest number up to that time. 
 While the Elective System had been introduced in 
 the upper classes. Freshmen and Sophomores were 
 still required to take the courses prescribed for them. 
 
 To one who looks back, after forty years, on the 
 Harvard of that time there was much about it, the 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 15 
 
 loss of which must be regretted. Limited in many 
 directions it was, no doubt, but its very limitations 
 made for friendship and for that sense of intimate 
 mutual relationship, out of which springs mutual 
 affection. You belonged to Harvard, and she to you. 
 That she was small, compared with her later mag- 
 nitude, no more lessened your love for her, than 
 your love for your own mother could be increased 
 were she suddenly to become a giantess. The under- 
 graduate community was not exactly a large family, 
 but it was, nevertheless, restricted enough not only 
 for a fellow to know at least by sight all of his 
 classmates, but also to have some knowledge of 
 what was going on in other classes as well as in the 
 College as a whole. Academic fame, too, had a bet- 
 ter chance then than it has now. There were eight 
 or ten professors, whom most of the fellows knew by 
 sight, and all by reputation; now, however, I meet 
 intelligent students who have never heard even the 
 name of the head of some department who is fa- 
 mous throughout the world among his colleagues, but 
 whose courses that student has never taken. 
 
 In spite of the simplicity and the homelikeness 
 of the Harvard with eight hundred undergraduates, 
 however, it was large enough to afford the oppor- 
 tunity of meeting men of many different tastes and 
 men from all parts of the country. So it gave free 
 
i6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 play to the development of individual talents, and 
 its standard of scholarship was already sufficiently 
 high to ensure the excellence of the best scholars 
 it trained. One quality which we probably took 
 little note of, although it must have affected us 
 all, sprang from the fact that Harvard was still a 
 crescent institution; she was in the full vigor of 
 growth, of expansion, of increase, and we shared 
 insensibly from being connected with that growth. 
 In retrospect now, and giving due recognition to 
 this crescent spirit, I recall that, in spite of it, Omar 
 Khayyam was the favorite poet of many of us, 
 that introspection, which sometimes deepened into 
 pessimism, was in vogue, and that a spiritual or 
 philosophic languorous disenchantment sicklied o'er 
 the somewhat mottled cast of our thought. 
 
 Roosevelt took rooms at No. i6 Winthrop Street, 
 a quiet little lane midway between the College Yard 
 and Charles River, where he could pursue his hob- 
 bies without incessant interruption from casual 
 droppers-in. Here he kept the specimens which he 
 went on collecting, some live — a large turtle and 
 two or three harmless snakes, for instance — and 
 some dead and stuffed. He was no "grind" ; the gods 
 take care not to mix even a drop of pedantry in 
 the make-up of the rare men whom they destine for 
 great deeds or fine works. Theodore was already 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 17 
 
 so much stronger in his health that he went on to 
 get still more strength. He had regular lessons in 
 boxing. He took long walks and studied the flora 
 and fauna of the country round Cambridge in his 
 amateurish but intense way. During his first Christ- 
 mas vacation, he went down to the Maine Woods 
 and camped out, and there he met Bill Sewall, a 
 famous guide, who remained Theodore's friend 
 through life, and Wilmot Dow, Sewall's nephew, 
 another woodsman ; and this trip, subsequently fol- 
 lowed by others, did much good to his physique. 
 He still had occasional attacks of asthma — he 
 "guffled" as Bill Sewall called it — and they were 
 sometimes acute, but his tendency to them slowly 
 wore away. 
 
 All his days Roosevelt was proud of being a Har- 
 vard man. Even in the period when academic Har- 
 vard was most critical of his public acts, he never 
 wavered in his devotion to Alma Mater herself, that 
 dear and lovely Being, who, like the ideal of our 
 country, lives on to inspire us in spite of unsym- 
 pathetic administrations and unloved leaders. 
 
 " The One remains, the many change and pass." 
 
 Nevertheless, in his "Autobiography," Theodore 
 makes very scant record of his college life. " I thor- 
 oughly enjoyed Harvard," he says, "and I am sure 
 
i8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 it did me good, but only in the general effect, for 
 there was very little in my actual studies which 
 helped me in after life." ^ Like nine out of ten men 
 who look back on college he could make no definite 
 estimate of the actual gains from those four years; 
 but it is precisely the indefiniteness, the elusiveness 
 of the college experience which marks its worth. 
 This is not to be reckoned financially by an in- 
 crease in dollars and cents, or intellectually, by so 
 many added foot-pounds of knowledge. Harvard 
 College was of inestimable benefit to Roosevelt, be- 
 cause it enabled him to find himself — to be a man 
 with his fellow men. 
 
 During his youth his physical handicap had rather 
 cut him off from companionship on equal terms with 
 his fellows. Now, however, he could enter with zest 
 in their sports and societies. At the very beginning 
 of his Freshman year he showed his classmates his 
 mettle. During the presidential torchlight parade 
 when the jubilant Freshmen w^ere marching for 
 Hayes, some Tilden man shouted derisively at them 
 from a second-story window and pelted them with 
 potatoes. It was impossible for them to get at him, 
 but Theodore, who was always stung at any dis- 
 play of meanness — and it was certainly mean to 
 attack the paraders when they could not retaliate 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 27. 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 19 
 
 — stood out from the line and shook his fist at the 
 assailant. His fellow marchers asked who their 
 champion was, and so the name of Roosevelt and 
 his pugnacious little figure became generally known 
 to them. He was little then, not above five feet six 
 in height, and under one hundred and thirty pounds 
 in weight. By degrees they all knew him. His unu- 
 sual ways, his loyalty to his hobbies, which he treated 
 not as mere whims but as being worthy of serious 
 application, his versatility, his outspokenness, his 
 almost unbroken good-nature, attracted most of the 
 persons with whom he came in contact. He rose to 
 be President of the Natural History Society, a dis- 
 tinction which implied some real merit in its posses- 
 sor. His family antecedents, but still more his per- 
 sonal qualities, made easy for him the ascent of the 
 social terraces at Harvard — the Dicky, the Hasty 
 Pudding Club, and the Porcellian. He was editor of 
 the Harvard Advocate, which opened the door of the 
 O.K. Society, where he found congenial intellectual 
 companionship with the editors from the classes 
 above and below him; and when Dr. Edward Ever- 
 ett Hale wished to revive and perpetuate the Alpha 
 Delta Phi Fraternity, Roosevelt was one of the 
 half-dozen men from the Class of 1880 whom he 
 selected. 
 
 My first definite recollection of him is at the 
 
20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 annual dinner of the Harvard Crimson in January or 
 February, 1879. He was invited as a guest to repre- 
 sent the Advocate. Since entering college I had met 
 him casually many times and had heard of his oddi- 
 ties and exuberance ; but throughout this dinner I 
 came to feel that I knew him. On being called on 
 to speak he seemed very shy and made, what I 
 think he said, was his maiden speech. He still had 
 difficulty in enunciating clearly or even in running 
 off his words smoothly. At times he could hardly 
 get them out at all, and then he would rush on for 
 a few sentences, as skaters redouble their pace over 
 thin ice. He told the story of two old gentlemen 
 who stammered, the point of which was, that one of 
 them, after distressing contortions and stoppages, 
 recommended the other to go to Dr. X, adding, 
 "He cured me." 
 
 A trifling bit of thistledown for memory to have 
 preserved after all these years; but still it is inter- 
 esting to me to recall that this was the beginning 
 of the public speaking of the man who later ad- 
 dressed more audiences than any other orator of 
 his time and made a deeper impression by his 
 spoken word. 
 
 One other reminiscence of Roosevelt at Harvard, 
 almost as unsubstantial as this. Late in his Senior 
 year we had a committee meeting of the Alpha Delta 
 
Photograph by J. Notman, Boston 
 
 ROOSE\'ELT IN 1880 
 As a Senior at Harvard College 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 21 
 
 Phi in Charles Washburn's room at 15 Holworthy. 
 Roosevelt and I sat in the window-seat overlooking 
 the College Yard and chatted together in the inter- 
 vals when business was slack. We discussed what we 
 intended to do after graduation. " I am going to try 
 to help the cause of better government in New York 
 City; I don't know exactly how," said Theodore. 
 
 I recall, still, looking hard at him with an eager, 
 inquisitive look and saying to myself, "I wonder 
 whether he is the real thing, or only the bundle of 
 eccentricities which he appears." There was in me 
 then, as there has always been, a mingling of skep- 
 ticism and of deep reverence for those who dealt 
 with reality, and I had not had sufhcient oppor- 
 tunity to determine whether Roosevelt was real or 
 not. One at least of his classmates, however, saw por- 
 tents of greatness in Theodore, from their Freshman 
 year, and most of us, even when we were amused and 
 puzzled by his "queerness," were very sure that the 
 man from whom they sprang was not commonplace. 
 
 So far as I remember, Roosevelt was the first 
 undergraduate to own and drive a dog-cart. This 
 excited various comments; so did the reddish, pow- 
 der-puff side whiskers which no chaffing could 
 make him cut. There was never the slightest sug- 
 gestion of the gilded youth about him; though 
 dog-carts, especially when owned by young men, 
 
22 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 implied the habits and standards of the gilded rich. 
 How explain the paradox? On the other hand, Theo- 
 dore taught Sunday School at Christ Church, but 
 he was so muscular a Christian that the decorous 
 vestrymen thought him an unwise guide in piety. 
 For one day a boy came to class with a black eye 
 which he had got in fighting a larger boy for pinching 
 his sister. Theodore told him that he did perfectly 
 right — that every boy ought to defend any girl 
 from insult — and he gave him a dollar as a reward. 
 The vestrymen decided that this was too flagrant 
 approval of fisticufTs; so the young teacher soon 
 found a welcome in the Sunday School of a different 
 denomination. 
 
 Of all the stories of Roosevelt's college career, 
 that of his boxing match is most vividly remem- 
 bered. He enrolled in the light-weight sparring at 
 the meeting in the Harvard Gymnasium on March 
 22, 1879, and defeated his first competitor. When 
 the referee called "time," Roosevelt immediately 
 dropped his hands, but the other man dealt him a 
 savage blow on the face, at which we all shouted, 
 "Foul, foul!" and hissed; but Roosevelt turned 
 towards us and cried out "Hush! He did n't hear," 
 a chivalrous act which made him immediately popu- 
 lar. In his second match he met Hanks. They both 
 weighed about one hundred and thirty-five pounds, 
 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 23 
 
 but Hanks was two or three inches taller and he 
 had a much longer reach, so that Theodore could 
 not get in his blows, and although he fought with 
 unabated pluck, he lost the contest. More serious 
 than his short reach, however, was his near-sight- 
 edness, which made it impossible for him to see and 
 parry Hanks's lunges. When time was called after 
 the last round, his face was dashed with blood and 
 he was much winded; but his spirit did not flag, 
 and if there had been another round, he would 
 have gone into it with undiminished determina- 
 tion. From this contest there sprang up the legend 
 that Roosevelt boxed with his eyeglasses lashed to 
 his head, and the legend floated hither and thither 
 for nearly thirty years. Not long ago I asked him 
 the truth. "Persons who believe that," he said, 
 "must think me utterly crazy; for one of Charlie 
 Hanks's blows would have smashed my eyeglasses 
 and probably blinded me for life." 
 
 In a class of one hundred and seventy he gradu- 
 ated twenty-second, which entitled him to mem- 
 bership in the Phi Beta Kappa, the society of high 
 scholars. To one who examines his academic record 
 wisely, the best symptom is that he did fairly well 
 in several unrelated subjects, and achieved preem- 
 inence in one, natural history. He had the all-round 
 quality which shows more promise than does a 
 
24 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 propensity to light on a particular topic and suck 
 it dry; but he had also power of concentration and 
 thoroughness. As I have just said, he was a happy 
 combination of the amateurish and intense. His 
 habit of absorption became a by-word; for if he 
 visited a classmate's room and saw a book which 
 interested him, instead of joining in the talk, he 
 would devour the book, oblivious of everything 
 else, until the college bell rang for the next lecture, 
 when he would jump up with a start, and dash off. 
 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 instinctively. And so, where many 
 young fellows are thrown off their balance on first 
 acquiring the freedom which college life gives, or 
 are dazed and distracted on first hearing the ba- 
 bel of strange philosophies or novel doctrines, he 
 walked straight, held himself erect, and was not 
 fooled into mistaking novelty for truth, or libertin- 
 ism for manliness. 
 
 Two outside events which deeply influenced him 
 must be noted. During his Sophomore year his father 
 died; and during his Senior year, Theodore became 
 engaged to Miss Alice Hathaway Lee, daughter of 
 George C. Lee, of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. 
 
R 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BREAKING INTO POLITICS ;>' 
 
 ! 
 
 OOSEVELT was a few months less than 
 twenty-two years old when he/ graduated from 
 Harvard. His career in college had wrought several 
 important changes in him. First of all, his strength 
 was confirmed. Although he still suffered occasion- 
 ally from asthma, he was no longer handicapped. In 
 business, or in pleasure, he did not need to consider 
 his health. Next, he had come to some definite de- 
 cision as to what he would do. His earlier dream of 
 becoming a professor of natural history had faded 
 away. With the inpouring of vigor into his consti- 
 tution the ideal of an academic life, often sedentary 
 in mind as well as in body, ceased to lure him. He 
 craved activity, and this craving was bound to 
 grow more urgent as he acquired more strength. 
 Next, and this consideration must not be neglected, 
 he was free to choose. His father's death left him 
 the possessor of a sufficient fortune to live on com- 
 fortably without need of working to earn his bread 
 and butter — the motive which determines most 
 young men when they start in life. Finally, his fa- 
 ther's example, reinforced by wholesome advice, 
 
26 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 quickened in Theodore his sense of obligation to 
 the community. Having money, he must use it, 
 not for mere personal gratification, but in ways 
 which would benefit those who were deprived, or 
 outcast, or bereft. But Theodore was too young 
 and too energetic to be contented with the life of a 
 philanthropist, no matter how noble and necessary 
 its objects might be. He had already accepted Emer- 
 son 's dictum: 
 
 "He who feeds men, serves a few; 
 He serves all who dares be true." 
 
 Young as he was, he divined that much of the chari- 
 table work, to which good people devote them- 
 selves in order to lighten or relieve the ills which 
 the sins and errors of mankind beget, would be 
 needless if the remedy were applied, as it ought to 
 be, to fundamental social conditions. These, he be- 
 lieved, could be reached in many cases through polit- 
 ical agency, and he resolved, therefore, to make a 
 trial of his talents in political life. 
 
 The point at which he decided to "break into 
 politics," as he expressed it, was the Assembly, or 
 Lower House of the New York State Legislature. 
 Most of his friends and classmates, on hearing of 
 his plan, regarded it as a proof of his eccentricity; 
 a few of them, the more discerning, would not pre- 
 judge him, but were rather inclined to hope. By 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 27 
 
 tradition and instinct, he was a Republican, and 
 in order to learn the political ropes he joined the 
 Twenty-first District Republican Association of 
 New York City. The district consisted chiefly of 
 rich, respectable, and socially conspicuous inhabit- 
 ants of the vortex metropolis, with a leaven of the 
 "masses," The "classes" had no real zeal for dis- 
 charging their political duty. They subscribed to 
 the campaign fund, but had too delicate a sense of 
 propriety to ask how their money was spent. A few 
 of them — and these seemed to be endowed with 
 a special modicum of patriotism — even attended 
 the party primaries in which candidates were named. 
 The majority went to the polls and cast their vote 
 on election day, if it did not rain or snow. 
 
 For a young man of Roosevelt's position to de- 
 sire to take up politics seemed to his friends almost 
 comic. Politics were low and corrupt; politics were 
 not for "gentlemen"; they were the business and 
 pastime of liquor-dealers, and of the degenerates 
 and loafers who frequented the saloons, of horse-car 
 conductors, and of many others whose ties with 
 "respectability" were slight. 
 
 To join the organization, Roosevelt had to be 
 elected to the Twenty-first District Republican 
 Club, for the politicians of those days kept their 
 organization close, not to say exclusive, and in this 
 
28 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 way they secured the dociUty of their members. 
 The Twenty-first District Club met in Morton Hall, 
 a dingy, barnlike room situated over a saloon, and 
 furnished severely with wooden benches, many 
 spittoons, and a speaker's table decorated with a 
 large pitcher for Ice-water. The regular meetings 
 came once a month and Roosevelt attended them 
 faithfully, because he never did things by halves, 
 and having made up his mind to learn the mechan- 
 ism of politics, he would not neglect any detail. 
 
 Despite the shyness w^hich ill health caused him 
 in his youth, he was really a good "mixer," and, 
 growing to feel more sure of himself, he met men on 
 equal terms. More than that, he had the art of in- 
 spiring confidence in persons of divers sorts and, 
 as he was really interested In knowing their thoughts 
 and desires, it never took him long to strike up 
 friendly relations with them. 
 
 Jake Hess, the Republican " Boss" of the Twenty- 
 first District, evidently eyed Roosevelt with some 
 suspicion, for the newcomer belonged to a class 
 which Jake did not desire to see largely represented 
 in the business of "practical politics," and so he 
 treated Roosevelt with a "rather distant affability. " 
 The young man, however, got on well enough with 
 the heelers — the immediate trusty followers of 
 the Boss — and with the ordinary members. They 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 29 
 
 probably marveled to see him so unlike what they 
 believed a youth of the "kid-glove" and "silk- 
 stocking" set would be, and they accepted him as 
 a "good fellow." 
 
 Of all Roosevelt's comrades during this first year 
 of initiation, a young Irishman named Joe Murray 
 was nearest to him, an honest fellow, fearless and 
 stanch, who remained his loyal friend for forty 
 years. Murray began as a Democrat of the Tammany 
 Hall tribe, but having been left in the lurch by his 
 Boss at an election, he determined to punish the 
 Boss, and this he did at the first opportunity by 
 throwing his influence on the side of the Republican 
 candidate. The Republicans won, although the 
 district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and Mur- 
 ray joined the Republican Party. He worked in 
 the district where Jake Hess ruled. Like other even 
 greater men, Jake became arrogant and treated 
 the gang under him with condescension. Murray 
 resented this and resolved that he would humble 
 the Boss by supporting Roosevelt as a candidate 
 for the Assembly. Hess protested, but could not 
 prevent the nomination and during the campaign 
 he seems to have supported the candidate whom 
 he had not chosen. 
 
 Roosevelt sent the following laconic appeal to 
 some of the voters of his district: 
 
30 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 New York, November i, 1881. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Having been nominated as a candidate for member of 
 Assembly for this District, I would esteem it a compliment 
 if you honor me with your vote and personal influence on 
 
 Election day. 
 
 Very respectfully 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Certainly, nothing could be simpler than this 
 card, which contains no puff of either the party or 
 the candidate, or no promise. It drew a cordial re- 
 sponse. 
 
 Twenty-first Assembly District. 
 40th to 86th Sts., Lexington to 7th Aves. 
 
 We cordially recommend the voters of the Twenty-first 
 Assembly District to cast their ballots for 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 for member of Assembly 
 
 and take much pleasure in testifying to our appreciation of 
 his high character and standing in the community. He is 
 conspicuous for his honesty and integrity, and eminently 
 qualified to represent the District in the Assembly. 
 
 New York November i, 1881 
 
 F. A. P. Barnard, William T. Black, Willard Bullard, 
 Joseph H. Choate, William A. Darling, Henry E. 
 Davies, Theodore W. Dwight, Jacob Hess, Morris K. 
 Jesup, Edward Mitchell, William F. Morgan, Chas. S. 
 Robinson, Elihu Root, Jackson S. Shultz, Elliott F. 
 Shepard, Gustavus Tuckerman, S. H. Wales, W. H. 
 Webb. 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 31 
 
 This list bears the names of at least two men who 
 will be long remembered. There are also several 
 others which were doubtless of more political value 
 to the aspirant to office in 1881. 
 
 Just after the election Roosevelt wrote to his 
 classmate, Charles G. Washburn: 
 
 Too true, too true; I have become a "political hack." Find- 
 ing it would not interfere much with my law, I accepted the 
 nomination to the Assembly and was elected by 1500 majority, 
 leading the ticket by 600 votes. But don't think I am going 
 to go into politics after this year, for I am not. 
 
 Roosevelt's allusion to the law requires the state- 
 ment that in the autumn of 1880 he had begun to 
 read law in the office of his uncle, Robert Roosevelt; 
 not that he had a strong leaning to the legal pro- 
 fession, but that he believed that every one, no 
 matter how well off he might be, ought to be able 
 to support himself by some occupation or profession. 
 Also, he could not endure being idle, and he knew 
 that the slight political work on which he em- 
 barked when he joined the Twenty-first District 
 Republican Club would take but little of his time. 
 During that first year out of college he established 
 himself as a citizen, not merely politically, but so- 
 cially. On his birthday in 1880 he married Miss Lee 
 and they set up their home at 6 West Fifty-seventh 
 Street; he joined social and literary clubs and ex- 
 
32 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 tended his athletic interests beyond wrestUng and 
 
 boxing to hunting, rifle practice, and polo. 
 
 His law studies seem to have absorbed him less 
 than anything else that he undertook during all 
 his life. He could not fail to be interested in them, but 
 he never plunged into them with all his might and 
 main as if he intended to make them his chief con- 
 cern. For a while he had a desk in the office of the 
 publishers, G. P. Putnam's Sons: but Major George 
 Putnam recalls that he did little except suggest 
 wonderful projects, which "had to be sat down 
 upon." Already a love of writing infected him. 
 Even before he left Harv^ard he had begun "A His- 
 tory of the Naval War of 1812," and this he worked 
 on eagerly. The Putnams published it in 1882. 
 
 One incident of Roosevelt's canvass must not be 
 overlooked. The Red Indians of old used to make 
 their captives run the gauntlet between two lines of 
 warriors: political bosses in New York in 1880 made 
 their nominee run the gauntlet of all the saloon- 
 keepers in their district. Accordingly, Jake Hess 
 and Joe Murray proceeded to introduce Roosevelt 
 to the rum-sellers of Sixth Avenue. The first they 
 visited received Theodore with injudicious conde- 
 scension almost as if he were a suppliant. He said 
 he hoped that the young candidate, if elected, would 
 treat the liquor men fairly, to which the "suppliant" 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 33 
 
 replied that he intended to treat all interests fairly. 
 The suggestion that liquor licenses were too high 
 brought the retort that they were not high enough. 
 Thereupon, the wary Hess and the discreet Joe 
 Murray found an excuse for hurrying Roosevelt out 
 of the saloon, and they told him that he had better 
 look after his friends on Fifth Avenue and that they 
 would look after the saloon-keepers on Sixth Avenue. 
 That any decent candidate should have to pass in 
 review before the saloon-keepers and receive their 
 approval, is so monstrous as to be grotesque. That 
 a possible President of the United States should 
 be the victim needs no comment. It was thoroughly 
 characteristic of Roosevelt that he balked at the 
 first trial. 
 
 He says in his "Autobiography" that he was not 
 conscious of going into politics to benefit other peo- 
 ple, but to secure for himself a privilege to which 
 every one was entitled. That privilege was self- 
 government. When his "kid-glove" friends laughed 
 at him for deliberately choosing to leap into the 
 political mire, he told them that the governing class 
 ought to govern, and that not they themselves but 
 the bosses and "heelers" were the real governors of 
 New York City. Not the altruistic desire to reform, 
 but the perfectly practical resolve to enjoy the polit- 
 ical rights to which he had a claim was his leading 
 
34 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 motive. It is important to understand this because 
 it will explain much of his action as a statesman. 
 Roosevelt is the greatest idealist in American public 
 life since Lincoln; but his idealism, like Lincoln's, 
 always had a firm, intelligent, practical footing. 
 
 Roosevelt himself thus describes his work during 
 his first year in the New York Assembly : 
 
 I paid attention chiefly while in the Legislature to laws 
 for the reformation of Primaries and of the Civil Service and 
 endeavored to have a certain Judge Westbrook impeached, 
 on the ground of corrupt collusion with Jay Gould and the 
 prostitution of his high judicial ofifice to serve the purpose of 
 wealthy and unscrupulous stock gamblers, but was voted 
 down. 
 
 This brief statement gives no idea of either the 
 magnitude or quality of his work in which, like 
 young David, he went forth to smite Goliath, the 
 Giant Corruption, entrenched for years in the 
 Albany State House. I do not believe that in at- 
 tacking the monster, Roosevelt thought that he 
 was displaying unusual courage, much less that he 
 was winning the crowm of a moral hero. He simply 
 saw a mass of abuse and wickedness which every 
 decent person ought to repudiate. Most decent per- 
 sons saw it, too, but convention, or self-interest, 
 party affiliation, or unromantic, every-day cow- 
 ardice, made them hold their tongues. 
 
 Being assigned to committees which had some 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 35 
 
 of the most important concerns of New York City 
 in charge, Roosevelt had the advantage given by 
 his initiation into poUtical methods as practiced in 
 the Twenty-first District of knowing a Uttle more 
 than his colleagues knew about the local issues. 
 
 Three months of the session elapsed before he 
 stood up in the Chamber and attacked point-blank 
 one formidable champion of corruption. Listen to 
 an anonymous writer in the Saturday Evening Post: 
 
 It was on April 6, 1882, that Roosevelt took the floor in 
 the Assembly and demanded that Judge Westbrook, of New- 
 bury, be impeached. And for sheer moral courage that act is 
 probably supreme in Roosevelt's life thus far. He must have 
 expected failure. Even his youth and idealism and ignorance 
 of public affairs could not blind him to the apparently inevit- 
 able consequences. Yet he drew his sword and rushed appar- 
 ently to destruction — alone, and at the very outset of his 
 career, and in disregard of the pleadings of his closest friends 
 and the plain dictates of political wisdom. 
 
 That speech — the deciding act in Roosevelt's career — is 
 not remarkable for eloquence. But it is remarkable for fear- 
 less candor. He called thieves thieves, regardless of their mil- 
 lions; he slashed savagely at the Judge and the Attorney- 
 General; he told the plain unvarnished truth as his indignant 
 eyes saw it.^ 
 
 Astonishment verging on consternation filled the 
 Assemblymen, who, through long experience, were 
 convinced that Truth was too precious to be ex- 
 hibited in public. Worldly wisdom came to the aid 
 
 1 Riis, 54-55. 
 
36 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 of the veteran Republican leader who wished to 
 treat the assault as if it were the unripe explosion 
 of youth. The callowness of his young friend must 
 excuse him. He doubtless meant well, but his inex- 
 perience prevented him from realizing that many 
 a reputation in public life had been shattered by 
 just such loose charges. He felt sure that when the 
 young man had time to think it over, he would 
 modify his language. It would be fitting, therefore, 
 for that body to show its kindliness by giving the 
 new member from New York City leisure to think 
 it over. 
 
 Little did this official defender of corruption un- 
 derstand Mr. Roosevelt, whose business it was then 
 to uphold Right. That was a question in which ex- 
 pediency could have no voice. He regarded neither 
 the harm he might possibly do to his political future 
 nor to the standing of the Republican Party. I sus- 
 pect that he smarted under the leader's attempt to 
 treat him as a young man whose breaks instead of 
 causing surprise must be condoned. Although the 
 magnates of the party pleaded with him and urged 
 him not to throw away his usefulness, he rose again 
 in the Assembly next day and renewed his demand 
 for an investigation of Judge Westbrook. Day after 
 day he repeated his demand. The newspapers 
 throughout the State began to give more and more 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 37 
 
 attention to him. The pubHc applauded, and the 
 legislators, who had sat and listened to him with 
 contemptuous indifference, heard from their constit- 
 uents. At last, on the eighth day, by a vote of 104 
 to 6 the Assembly adopted Roosevelt's resolution 
 and appointed an investigating committee. The evi- 
 dence taken amply justified Roosevelt's charges, in 
 spite of which the committee gave a whitewashing 
 verdict. Nevertheless the "young reformer" had not 
 only proved his case, but had suddenly made a name 
 for himself in the State and in the Country. 
 
 Before his first term ended he discovered that 
 there were enemies of honest government quite as 
 dangerous as the open supporters of corruption. 
 These were the demagogues who, under the pretense 
 of attacking the wicked interests, introduced bills 
 for the sole purpose of being bought off. Sly fellows 
 they were and sneaks. Against their "strike" legis- 
 lation Roosevelt had also to fight. His chief friend at 
 Albany was Billy O'Neil, who kept a little cross- 
 roads grocery up in the Adirondacks; had thought 
 for himself on American politics; had secured his 
 election to the Assembly without the favor of the 
 Machine; and now acted there with as much inde- 
 pendence as his young colleague of the Twenty-first 
 District. Roosevelt remarks that the fact that two 
 persons, sprung from such totally different sur- 
 
38 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 roundings, should come together in the Legislature 
 was an example of the fine result which American 
 democracy could achieve. 
 
 The session came to a close, and although Roose- 
 velt had protested the year before that he was not 
 going into politics as a career, he allowed himself to 
 be renominated. Naturally, his desire to continue in 
 and complete the task in which he had already ac- 
 complished much was whetted. He would have been 
 a fool if he had not known, what every one else 
 knew, that he had made a very brilliant record dur- 
 ing his first year. A false standard which comes very 
 near hypocrisy imposes a ridiculous mock modesty 
 on great men in modern times: as if Shakespeare 
 alone should be unaware that he was Shakespeare or 
 that Napoleon or Darwin or Lincoln or Cavour 
 should each be ignorant of his worth. Better vanity, 
 if you will, than sham modesty. There was no harm 
 done that Roosevelt at twenty-three felt proud of 
 being recognized as a power in the Assembly. We 
 must never forget also that he was a fighter, and 
 that his first contests in Albany had so roused his 
 blood that he longed to fight those battles to a fin- 
 ish, that is, to victory. We must make a distinction 
 also in his motives. He did not strain every nerve to 
 win a cause because it was his cause; but having 
 adopted a cause which his heart and mind told him 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 39 
 
 was good, he strove to make that cause triumph be- 
 cause he believed it to be good. 
 
 So he allowed himself to be renominated and he 
 was reelected by 2000 majority, although in that 
 autumn of 1882 the Democratic candidate for Gov- 
 ernor, Grover Cleveland, swept New York State by 
 192,000 and carried into office by the momentum of 
 his success many of the minor candidates on the 
 Democratic ticket. 
 
 The year 1883 opened with the cheer of dawn in 
 New York politics. Cleveland, the young Governor 
 of forty-four, had proved himself fearless, public- 
 spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt, the 
 young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a 
 Democrat, one a Republican, but they were alike in 
 courage and in holding honesty and righteousness 
 above their party platforms. 
 
 Roosevelt pursued in this session the methods 
 which had made him famous and feared in the pre- 
 ceding. He admits that he may have had for a while 
 a "swelled head," for in the chaos of conflicting 
 principles and no-principles in which his life was 
 thrown, he decided to act independently and to let 
 his conscience determine his action on each question 
 which arose. He flocked by himself on a peak. He 
 was too practical, however, to hold this course long. 
 Experience had already taught him that under a 
 
40 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 constitutional government parties which advocate 
 or oppose issues must rule, and that in order to make 
 your issues win you must secure a majority of the 
 votes. Not by playing solitaire, therefore, not by 
 standing aloof as one crying in the wilderness, but by 
 honestly persuading as many as you could to sup- 
 port you, could you promote the causes which you 
 had at heart. The professional politicians and the 
 Machine leaders still thought that he was stubborn 
 and too conceited to listen to reason, but in reality 
 he had a few intimates like Billy O'Neil and Mike 
 Costello with whom he took counsel, and a group of 
 thirty or forty others, both Republican and Demo- 
 cratic, with whom he acted harmoniously on many 
 questions. 
 
 They all united to fight the Black-Horse Cavalry, 
 as the gang of "strike" legislators was called. One 
 of the most insidious bills pushed by these rascals 
 aimed at reducing the fares on the New York Ele- 
 vated Railway from ten cents to five cents. It 
 seemed so plausible! So entirely in the interest of the 
 poor man! Indeed, the affairs of the Elevated took 
 up much of Roosevelt's attention and enriched for 
 years the Black-Horse Cavalrymen and the lobby- 
 ists. He also forced the Assembly to appoint a com- 
 mission to investigate the New York City police 
 officials, the police department being at that time 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 41 
 
 notoriously corrupt. They employed as their counsel 
 George Bliss, a lawyer of prominence, with a sharp 
 tongue and a contempt for self-constituted re- 
 formers. While Roosevelt was cross-examining one 
 of the officials. Bliss, who little understood the man 
 he was dealing with, interrupted with a scornful and 
 impertinent remark. "Of course you do not mean 
 that, Mr. Bliss," said the young reformer with im- 
 pressive politeness, "for if you did we should have to 
 put you out in the street." Even in those early days, 
 when Roosevelt was in dead earnest, he had a way 
 of pointing his forefinger and of fixing his under jaw 
 which the person whom he addressed could not mis- 
 take. That forefinger was as menacing as a seven- 
 shooter. Mr. Bliss, with all the prestige of a success- 
 ful career at the bar behind him, quickly understood 
 ♦ , the meaning of the look, the gesture, and the studied 
 courtesy. He deemed it best to retract and apologize 
 at once; and it was. 
 
 Roosevelt consented to run for a third term and 
 he was elected in spite of the opposition of the vari- 
 ous elements which united to defeat him. Such a 
 man was too dangerous to be acceptable to Jay 
 Gould and the "interests," to Black-Horse Cavalry, 
 and to gangs of all kinds who made a living, di- 
 rectly or indirectly, by office-holding. His friends 
 urged him for the speakership; but this was asking 
 
'rill'.ODORl': KOOSl'Al'XT 
 4- 
 
 too much oi tlu> Democratic niajoiily, iiiid besides. 
 Ukmv were Republicans who had winced under his 
 scouruc the year before and were glad enough to de- 
 IVat him now. Occasionally, some kind elderly friend 
 would slill attempt to show him the folly of his 
 ways, and we hear reports of one gentleman, a mem- 
 Ihm- t)f the Assembly and an "old friend." who told 
 him that the great concern in life was Business, anil 
 that lawyers and judges, legislators and Congress- 
 men, existed to ser\e the ends of lousiness. "There is 
 no politics in politics." saiil this moral guide and 
 sage. But he could nt)t budge the young man, who 
 belie\ed that there are man\- considerations more 
 important than the ])olitical. 
 
 Daring this third year, he made a straight and 
 gallant tight to impro\e the condition under which 
 ciears were made in New York Citv. \W his own in- 
 vestigation. he found that the cigar-makers lived in 
 tenements, in one room, perhaps two, with their 
 families and often a boarder; these made the cigars 
 which the public bought, in ignorance of the facts. 
 Roosevelt proposed that, as a health measure which 
 would beneht alike the cigar-makers and the public, 
 this evil practice be prohibited and that the police 
 put a stop to it. His bill passed in 18S4, but the 
 next \ear the C\)urt of Appeals declared it uncon- 
 stitutional, because it deprixed the tenement-house 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 43 
 
 people of their lilx^rty and would injure the owners of 
 the tenements if they were not allowed to rent their 
 property to these tenants. In its decision, the court 
 indulged in nauseating sanctimony of this sort: "It 
 cannot be perceived how the cigar-maker is to be 
 improved in his health, or his morals, by forcing him 
 from his home and its hallowed associations and 
 beneficent influences to ply his trade elsewhere." 
 This was probably not the first time when Roose- 
 velt was enraged to find the courts of justice sleekly 
 upholding hot-beds of disease and vice, on the pre- 
 tense that they were protecting liberty. Comment- 
 ing on this episode, Mr. Washburn well says: "As 
 applied to the kind of tenement I have referred to, 
 this reference to the 'home and its hallowed associ- 
 ations ' seems grotesf4ue or tragic depending upon 
 the point of view." ^ 
 
 Amid work of this kind, fighting and fearless, 
 constantly adding to his reputation among the good 
 as a high type of reformer, and adding to the detes- 
 tation in which the bad held him, he completed his 
 third term. He resolutely refused to serve again and 
 declined the offers which were pressed upon him to 
 run for Congress; but he accepted a place on the 
 Republican National Committee. 
 
 The death of his mother on February 12, 1884, 
 
 ' Washburn, 11. 
 
44 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 followed in twenty-four hours by that of his wife, 
 who died after the birth of a daughter, brought sor- 
 row upon Roosevelt which made the burden of his 
 political work heavier and caused him to consider 
 how he should readjust his life, for he was first of all 
 a man of deep family affections and the loss of his 
 wife left him adrift. 
 
 To S. N. D. North, editor of the Utica Herald and 
 a well-wisher of his, he wrote from Albany on April 
 30, 1884: 
 
 Dear Mr. North: I wish to write you a few words just to 
 thank you for your kindness towards me, and to assure you 
 that my head will not be turned by what I well know was a 
 mainly accidental success. Although not a very old man, I 
 have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sor- 
 row too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either 
 cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over 
 success or defeat. 
 
 I have very little expectation of being able to keep on in 
 politics; my success so far has only been won by absolute 
 indifference to my future career; for I doubt if any one can 
 realize the bitter and venomous hatred with which I am re- 
 garded by the very politicians who at Utica supported me, 
 under dictation from masters who were influenced by political 
 considerations that were national and not local in their scope. 
 I realize very thoroughly the absolutely ephemeral nature of 
 the hold I have upon the people, and the very real and posi- 
 tive hostility I have excited among the politicians. I will 
 not stay in public life unless I can do so on my own terms; 
 and my ideal, whether lived up to or not, is rather a high one. 
 
 For very many reasons I will not mind going back into 
 private life for a few years. My work this winter has been 
 
BREAKING INTO POLITICS 45 
 
 very harassing, and I feel both tired and restless; for the 
 next few months I shall probably be in Dakota, and I think I 
 shall spend the next two or three years in making shooting 
 trips, either in the Far West or in the Northern woods — and 
 there will be plenty of work to do writing.^ 
 
 This letter is a striking revelation of the inmost 
 intentions of the man of twenty-five, who already 
 stood on a pinnacle where hard heads and mature 
 might well have been dizzy. Evidently he knew him- 
 self, and even in his brief experience with the world 
 he understood how uncertain and evanescent are the 
 winds of Fame. If he had ever suffered from a 
 "swelled head," he was now cured. He felt the empti- 
 ness of life's prizes when the dearest who should 
 have shared them with him were dead. 
 
 ^ Douglas, 41-42. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS 
 
 THE year 1884 was a Presidential year, and 
 Roosevelt was one of the four delegates-at- 
 large^ of New York State to the Republican National 
 Convention at Chicago. The day seemed to have 
 come for a new birth in American politics. The 
 Republican Party was grown fat with four and 
 twenty years of power, and the fat had overlain and 
 smothered its noble aims. The party was arrogant, 
 it was corrupt, it was unashamed. After the War, 
 immense projects involving huge sums of money 
 had to be managed, and the Republicans spent like 
 spendthrifts when they did not spend like embez- 
 zlers. I do not imply that the Democrats would not 
 have done the same if they had been in command, 
 or that there were not among them many who saw 
 where their profit lay, and took it. The quadrupeds 
 which feed at the Treasury trough are all of one 
 species, no matter whether their skins be black or 
 white. 
 
 But now a new generation was springing up, with 
 
 ^ The other delegates-at-large were President Andrew D. White of 
 Cornell University, J. T. Gilbert, and Edwin Packard. 
 
AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS 47 
 
 its leaven of hope and idealism and its intuitive faith 
 in honesty. More completely than any one else, 
 Roosevelt embodied to the country the glorious 
 promise of this new generation. But the old always 
 dies hard after it has long been the blood and mind 
 of a creed, a class, or a party. Terrible also is the 
 blind, remorseless sweep of a custom which may 
 have sprung up from good soil, not less than one 
 spawned and nurtured in iniquity. Frankenstein 
 laboriously constructing his monster seems to per- 
 sonify society at its immemorial task of creating 
 institutions; each institution as it becomes viable 
 rends its creator. 
 
 So the Republican Party lived on its traditions, 
 its privileges, its appetites, its arrogance, and it 
 refused to be transmuted by its youngest members. 
 In 1876 it resorted to fraud to perpetuate its hold on 
 power. Unchastened in 1880, three hundred and six 
 of its delegates attempted through thick and thin 
 to force the nomination of General Grant for a third 
 term. The chief opposing candidate was James G. 
 Blaine, whose unsavory reputation, however, caused 
 the majority of the convention which was not pledged 
 to Grant to repudiate Blaine and to choose Garfield 
 as a compromise. Then followed four years of fac- 
 tional bitterness in the party, and Vv^hen 1884 came 
 round, Blaine's admirers pushed him to the front. 
 
48 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Blaine himself was not a person of delicate in- 
 stinct. The repudiation which he had twice suffered 
 by the better element of the Republican Party, 
 seemed only to redouble his determination to be its 
 candidate. He had much personal magnetism. Both 
 in his methods and ideals, he represented perfectly 
 the politicians who during the dozen years after 
 Lincoln's death flourished at Washington, and at 
 every State capitol in the Union. By the luck of a 
 catching phrase applied to him by Robert G. Inger- 
 soll, he stood before the imagination of the country 
 "as the plumed knight," although on looking back 
 we search in vain for any trait of knightliness or 
 chivalry in him. For a score of years he filled the 
 National Congress, House and Senate, with the 
 bustle of his egotism. His knightly valor consisted 
 in shaking his fist at the "Rebel Brigadiers" and in 
 waving the "bloody shirt," feats which seemed to 
 him heroic, no doubt, but which were safe enough, 
 the Brigadiers being few and Blaine's supporters 
 many. But where on the Nation's statute book do 
 you find now a single important law fathered by 
 him? What book contains one of his maxims for men 
 to live by? Many persons still live who knew him, 
 and remember him, but can any of them repeat a 
 saying of his which passes current on the lips of 
 Americans? So much sound and fury, so much 
 
AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS 49 
 
 intrigue and sophistry, and self-seeking, and now 
 the silence of an empty sepulchre ! 
 
 The better element of the Republican Party went 
 to the Chicago Convention sworn to save the party 
 from the disgrace of nominating Blaine. Roosevelt 
 believed the charges against him, and by all that he 
 had written and spoken, and by his political career, 
 he was bound to oppose the politician, who, as 
 Speaker of the National House, had, by the showing 
 of his own letters, taken bribes from unscrupulous 
 interests. In the convention, and in the committee 
 meetings, and in the incessant parleys which pre- 
 pare the work of a convention, Roosevelt fought un- 
 waveringly against Blaine. The better element made 
 Senator George F. Edmunds their candidate, and 
 Roosevelt urged his nomination on all comers. 
 
 When the convention met, Mr. Lodge, of Massa- 
 chusetts, nominated J. R. Lynch, a negro from 
 Mississippi, to be temporary chairman, thereby 
 heading off Powell Clayton, a veteran Republican 
 "war-horse" and office-holder. Roosevelt had the 
 honor — and it was an honor for so young a man — 
 to make a speech, which proved to be effective, in 
 Lynch's behalf; and when the vote was taken, Lynch 
 was chosen by 424 to 384. This first victory over the 
 Blaine Machine, the Edmunds men hailed as a good 
 omen. 
 
50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt was chairman of the New York State 
 delegation. The whirhng days and nights at Chicago 
 confirmed his position as a national figure, but he 
 strove in vain in behalf of honesty. The majority 
 of the delegates would not be gainsaid. They had 
 come to Chicago resolved to elect James G. Blaine, 
 and no other, and they would not quit until they 
 had accomplished this. Pleas for morality and for 
 party concord fell on deaf ears, as did warnings of 
 the comfort which Blaine's nomination would give 
 to their enemies. His supporters packed the great 
 convention hall, and when his name was put in 
 nomination, there followed a riot of cheers, which 
 lasted the better part of an hour, and foreboded his 
 success. 
 
 As had been predicted, Blaine's nomination split 
 the Republican Party. Many of the better element 
 came out for Grover Cleveland, the Democratic 
 candidate, who, as Governor of New York, had dis- 
 played unfailing courage, integrity, and intelligence. 
 Others again, disgusted with many of the principles 
 and leaders of both parties, formed themselves into 
 a special group or party of Independents. They were 
 hateful alike to the Bosses who controlled the 
 Republican or Democratic organization; and Charles 
 A. Dana, of the New York Sun, who took care never 
 to be "on the side of the angels," derisively dubbed 
 
AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS 51 
 
 them "mugwumps" — a title which may carry an 
 honorable meaning to posterity. 
 
 I was one of these Independents, and if I cite my 
 own case, it is not because it was of any importance 
 to the public, but because it was typical. During 
 the days of suspense before the Chicago Convention 
 met, the proposed nomination of Blaine weighed 
 upon me like a nightmare. I would not admit to 
 myself that so great a crime against American ideals 
 could be committed by delegates who represented 
 the standard of any political party, and were drawn 
 from all over the country. I cherished, what seems 
 to me now the sadly foolish dream, that with Roose- 
 velt in the convention the abomination could not 
 be done. I thought of him as of a paladin against 
 whom the forces of evil would dash themselves to 
 pieces. I thought of him as the young and dauntless 
 spokesman of righteousness whose words would 
 silence the special pleaders of iniquity. I wrote him 
 and besought him to stand firm. 
 
 There followed the days of suspense when the 
 newspapers brought news of the wild proceedings 
 at the convention, and for me the shadow deepened. 
 Then the telegraph reported Blaine's triumphant 
 nomination. I waited, we all waited, to learn what 
 the delegates who opposed him intended to do. One 
 morning a dispatch in the New York Tribune an- 
 
52 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 nounced that Roosevelt would not bolt. That very 
 day I had a little note from him saying that he had 
 done his best in Chicago, that the result sickened 
 him, that he should, however, support the Republi- 
 can ticket; but he intended to spend most of the 
 summer and autumn hunting in the West. 
 
 I was dumfounded. I felt as Abolitionists felt 
 after Webster's Seventh of March speech. My old 
 acquaintance, our trusted leader, whose career in 
 the New York Assembly we had watched with an 
 almost holy satisfaction, seemed to have strangely 
 abandoned the fundamental principles which we and 
 he had believed in, and he had so nobly upheld. 
 Whittier's poem "Ichabod" seemed to have been 
 aimed at him, especially in its third stanza: 
 
 "Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age, 
 Falls back in night." 
 
 Amid the lurid gleams and heat of such a disap- 
 pointment, men cannot see clearly. They impute 
 wrong motives, base motives, to the backslider. In 
 their wrath, they assume that only guilt can account 
 for his defection. 
 
 We see plainly enough now that we misjudged 
 Roosevelt. We assumed that because he was with us 
 in the crusade for pure politics, he agreed with us in 
 
AT THE FIRST CROSSROADS 53 
 
 the estimate we put on party loyalty. Independents 
 and mugwumps felt little reverence and set even 
 less value on political parties, which we regarded 
 simply as instruments to be used in carrying out 
 policies. If a party pursued a policy contrary to our 
 own, we left it as we should leave a train which we 
 found going in the wrong direction. There was 
 nothing sacred in a political party. 
 
 In assuming that Roosevelt must have coincided 
 with us in these views, we did him wrong. For he 
 held then, and had held since he first entered poli- 
 tics, that party transcended persons, and that only 
 in the gravest case imaginable was one justified in 
 bolting his party because one disapproved of its 
 candidate. He did not respect Blaine; on the con- 
 trary, he regarded Blaine as a bad man: but he be- 
 lieved that the future of the country would be much 
 safer under the control of the Republican Party 
 than under the Democratic. This doctrine exposes 
 its adherents to obvious criticism, if not to suspicion. 
 It enables persons of callous consciences to support 
 bad platforms and bad candidates without blush- 
 ing; but after all, who shall say at what point you 
 are justified in bolting your party? The decision 
 must rest with the individual. And although it was 
 hard for the bolting Independents in 1884 to accept 
 the tenet that party transcends persons, it was 
 
^, 'iiiinnoKi': Koosi'A'ici.'i' 
 
 K,.,.s(>v(>irs KMson. aiul with Iiin) siiuviv. Some of 
 liis loIliMy'.iirs in llu' lulln rlciiuiil wlio li.id Stru^- 
 yjvil .u; lu- li.ul <<> «ltUM< l^l.niH\ and lluii. almost 
 ,<nnsi\cl\-. »>\.ill.-(l lU.iiiir .is llicii slaiulanl-luMivr, 
 wiMr K^s^. loi timatc (haii \u' in lia\ in;.-, (luir sincerity 
 Jnul>l(-(1. ('.roir.c William Cm lis. Call Sc-hmv, 
 Cli.uKs l'"iaiuis Ailams, aiul ollu-r IikKikmuKmUs 
 ,)| iluir intian>i:.;rnl (rniinr lornird a Miii;\vuiui) 
 l\ut\ aiul iliis (miu-d ilu> sralc in i-KH'ting (irovrr 
 ( ■li-\i-l.nul i'lrsidcnl. 
 
 I'luu- nstui lo lu' miuh disriishion as to who \)vv- 
 suadrd l\(n>sc\('ll, .illluHi;^li lir drti'Strd l>laiiU', (t) 
 s(an(l b\ llir l\ipul>lii'ans in iSS.|. Thosi^ wiMV tlu- 
 daNs wlun \rr\ tow <A his riitics undcrstooil that, 
 in spiti" iA his >oiilh. \\c had ahi\id\- thoiiv^ht lor 
 himst^ll" (Ml politics and had rcarhod ccitain conclu- 
 sions as to Iniulanuntal piinciplcs. I'hcsc t'ritics 
 assmncd that he mnst ha\c hccn wiMi incv 1>\' I lcnr\' 
 ('.ihot 1 ih1;^c, with wluMH he had h-ciat intimatv* 
 since his lhn\atd daNs. and who was siipiM^seil to 
 he his jH^hiicil mentoi'. The truth is. howe\er, that 
 Koose\elt havl hn'med his own opinion <ilHnit bolt- 
 in^:. and that he aiul Lodj^e. in discussiiij; possibili- 
 ties helore the\ went to the Chicai;o Convoiuion, had 
 ii\dependentl\ a;-;iee(.l that the\' must abide by the 
 choice o\ the pari\ there. They held, and a majorit)' 
 ot n\en in sinhlar posiiion still hold, thai dclei^ates 
 
AT THE f JKS'J ' OAJyS 55 
 
 thfc rftajority in a </r ■--'■' -r - '-' *' - -^-.--^ -.- 
 
 to f/T'r/aii, th':T*; >; rj/> ijL*^; in ' v>n- 
 
 vfrntjV/n.'4 at all, Ar>.d ^it/rr t- ;, ('/f-fr'^/-, 
 
 William Curti',, or>/; o "* of th*i In- 
 
 dfepen/i/:mt'», '^mhvA iSn^ R/x/^^^t^ in stayitj^ 
 ' %'ith t'- ^' ' " "' ' ' '/*A thft Ti^Tfih fa:r1v. 
 Whil^; Curt, / '/A t/j r/r'/jh.r,:7Jt 
 
 thft Muj^^ A, R'-x/yr/':!* < to th/; 
 
 West, r*; '/ Yor . : trx^k a ■/r^//ff/j;^, 
 
 f/art in thft r:arnT/ai^- 
 
 Neverth^;l/:<srj, R/x/»^r/dtV ^.-^'---.^ ;p j>;j4^^ to 
 cleave t/^. '" ' v?d rrianv 
 
 of us. We ' V/rrjft 
 
 critics in th^Hr i; ;re i- ,-; 
 
 fake motives to him; but in , • - 
 
 picion ro!1'::d away and htf action in **"-* ^-'* -'- wa* 
 not laid up ' ' -r,. ,-,.-, _l 
 
 r':!:V/ed hirn oi p»frr:urj^torjr/ to J 
 
 Bkirie. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 NATURE THE HEALER 
 
 A PERFECT biography would show definitely 
 the interaction between mind and body. At 
 present we can only guess what this interaction 
 may be. In some cases the relations are evident, 
 but in most they are vague and often unsuspected. 
 The psychologists, whose pretensions are so great 
 and whose actual results are still so small, may per- 
 haps lead, an age or two hence, to the desired knowl- 
 edge. But the biographer of today must beware 
 of adopting the unripe formulas of any immature 
 science. Nevertheless, he must watch, study, and 
 record all the facts pertaining to his subject, al- 
 though he cannot explain them. 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt was a wonderful example 
 of the partnership of mind and body, and any one 
 who writes his biography in detail v/ill do well to 
 pay great heed to this intricate interlocking. I can 
 do no more than allude to it here. We have seen 
 that Roosevelt from his earliest days had a quick 
 mind, happily not precocious, and a weak body 
 which prevented him from taking part in normal 
 physical activity and the play and sport of boy- 
 
NATURE THE HEALER 57 
 
 hood. So his intellectual life grew out of scale to his 
 physical. Then he set to work by the deliberate ap- 
 plication of will-power to develop his body, and 
 when he entered Harvard he was above the average 
 youth in strength. Before he' graduated, those who 
 saw him box or wrestle beheld a fellow somewhat 
 slim and light, but unusually well set up. During 
 the succeeding four years he never allowed his duties 
 as Assemblyman to encroach upon his exercise; 
 on the contrary, he played regularly and he played 
 hard, adding new kinds of sport to develop new 
 faculties and to give the spice of variety. He rode 
 to hounds with the Meadowbrook Hunt; he took 
 up polo; and he boxed and wrestled as in his college 
 days. 
 
 In a few years Roosevelt became physically a 
 very powerful man." I recall my astonishment the 
 first time I saw him, after the lapse of several years, 
 to find him with the neck of a Titan and with 
 broad shoulders and stalwart chest, instead of the 
 city-bred, slight young friend I had known earlier. 
 His body was now equal to any burden or strain 
 which his mind might have to endure; and hence- 
 forth it is no idle fancy that suggests a perpetual 
 competition between the two. Thanks to his ex- 
 traordinary will, however, he never allowed his 
 body to get control; but, as appetite comes with 
 
58 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 eating, so his strong and healthy muscles craved 
 more and more exercise as he used them. And now 
 he took a novel way to gratify them. 
 
 Ever since his first taste of camp life, when he 
 went into the Maine Woods under the guidance 
 of Bill Sewall and Will Dow, Roosevelt felt the lure 
 of wild nature, and on many successive seasons he 
 repeated these trips. Gradually, fishing and hunting 
 in the wilderness of Maine or the Adirondacks did 
 not afford him enough scope for his brimming vigor. 
 He decided to go West, to the real West, where 
 great game and Indians still survived, and the con- 
 ditions of the few white men were almost as primi- 
 tive as in the days of the earliest explorers. When 
 the session of 1883 adjourned, he started for North 
 Dakota, then a territory with a few settlers, and 
 among the Bad Lands on the Little Missouri he 
 bought an interest in two cattle ranches, the Chim- 
 ney Butte and the Elkhorn. The following year, 
 after the Presidential campaign which placed Cleve- 
 land in the White House, Roosevelt determined, 
 as we saw in the letters I have quoted, to abandon 
 the East for a time and to devote himself to a ranch- 
 man 's Ufe. He was still in deep grief at the loss of 
 his wife and of his mother; there was no immediate 
 prospect of usefulness for him in politics; the con- 
 ventions of civilization, as he knew them in New 
 
NATURE THE HEALER 59 
 
 York City, palled upon him; a sure instinct whis- 
 pered to him that he must break away and seek 
 health of body and heart and soul among the re- 
 mote, unspoiled haunts of primeval Nature. For 
 nearly two years, with occasional intervals spent 
 in the East, the Elkhorn Ranch at Medora was his 
 home, and he has described the life of the ranchman 
 and cow-puncher in pages which are sure to be read 
 as long as posterity takes any interest in knowing 
 about the transition of the American West from 
 wilderness to civilization. He shared in all the work 
 of the ranch. He took with a "frolic welcome" the 
 humdrum of its routine as well as its excitements 
 and dangers. He says that he does not believe that 
 there was ever any more attractive life for a vigor- 
 ous young fellow than this, and assuredly no one 
 else has glorified it as Roosevelt did with his pen. 
 
 At one time or another he performed all the duties 
 of a ranchman. He went on long rides after the cattle, 
 he rounded them up, he helped to brand them and 
 to cut out the beeves destined for the Eastern mar- 
 ket. He followed the herd when it stampeded during 
 a terrific thunderstorm. In winter there was often 
 need to save the wandering cattle from a sudden 
 and deadly blizzard. The log cabin or "shack" in 
 which he dwelt was rough, and so was the fare ; com- 
 forts were few. He chopped the cottonwood which 
 
6o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 they used for fuel; he knew how to care for the 
 ponies; and once at least he passed more than 
 twenty-four hours in the saddle without sleep. Ac- 
 cording to the best standards, he says, he was not 
 a fine horseman, but it is clear that he could do 
 everything with a horse which had to be done, and 
 that he never stopped from fatigue. When they 
 needed fresh meat, he would shoot it. In short, he 
 held his own under all the hardships and require- 
 ments demanded of a cowboy or ranchman. 
 
 To adapt himself to these wild conditions of na- 
 ture and work was, however, only a part of his ex- 
 perience. Even more dangerous than pursuing a 
 stampeding herd at night over the plains, and plung- 
 ing into the Little Missouri after it, was intercourse 
 with some of the lawless nomads of that pioneer 
 region. Nomads they were, though they might set- 
 tle down to work for a while on one ranch, and then 
 pass on to another; the sort of creatures who loafed 
 in the saloons of the little villages and amused them- 
 selves by running amuck and shooting up the town. 
 These men, and indeed nearly all of the pioneers, 
 held the man from the civilized East, the "tender- 
 foot, " in scorn. They took it for granted that he was 
 a weakling, that he had soft ideas of life and was 
 stuck-up or affected. Now Roosevelt saw that in 
 order to win their trust and respect, he must show 
 
NATURE THE HEALER 6i 
 
 himself equal to their tasks, a true comrade, who 
 accepted their code of courage and honor. The fact 
 that he wore spectacles was against him at the out- 
 set, because they associated spectacles with Eastern 
 schoolmasters and incompetence. They called him 
 "Four Eyes," at first with derision, but they soon 
 discovered that in him they had no "tenderfoot" 
 to deal with. He shot as well as the best of them; he 
 rode as far; he never complained of food or tasks 
 or hardship; he met every one on equal terms. 
 Above all, he left no doubt as to his courage. He 
 would not pick a quarrel nor would he avoid one. 
 Many stories of his prowess circulated; mere heck- 
 ling, or a practical joke, he took with a laugh; as 
 when some of the men changed the saddle from his 
 pony to a bucking broncho. 
 
 But he knew where to draw the line. At Medora, 
 for instance, the Marquis de Mores, a French settler, 
 assumed the attitude of a feudal proprietor. Having 
 been the first to squat in that region he regarded 
 those who came later as interlopers, and he and his 
 men acted very sullenly. They even carried their 
 ill-will and intimidation to the point of shooting. 
 In due time the Marquis discovered cause for griev- 
 ance against Roosevelt, and he sent him a letter 
 warning the newcomer that if the cause were not 
 removed the Marquis knew how one gentleman 
 
62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 settles a dispute with another. Roosevelt despised 
 dueling as a silly practice, which would not deter- 
 mine justice between disputants; but he knew that 
 in Cowboy Land the duel, being regarded as a test 
 of courage, must not be ignored by him. Any man 
 who declined a challenge lost caste and had better 
 leave the country at once. So Roosevelt within an 
 hour dispatched a reply to the surly Marquis saying 
 that he was ready to meet him at any time and 
 naming the rifle, at twelve paces' distance, as the 
 weapon that he preferred. The Marquis, a formida- 
 ble swordsman but no shot, sent back word, ex- 
 pressing regret that Mr. Roosevelt had mistaken 
 his meaning: in referring to "gentlemen knowing 
 how to settle disputes," he meant that of course 
 an amicable explanation would restore harmony. 
 Thenceforward, he treated Roosevelt with efiFusive 
 courtesy. Perhaps a chill ran down his back at 
 the thought of standing up before an antagonist 
 twelve paces away and that the fighters were to 
 advance towards each other three paces after each 
 round, until one of them was killed. 
 
 So Theodore fought no duel with either the French 
 Marquis or with any one else during his life in the 
 West, but he had several encounters with local des- 
 peradoes. One cold night in winter, having ridden 
 far and knowing that he could reach no refuge for 
 
NATURE THE HEALER 63 
 
 many hours, he unexpectedly sarw.' a ^ t. G^irr 
 txiwards it, he found that it caioe from a cai.:. „ r. 
 ser\-ed as saloon and tavern. Or. ^'r.^.-^rz h^ r^- 
 a group of loafers and drinkers r ^re az : 
 
 terrorized b>' a big fellow, rather zi-rr -. - : 
 
 drunk, u-ho prcrved to be -. ; . The func- 
 
 tion of this person was t^ :.-_ntaiii hi= b"^>-=?Jp 
 against all comers: a' ''"'-rly. he s::' :^_ n 
 Roosevelt, who held nis peace as long a^s .' ' i 
 
 Then the rowdy, who i his ^ 
 
 hands, ordered the "four-e>'t -root to cone 
 
 to the bar and set up drinks wd. Ro^i"^- 
 
 velt walked dehberately towards 
 the bulh' suspected it, " ' ' - - 
 with a sledgehamr - yw. i: 
 off wide of its rr 1- : 
 Before he could r 
 ready to pound him again. But -^: _ , _ _ : 
 stir, and he was ci — ' ~ :5 into an:thrr icy^ni. ine 
 crowd congrar_" r—i - '"ing served 
 
 him right- 
 
 At anotho" place, there was a ''z-'-i in" who 
 surpassed the rest (rf his fellows in us: ^ - 
 
 guage. Roosevelt, wh- ..- _ obscemr;.' as „; _ _ 
 any other form erf filth. tir-_ .: t".:? zzz "ii ? ~^-^ 
 and told him vay calmly : 
 his nastiness. Instead c: ing nis g^jn. as tne dv- 
 
 _J". ,.'• 
 
 - 
 
 
 - r'm 
 
 ng. a 
 y lay 
 
 - 
 
 
 - - 
 
 in 
 
 a 
 
 faint. 
 
 
 
 
64 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 standers thought he would do, Jim looked sheepish, 
 acknowledging the charge, and changed his tone. 
 He remained a loyal friend of his corrector. 
 
 Cattle-thieves and horse-thieves infested the 
 West of those days. To steal a ranchman's horse 
 might not only cause him great annoyance, but 
 even put his life in danger, and accordingly the 
 rascals who engaged in this form of crime ranked 
 as the worst of all and received no mercy when they 
 were caught. If the sheriff of the region was lax, the 
 settlers took the matter into their own hands, en- 
 rolled themselves as vigilantes, hunted the thieves 
 down, hanged those whom they captured, and shot 
 at sight those who tried to escape. It happened that 
 the sheriff, in whose jurisdiction Medora lay, al- 
 lowed so many thieves to get off that he was sus- 
 pected of being in collusion with them. The ranch- 
 men held a meeting at which he was present and 
 Roosevelt told him in very plain words their com- 
 plaint against him and their suspicions. Though 
 he was a hot-tempered man, and very quick on 
 the trigger, he showed no willingness to shoot his 
 bold young accuser; he knew, of course, that the 
 ranchmen would have taken vengeance on him in 
 a flash, but it is also possible that he recognized the 
 truth of Roosevelt's accusation and felt compunc- 
 tions. 
 
NATURE THE HEALER 65 
 
 Some time later Roosevelt showed how a zealous 
 officer of the law — he was the acting deputy sheriff 
 — ought to behave. He had a boat in which he used 
 to cross the Little Missouri to his herds on the other 
 side. One day he missed the boat, its rope having 
 been cut, and he inferred that it must have been 
 stolen by three cat tie- thieves who had been oper- 
 ating in that neighborhood. By means of it they 
 could easily escape, for there was no road along 
 the river on which horsemen could pursue them. 
 Notwithstanding this, Roosevelt resolved that they 
 should not go free. In three days Bill Sewall and 
 Dow built a flat, water-tight craft, on which they 
 put enough food to last for a fortnight, and then all 
 three started downstream. They had drifted and 
 poled one hundred and fifty miles or more, before 
 they saw a faint column of smoke in the bushes 
 near the bank. It proved to be the temporary camp 
 of the fugitives, whom they quickly took prisoners, 
 put into the boat, and carried another one hundred 
 and fifty miles down the river to the nearest town 
 with a jail and a court. Going and coming, Roose- 
 velt spent nearly three weeks, not to mention the 
 hardships which he and his trusty men suffered on 
 the way; but he had served Justice, and Justice 
 must be served at any cost. When the story be- 
 came known, the admiration of his neighbors for 
 
66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 his pluck and persistence rose; but they wondered 
 why he took the trouble to make the extra journey, 
 in order to deliver the prisoners to the jail, instead 
 of shooting them where he overtook them, 
 
 I chronicle these examples of Roosevelt's courage 
 among the lawless gangs with whom he was thrown 
 in North Dakota, because they reveal several quali- 
 ties which came to be regarded as peculiarly Roose- 
 veltian during the rest of his days. We are apt to 
 speak of "mere" physical courage as being inferior 
 to moral courage; and doubtless there are many 
 heroes unknown to the world who, under the tor- 
 ture of disease or the poignancy of social injustice 
 and wTongs, deserv^e the highest crown of heroism. 
 Men who would lead a charge in battle would shrink 
 from denouncing an accepted convention or even 
 from slighting a popular fashion. But after all, the 
 instinct of the race is sound in revering those who 
 give their lives without hesitation or regret at the 
 point of deadly peril, or offer their own to save the 
 lives of others. 
 
 Roosevelt's experience established in him that 
 physical courage which his soul had aspired to in boy- 
 hood, when the consciousness of his bodily inferior- 
 ity made him seem shy and almost timid. Now he 
 had a bodily frame which could back up any reso- 
 lution he might take. The emergencies in a ranch- 
 
NATURE THE HEALER 67 
 
 man's career also trained him to be quick to will, 
 instantaneous in his decisions, and equally quick in 
 the muscular activity by which he carried them out. 
 In a community whose members gave way to sudden 
 explosions of passion, you might be shot dead un- 
 less you got the drop on the other fellow first. The 
 anecdotes I have repeated, indicate that Roosevelt 
 must often have outsped his opponent in drawing. 
 We learn from them, too, that he was far from 
 being the pugnacious person whom many of his 
 later critics insisted that he was. Having given am- 
 ple proof to the frontiersmen that he had no fear, 
 he resolutely kept the peace with them, and they had 
 no desire to break peace with him. Bluster and swag- 
 ger were foreign to his nature, and he loathed a bully 
 as much as a coward. If we had not already had the 
 record of his three years in the Legislature, in which 
 he surprised his friends by his wonderful talent for 
 mixing with all sorts of persons, we might marvel 
 at his ability to meet the cowboys and ranchmen, 
 and even the desperadoes, of the Little Missouri 
 on equal terms, to win the respect of all of them, 
 and the lifelong devotion of a few. They knew that 
 the usual tenderfoot, however much he might wish 
 to fraternize, was fended from them by his past, 
 his traditions, his civilized life, his instincts; but 
 in Roosevelt's case, there was no gulf, no barrier. 
 
68 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Even after he became President of the United States, 
 I can no more imagine that he felt embarrassment 
 in meeting any one, high or low, than that he scru- 
 tinized the coat on a man's back in order to know 
 how to treat him. 
 
 To have gained solid health, to have gained mas- 
 tery of himself, and to have put his social nature 
 to the severest test and found it flawless, were valid 
 results of his life on the Elkhorn Ranch. It imparted 
 to him also a knowledge which was to prove most 
 precious to him in the unforeseen future. For it 
 taught him the immense diversity of the people, 
 and consequently of the interests, of the United 
 States. It gave him a national point of view, in 
 which he perceived that the standards and desires 
 of the Atlantic States were not all-inclusive or 
 final. Yet while it impressed on him the importance 
 of geographical considerations, it impressed, more 
 deeply still, the fact that there are moral funda- 
 mentals not to be measured by geography, or by 
 time, or by race. Lincoln learned this among the 
 pioneers of Illinois; in similar fashion Roosevelt 
 learned it in the Bad Lands of Dakota with their 
 pioneers and exiles from civilization, and from 
 studying the depths of his own nature. 
 
o 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BACK TO THE EAST AND LITERATURE 
 
 NE September day in 1886, Roosevelt was 
 reading a New York newspaper in his Elk- 
 horn cabin, when he saw that he had been nomi- 
 nated by a body of Independents as candidate for 
 Mayor of New York City. Whether he had been 
 previously consulted or not, I do not know, but he 
 evidently accepted the nomination as a call, for he 
 at once packed up his things and started East. The 
 political situation in the metropolis was somewhat 
 abnormal. The United Democracy had nominated for 
 Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, a merchant of high stand- 
 ing, one of those decent persons whom Tammany 
 Hall puts forward to attract respectable citizens 
 when it finds itself in a tight place and likely to be 
 defeated. At such a pinch, Tammany even politely 
 keeps in the background and allows it to appear 
 that the decent candidate is wholly the choice of 
 decent Democrats: for the Tammany Tiger wears, 
 so to speak, a reversible skin which, when turned in- 
 side out, shows neither stripes nor claws. Mr. Hew- 
 itt's chief opponent was Henry George, put up 
 by the United Labor Party, which had suddenly 
 
70 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 swelled into importance, and had discovered in 
 the author of "Progress and Poverty" and in the 
 advocate of the Single Tax a candidate whose pri- 
 vate character was generally respected, even by 
 those who most hated his economic teachings. The 
 mere thought that such a Radical should be pro- 
 posed for Mayor scared, not merely the Big Inter- 
 ests, but the owners of real estate and intangible 
 property. 
 
 Against these redoubtable competitors, the In- 
 dependents and Republicans pitted Roosevelt, hop- 
 ing that his prestige and personal popularity would 
 carry the day. He made a plucky campaign, but 
 Hewitt won, with Henry George second. In his 
 letter of acceptance he went straight at the mark, 
 which was that the government of the city was 
 strictly a business affair. "I very earnestly depre- 
 cate," he says, "all attempts to introduce any class 
 or caste feeling into the mayoralty contest. Labor- 
 ers and capitalists alike are interested in having 
 an honest and economical city government, and 
 if elected I shall certainly strive to be the repre- 
 sentative of all good citizens, paying heed to nothing 
 whatever but the general well-being." ^ When Tam- 
 many reverses its hide, the Republicans in New York 
 City need not expect victory; and in 1886 Henry 
 
 ^ Riis, loi. 
 
BACK TO THE EAST 71 
 
 George drew off a good many votes which would 
 ordinarily have been cast for Roosevelt. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fight was worth making. It re- 
 introduced him to the public, which had not heard 
 him for two years, and it helped erase from men's 
 memories the fact that he had supported Blaine in 
 1884. His contest with Hewitt and George set him 
 in his true light — a Republican by conviction, a 
 party man, also by conviction, but above all the 
 fearless champion of what he believed to be the 
 right, in its struggle against economic heresy and 
 political corruption. 
 
 The election over, Roosevelt went to Europe, and 
 on December 2, 1886, at St. George's, Hanover 
 Square, London, he married Miss Edith Kermit 
 Carow, of New York, whom he had known since 
 his earliest childhood, the playmate of his sister 
 Corinne, the little girl whose photograph had stirred 
 up in him "homesickness and longings for the past," 
 when he was a little boy in Paris. Cecil Spring-Rice, 
 an old friend (subsequently British Ambassador 
 at Washington), was his groomsman, and being 
 married at St. George's, Theodore remarks, "made 
 me feel as if I were living in one of Thackeray's 
 novels." 
 
 Mrs. Roosevelt's father came of Huguenot stock, 
 the name being originally Quereau; the first French 
 
72 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 immigrants of the family having migrated to New 
 York in the seventeenth century at about the same 
 time as Claes van Roosevelt. Like the Roosevelts, 
 the Carows had so freely intermarried with English 
 stock in America that the French origin of one was 
 as little discernible in their descendants as was the 
 Dutch origin of the other. Through her American 
 line Mrs. Roosevelt traced back to Jonathan Ed- 
 wards, the prolific ancestor of many persons who 
 emerged above the common level by either their 
 virtue or their badness. 
 
 After spending several months in Europe, Mr, 
 and Mrs. Roosevelt returned and settled at Oyster 
 Bay, Long Island, where he had built, not long 
 before, a country house on Sagamore Hill. His place 
 there comprised many acres — a beautiful country of 
 hill and hollow and fine tall trees. The Bay made in 
 from Long Island Sound and seemed to be closed by 
 the opposite shore, so that in calm weather you might 
 mistake it for a lake. This home was thoroughly 
 adapted for Roosevelt's needs. Being only thirty 
 miles from New York, with a railroad near by, con- 
 venient but not intrusive, it gave easy access to the 
 city, but was remote enough to discourage casual 
 or undesired callers. It had sufficient land to carry 
 on farming and to sustain the necessary horses and 
 domestic cattle. Mrs. Roosevelt supervised it; he 
 
BACK TO THE EAST 73 
 
 simply loved it and got distraction from his more 
 pressing affairs; if he had chosen to withdraw from 
 these he might have devoted himself to the pleasing 
 and leisurely life of a gentleman farmer. 
 
 For a while his chief occupation was literary. 
 Into this he pitched with characteristic energy. 
 His innate craving for self-expression could never 
 be satiated by speaking alone, and now, since he 
 filled no public position which would be a cause or 
 perhaps an excuse for speaking, he wrote with all 
 the more enthusiasm. 
 
 Although he was less than seven years out of 
 college, his political career had given him a na- 
 tional reputation, which helped and was helped by 
 the vogue of his writings. The American public 
 had come to perceive that Theodore Roosevelt 
 could do nothing commonplace. The truth was, 
 that he did many things that other men did which 
 ceased to be commonplace only when he did them. 
 Scores of other young men went on hunting trips 
 after big game in the Rockies or the Selklrks, and 
 even ranching had been engaged in by the enter- 
 prising and the adventurous, who hoped to find it 
 a short way to a fortune. But whether as ranch- 
 man or as hunter, Roosevelt was better known than 
 all the rest. His skill in describing his experiences 
 no doubt largely accounted for this; but the fact 
 
74 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 that the experiences were his, was the ultimate ex- 
 planation. 
 
 Roosevelt began to write very early. He thought 
 that the instruction in rhetoric w^iich he received 
 at Harvard enlightened him, and during his Senior 
 year he began the "History of the Naval War of 
 1812," which he completed and published in 1882. 
 This work at once won recognition for him, and it 
 differed from the traditional accounts, embedded 
 in the school histories of the United States, in doing 
 full justice to the British naval operations. Probably, 
 for the first time, our people realized that the War 
 of 1812 had not been a series of victories, startling 
 and irresistible, for the American Navy. Nearly ten 
 years later, Roosevelt in the "Winning of the West" 
 made his second excursion into history. These 
 volumes, which eventually numbered six, are re- 
 garded by experts in the subject as of great value, 
 and I suppose that in them Roosevelt did more than 
 any other writer to popularize the study of the his- 
 torical origin and development of the vast region 
 west of the Alleghanies which now forms a vital part 
 of the American Republic. One attribute of a real 
 historian is the power to discern the structural or 
 pregnant quality of historic periods and episodes; 
 and this power Roosevelt displayed in choosing 
 both the War of 1812 and the Winning of the West. 
 
BACK TO THE EAST 75 
 
 In his larger history Roosevelt had a swift, ener- 
 getic, and direct style. He never lacked for ideas. 
 Descriptions came to him with exuberant details 
 of which he selected enough to leave his reader 
 with the feeling that he had looked on a vivid and 
 accurate picture. Here, for instance, is a portrait 
 of Daniel Boon which seems remarkably lifelike, be- 
 cause I remember how difficult other writers find it 
 to individualize most of the figures of the pioneers. 
 
 The backwoodsmen, he says, "all tilled their own 
 clearings, guiding the plow among the charred 
 stumps left when the trees were chopped down and 
 the land burned over, and they were all, as a matter 
 of course, hunters. With Boon, hunting and explora- 
 tion were passions, and the lonely life of the wilder- 
 ness, with its bold, wild freedom, the only existence 
 for which he really cared. He was a tall, spare, 
 sinewy man, with eyes like an eagle's, and muscles 
 that never tired; the toil and hardship of his life 
 made no impress on his iron frame, unhurt by in- 
 temperance of any kind, and he lived for eighty-six 
 years, a backwoods hunter to the end of his days. 
 His thoughtful, quiet, pleasant face, so often por- 
 trayed, is familiar to every one; it was the face of 
 a man who never blustered or bullied, who would 
 neither inflict nor suffer any wrong, and who had a 
 limitless fund of fortitude, endurance, and indomit- 
 
76 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 able resolution upon which to draw when fortune 
 proved adverse. His self-command and patience, 
 his daring, restless love of adventure, and, in time of 
 danger, his absolute trust in his own powers and re- 
 sources, all combined to render him peculiarly fitted 
 to follow the career of which he was so fond." ^ 
 
 Roosevelt contributed two volumes to the Amer- 
 ican Statesmen Series, one on Thomas Hart Benton 
 in 1886, and the other on Gouverneur Morris in 
 1887. The environment and careers of these two 
 men — the Missouri Senator of the first half of the 
 nineteenth century, and the New York financier of 
 the last half of the eighteenth — afforded him scope 
 for treating two very diverse subjects. He was him- 
 self rooted in the old New York soil and he had come, 
 through his life in the West, to divine the conditions 
 of Benton's days. Once again, many years later 
 (1900) he tried his hand at biography, taking Oliver 
 Cromwell for his hero, and making a summary, 
 impressionistic sketch of him. Besides the interest 
 this biography has for students of Cromwell, it has 
 also interest for students of Roosevelt, for it is a 
 specimen of the sort of by-products he threw off 
 in moments of relaxation. 
 
 More characteristic than such excursions into 
 history and biography, however, are his many books 
 ^ Winning of the West, i, 137, 138 (ed. 1889). 
 
BACK TO THE EAST 77 
 
 describing ranch life and hunting. In the former, 
 he gives you truthful descriptions of the men of the 
 West as he saw them, and in the latter he recounts 
 his adventures with elk and buffalo, wolves and 
 bears. The mere trailing and killing of these creatures 
 do not satisfy him. He studies with equal zest their 
 haunts and their habits. The naturalist in him, 
 which we recognized in his youth, found this vent 
 in his maturity. And long years afterward, on his 
 expeditions to Africa and to Brazil he dealt even 
 more exuberantly with the natural history of the 
 countries which he visited. 
 
 Two other classes of writings make up Roose- 
 velt's astonishing output. He gathered his essays 
 and addresses into half a dozen volumes, remarkable 
 alike for the wide variety of their subjects, and for 
 the vigor with which he seized on each subject as if 
 it was the one above all others which most absorbed 
 him. Finally, skim the collection of his official mes- 
 sages, as Commissioner, as Governor, or as Presi- 
 dent, and you will discover that he had the gift of 
 infusing life and color into the usually drab and 
 cheerless wastes of official documents. 
 
 I am not concerned to make a literary appraisal 
 of Theodore Roosevelt's manifold works, but I am 
 struck by the fact that our professional critics ig- 
 nore him entirely in their summaries or histories of 
 
78 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 recent American literature. As I re-read, after twenty 
 years, and in some cases after thirty years, books 
 of his which made a stir on their appearance, I am 
 impressed, not only by the excellence of their writ- 
 ing, but by their lasting quality. If he had not done 
 so many other things of greater importance, and 
 done them supremely, he would have secured lasting 
 fame by his books on hunting, ranching, and ex- 
 ploration. No other American compares with him, 
 and I know of no other, in English at least, who has 
 made a contribution in these fields equal to his. 
 
 Throughout these eight or ten volumes he proves 
 himself to be one of those rare writers who see what 
 they write. As in the case of Tennyson, than whom 
 no English poet, in spite of nearsightedness, has 
 observed so minutely the tiniest details of form 
 or the faintest nuance of color, so the lack of normal 
 vision did not prevent Roosevelt from being the 
 closest of observers. He was also, by the way, a good 
 shot with rifle or pistol. If you read one of his chap- 
 ters in ''Hunting the Grizzly" and ask yourself 
 wherein its animation and attraction lie, you will 
 find that it is because every sentence and every line 
 report things seen. He does not, like the Realist, try 
 to get a specious lifelikeness by heaping up banal 
 and commonplace facts; he selects. His imagina- 
 tion reminds one of the traveling spark which used 
 
BACK TO THE EAST 79 
 
 to run along the great chandelier in the theatre, and 
 light each jet, so that its passage seemed a flight 
 from point to point of brilliance. Wherever he fo- 
 cuses his survey a spot glows vividly. 
 
 The eye, the master sense of the mind, thus domi- 
 nates him, and I think that we shall trace to its 
 mastery much of the immediate power which he 
 exerted by his writings and speeches on public, so- 
 cial, and moral topics. He struck off, in the heat of 
 composition or of speaking, phrases and similes 
 which millions caught up eagerly and made as famil- 
 iar as household words. He even remembered from 
 his extensive reading some item which, when applied 
 by him to the affair of the moment, acquired new 
 pertinence and a second life. Thus, Bunyan's "muck- 
 raker" lives again; thus, "the curse of Meroz," and 
 many another Bible reference, springs up with a 
 fresh meaning. 
 
 No doubt the purist will find occasional lapses 
 in taste or expression, and the quibbling peddler 
 of rhetoric will gloat over some doubtful construc- 
 tion; but neither purist nor peddler of rhetoric 
 has ever been able in his writing to display the ease, 
 the rush, the naturalness, the sparkle which were 
 as genuine in Roosevelt as were the features of his 
 face. On reading these pages, which have escaped 
 the attention of the professional critics, I wonder 
 
8o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 whether they may not have a fate similar to Defoe's; 
 for Defoe also was read voraciously by his con- 
 temporaries, his pamphlets made a great rustle in 
 their time, and then the critics turned to other 
 and spicier writers. But in due season, other critics, 
 as well as the world, made the discovery that only 
 a genius could have produced Defoe's "every-day," 
 "commonplace" style. 
 
 His innate vigor, often swelling into vehemence, 
 marks also Roosevelt's political essays, and yet he 
 had time for reflection, and if you examine closely 
 even some of his combative passages, you will see 
 that they do not spring from sudden anger or scorn, 
 but from a conviction which has matured slowly in 
 him. He had not the philosophic calm which formed 
 the background of Burke's political masterpieces, 
 but he had the clearness, the simplicity, by which 
 he could drive home his thoughts into the minds 
 of the multitude. Burke spoke and wrote for thou- 
 sands and for posterity; Roosevelt addressed mil- 
 lions for the moment, and let posterity do what it 
 would with his burning appeals and invectives. He 
 was not so absolutely self-effacing as Lincoln, but 
 I think that he realized to the full the meaning of 
 Lincoln's phrase, "the world will little note, nor 
 long remember what we may say here," and that 
 he would have made it his motto. For he, like 
 
,?** 
 
 
 *r«. 
 
 Copydfllit by Underwood Si I'nderwood, N.V. 
 ROOSEVELT THE HUNTER 
 1905 
 
BACK TO THE EAST 8i 
 
 all truly great statesmen, was so immensely con- 
 cerned in winning today's battle, that he wasted 
 no time in speculating what tomorrow, or next 
 year, or next century would say about it. 
 
 Mysticism, the recurrent fad which indicates that 
 its victims neither see clear nor think straight, could 
 not spread its veils over him. The man who visu- 
 alizes is safe from that intellectual weakness and 
 moral danger. But although Roosevelt felt the sway 
 of the true emotions, he allowed only his intimates 
 to know what he held most intimate and sacred. 
 He felt also the charm of beauty, and over and over 
 again in his descriptions of hunting and riding in 
 the West, he pauses to recall beautiful scenery or 
 some unusual bit of landscape; and even in remem- 
 bering his passage down the River of Doubt, when 
 he came nearer to death than he ever came until he 
 died, in spite of tormenting pain and desperate anx- 
 iety for his companions, he mentions more than once 
 the loveliness of the river scene or of the massed 
 foliage along its banks. Naturalist though he was, 
 bent first on studying the habits of birds and ani- 
 mals, he yet took keen delight in the iridescent 
 plumage or graceful form or the beautiful fur of bird 
 and beast. 
 
 The quality of a writer can best be judged by read- 
 ing a whole chapter, or two or three, of his book, 
 
82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 but sometimes he reveals a phase of himself in a 
 single paragraph. Read, for instance, this brief ex- 
 tract from Roosevelt's "Through the Brazilian 
 Wilderness," if you would understand some of the 
 traits which I have just alluded to. It comes at the 
 end of his long and dismaying exploration of the 
 River of Doubt, when tiie party was safe at last, 
 and the terrible river was about to flow into the 
 broad, lakelike Amazon, and Manaos was almost 
 in sight, where civilization could be laid hold on 
 again, Manaos, whence the swift ships went steaming 
 towards the Atlantic and the Atlantic opened a 
 clear path home. He says: 
 
 The North was calling strongly the three men of the 
 North — Rocky Dell Farm to Cherrie, Sagamore Hill to me; 
 and to Kermit the call was stronger still. After nightfall we 
 could now see the Dipper well above the horizon — upside 
 down with the two pointers pointing to a North Star below 
 the world's rim; but the Dipper, with all its stars. In our home 
 country spring had now come, the wonderful Northern spring 
 of long, glorious days, of brooding twilight, of cool, delightful 
 nights. Robin and bluebird, meadow-lark and song-sparrow 
 were singing in the mornings at home; the maple buds were 
 red; windflowers and bloodroot were blooming w'hile the 
 last patches of snow still lingered ; the rapture of the hermit- 
 thrush in Vermont, the serene golden melody of the wood- 
 thrush on Long Island, would be heard before we were there 
 to listen. Each was longing for the homely things that were 
 so dear to him, for the home people who were dearer still, and 
 for the one who was dearest of all.^ 
 
 ^ Through the Brazilian Wilderness, 320. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 
 
 I HAVE said that Roosevelt devoted the two 
 years after he came back to New York to wTit- 
 ing, but it would be a mistake to imagine that writing 
 alone busied him. He was never a man who did or 
 would do only one thing at a time. His immense 
 energy craved variety, and in variety he found recre- 
 ation. Now that the physical Roosevelt had caught 
 up in relative strength with the intellectual, he could 
 take what holidays requiring exhaustless bodily 
 vigor he chose. The year seldom passed now when 
 he did not go West for a month or two. Bill Sewall 
 and Wilmot Dow were established with their families 
 on the Elkhorn Ranch, which Roosevelt continued 
 to own, although, I believe, like many ranches at 
 that period, it ceased to be a good investment. 
 Sometimes he made a hurried dash to southern 
 Texas, or to the Selkirks, or to Montana in search 
 of new sorts of game. In the mountains he indulged 
 in climbing, but this was not a favorite with him 
 because it offered less sport in proportion to the 
 fatigue. While he was still a young man he had gone 
 up the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, feats which 
 
84 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 still required endurance, although they did not in- 
 volve danger. 
 
 While we think of him, therefore, as dedicating 
 himself to his literary work — the "Winning of the 
 West" and the accounts of ranch life — we must 
 remember that he had leisure for other things. He 
 watched keenly the course of politics, for instance, 
 and in 1888 when the Republicans nominated Ben- 
 jamin Harrison as their candidate for President, 
 Roosevelt supported him effectively and took rank 
 with the foremost Republican speakers of the cam- 
 paign. After his election Harrison, who both recog- 
 nized Roosevelt's great ability and felt under obliga- 
 tion to him, wished to offer him the position of an 
 under-secretary in the State Department; but Blaine, 
 who was slated for Secretary of State, had no liking 
 for the young Republican whose coolness in 1884 he 
 had not forgotten. So Harrison invited Roosevelt to 
 be a Civil Service Commissioner. The position had 
 never been conspicuous; its salary was not large; its 
 duties were of the routine kind which did not greatly 
 tax the energies of the Commissioners, who could 
 never hope for fame, but only for the approval of 
 their own consciences for whatever good work they 
 did. The Machine Republicans, whether of national 
 size, or of State or municipal, were glad to know that 
 Roosevelt would be put out of the way in that office. 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 85 
 
 They already thought of him as a young man dan- 
 gerous to all Machines and so they felt the prudence 
 of bottling him up. To make him a Civil Service 
 Commissioner was not exactly so final as chloro- 
 forming a snarling dog would be, but it was a strong 
 measure of safety. Theodore's friends, on the other 
 hand, advised him against accepting the appoint- 
 ment, because, they said, it would shelve him, polit- 
 ically, use up his brains which ought to be spent on 
 higher work, and allow the country which was just 
 beginning to know him to forget his existence. Men 
 drop out of sight so quickly at Washington unless 
 they can stand on some pedestal which raises them 
 above the multitude. 
 
 The Optimist of the future, to hasten whose com- 
 ing we are all making the world so irresistibly attrac- 
 tive, will be endowed, let us hope, with a sense of 
 humor. With that, he can read history as a cosmic 
 joke-book, and not as the Biography of the Devil, 
 as many of us moderns, besides Jean Paul, have 
 found it. How long it has taken, and how much blood 
 has been spilt before this or that most obvious folly 
 has been abolished ! With what absurd tenacity have 
 men flown in the face of reason and flouted common 
 sense! So our Optimist, looking into the conditions 
 which made Civil Service Reform imperative, will 
 shed tears either of pity or of laughter. 
 
86 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 As long ago as the time of the cave-dweller, who 
 was clothed in shaggy hair instead of in broadcloth 
 or silk, prehistoric man learned that the best arrow 
 or spear was that tipped with the best piece of flint. 
 In brief, to do good work, you must have good tools. 
 Translated into the terms of today, this means that 
 the expert or specialist must be preferred to the un- 
 trained. In nearly all walks of life this truth was 
 taken for granted, except in affairs connected with 
 government and administration. A President might 
 be elected, not because he was experienced in these 
 matters, but because he had won a battle, or was the 
 compromise candidate between two other aspirants. 
 As it was with Presidents, so with the Cabinet offi- 
 cers, Congressmen, and State and city officials. Fit- 
 ness being ignored as a qualification to office, made 
 it easy for favoritism and selfish motives to deter- 
 mine the appointment of the army of employees re- 
 quired in the bureaus and departments. That good 
 old political freebooter, Andrew Jackson, merely 
 put into words what his predecessors had put into 
 practice: "To the victors belong the spoils." And 
 since his time, more than one upright and intelligent 
 theorist on government has supported the Party 
 System even to the point where the enjoyment of 
 the spoils by the victors seems justified. 
 
 The "spoils" were the salaries paid to the lower 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 87 
 
 grade of placemen and women — salaries usually 
 not very large, but often far above what those per- 
 sons could earn in honest competition. As the money 
 came out of the public purse, why worry? And how 
 could party enthusiasm during the campaign and at 
 the polls be kept up, if some of the partisans might 
 not hope for tangible rewards for their services? 
 Many rich men sat in Congress, and the Senate be- 
 came, proverbially, a millionaires' club. But not one 
 of these plutocrats conducted the private business 
 which made him rich by the methods to which he 
 condemned the business administration of the gov- 
 ernment. He did not fill his counting-room with 
 shirkers and incompetents; he did not find sinecures 
 for his wife's poor relations; he did not pad his 
 payroll with parasites whose characteristics were 
 an itching palm and an unconquerable aversion to 
 work. He knew how to select the quickest, cleverest, 
 most industrious assistants, and through them he 
 prospered. 
 
 That a man who had sworn to uphold and direct 
 his government to the best of his ability, should have 
 the conscience to treat his country as he did not 
 treat himself, can be easily explained: he had no 
 conscience. Fashion, like a local anaesthetic, deadens 
 the sensitiveness of conscience in this or that spot; 
 and the prevailing fashion under all governments, 
 
88 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 autocratic or democratic, has permitted the waste 
 and even the dishonest appHcation of pubUc funds. 
 These anomaHes at last roused the sense of humor 
 of some of our citizens, just as the injustice and 
 dishonesty which the system embodied roused the 
 moral sense of others; and the Reform of the Civil 
 Sei^ice — a dream at first, and then a passionate 
 cause which the ethical would not let sleep — came 
 into being. But to the politicians of the old type, the 
 men of "inflooence" and "pull," the project seemed 
 silly. They ridiculed it, and they expected to make 
 it ridiculous in the eyes of the American people, by 
 calling it "Snivel" Service Reform. Zealots, how- 
 ever, cannot be silenced by mockery. The contention 
 that fitness should have something to do in the 
 choice of public servants was effectively confirmed 
 by the scientific departments of the government. 
 The most shameless Senator would not dare to pro- 
 pose his brother's widow to lead an astronomical 
 expedition, or to urge the appointment of the ward 
 Boss of his city as Chairman of the Coast Survey. 
 So the American people perceived that there were 
 cases in which the Spoils System did not apply. The 
 reformers pushed ahead; Congress at last took no- 
 tice, and a law was passed bringing a good many 
 appointees in the Post-Office and other departments 
 under the Merit System. The movement then gained 
 
APPLYING :\IOR.A.LS TO POLITICS 89 
 
 ground slowly and the spoilsmen began to foresee 
 that if it spread to the extent which seemed likely, 
 it would deprive them of much of their clandestine 
 and corrupting power. Senator Roscoe Conkling, one 
 of the wittiest and most brazen of these, remarked, 
 that when Dr. Johnson told Boswell that "patriot- 
 ism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," he had not 
 sounded the possibilities of "reform." 
 
 The first administration of President Cleveland, 
 who was a great, irremovable block of stubbornness 
 in whatever cause he thought right, gave invaluable 
 help to this one. The overturn of the Republican 
 Party, after it had held power for twenty-four years, 
 entailed many changes in office and in all classes of 
 office-holders. Cleveland had the opportunity, there- 
 fore, of applying the Merit System as far as the law 
 had carried it, and his actions gave Civil Service 
 Reformers much though not complete satisfaction. 
 The movement was just at the turning-point when 
 Roosevelt was appointed Commissioner in 1889. Un- 
 der listless or timid direction it would have flagged 
 and probably lost much ground; but Roosevelt could 
 never do anything listlessly and w^hatever he pushed 
 never lost ground. 
 
 The Civil Service Commission appointed by 
 President Harrison consisted of three members, of 
 whom the President was Charles Lyman, with 
 
90 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt and Hugh Thompson, an ex-Confederate 
 soldier, for his colleagues. I do not disparage Messrs. 
 Lyman and Thompson when I say that they were 
 worthy persons who did not claim to have an urgent 
 call to reform the Civil Service, or anything else. 
 They were not of the stuff which leads revolts or 
 reforms, but rather of that convenient class, which 
 still can be met in Washington, of men available for 
 any respectable office which does not involve any 
 special knowledge or zeal. In a very short time the 
 Commission, Congress, and the public learned that 
 it was Roosevelt, the youngest member, just turned 
 thirty years of age, who steered the Commission. 
 Hostile critics would say, of course, that he usurped 
 the leadership; but I think that this is inaccurate. 
 It was not his conceit or ambition, it was destiny 
 working through him, which made where he vSat the 
 head of the table. Being tremendously interested in 
 this cause and incomparably abler than Lyman or 
 Thompson, he naturally did most of the work, and 
 his decisions shaped their common policy. The ap- 
 peal to his sense of humor and his sense of justice 
 stimulated him, and being a man who already saw 
 what large consequences sometimes flow from small 
 causes he must have been buoyed up by the thought 
 that any of the cases which came before him might 
 set a very important precedent. 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 91 
 
 Roosevelt acted on the principle that the office- 
 holder who swears to carry out a law must do this 
 without hesitation or demur. If the law is good, 
 enforcing it will make its goodness apparent to 
 everybody; if it is bad, it will become the more 
 quickly odious and need to be repealed. Roosevelt 
 enforced the Civil Service Law with the utmost 
 rigor. It called for the examination of candidates for 
 office, and the examiners paid some heed to their 
 moral fitness. Its opponents tried to stir up public 
 opinion against it by circulating what purported to 
 be some of its examination papers. Why, they asked, 
 should a man who wished to be a letter-carrier in 
 Keokuk, be required to give a list of the Presidents 
 of the United States? Or what was the shortest route 
 for a letter going from Bombay to Yokohama? By 
 these and similar spurious questions the spoilsmen 
 hoped to get rid of the reformers. But "shrewd 
 slander," as Roosevelt called it, could not move 
 him. 
 
 Two specimen cases will suffice to show how he 
 reduced shrewd slanderers to confusion. 
 
 The first was Charles Henry Grosvenor, an Influ- 
 ential Republican Congressman from Ohio, familiarly 
 known as the "Gentle Shepherd of Ohio," because 
 of his efforts to raise the tariff on wool for the benefit 
 of the owners of the few thousand sheep in that State. 
 
92 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 A Congressional Committee was investigating the 
 Civil Service Commission and Roosevelt asked that 
 Grosvenor, who had attacked it, might be sum- 
 moned. Grosvenor, however, did not appear, but 
 when he learned that Roosevelt was going to his 
 Dakota ranch for a vacation, he sent word that he 
 would come. Nevertheless, this gallant act failed to 
 save him, for Roosevelt canceled his ticket West, 
 and confronted Grosvenor at the investigation. The 
 Gentle Shepherd protested that he had never said 
 that he wished to repeal the Civil Service Law; 
 whereupon Roosevelt read this extract from one of 
 his speeches: " I will vote not only to strike out this 
 provision, but I will vote to repeal the whole law." 
 When Roosevelt pointed out the inconsistency of the 
 two statements, Grosvenor declared that they 
 meant the same thing. 
 
 Being caught thus by one foot in Roosevelt's man- 
 trap, he quickly proceeded to be caught by the 
 other. He declared that Rufus P. Putnam, one of 
 the candidates in dispute, had never lived in Gros- 
 venor's Congressional district, or even in Ohio. Then 
 Mr. Roosevelt quoted from a letter written by Gros- 
 venor: "Mr. Rufus P. Putnam is a legal resident of 
 my district, and has relatives living there now." 
 With both feet caught in the man-trap, the Gentle 
 Shepherd was suffering much pain, but Truth is so 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 93 
 
 great a stranger to spoilsmen that he found diffi- 
 culty in getting within speaking distance of her. 
 For he protested, first, that he never wrote the letter, 
 next, that he had forgotten that he wrote it, and 
 finally, that he was misinformed when he wrote it. 
 So far as appears, he never risked a tilt with the 
 smiling young Commissioner again, but returned to 
 his muttons and their fleeces. 
 
 A still more distinguished personage fell before 
 the enthusiastic Commissioner. This was Arthur 
 Pue Gorman, a Senator from Maryland, a Democrat, 
 one of the most pertinacious agents of the Big Inter- 
 ests in the United States Congress. Evidently, also, 
 he served them well, as they kept him in the Senate 
 for nearly twenty-five years, until his death. They 
 employed Democrats as well as Republicans, just 
 as they subscribed to both Democratic and Repub- 
 lican campaign funds. For, "in politics there is no 
 politics." Gorman, who knew that the Spoils System 
 was almost indispensable to the running of a polit- 
 ical machine, waited for a chance to attack the Civil 
 Service Commission. Thinking that the propitious 
 moment had come, he inveighed against it in the 
 Senate. He "described with moving pathos," as 
 Roosevelt tells the story, "how a friend of his, 'a 
 bright young man from Baltimore,' a Sunday-School 
 scholar, well recommended by his pastor, wished to 
 
94 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 be a letter-carrier," but the cruel examiners floored 
 him by asking the shortest route from Baltimore to 
 China, to which he replied that, as he never wished 
 to go to China, he had n't looked up the route. Then, 
 Senator Gorman asserted, the examiners quizzed 
 him about all the steamship lines from the United 
 States to Europe, branched off into geology and 
 chemistry, and "turned him down." 
 
 Gorman was unaware that the Commissioners 
 kept records of all their examinations, and when 
 Roosevelt wrote him a polite note inquiring the 
 name of the "bright young man from Beiltimore," 
 Gorman did not reply. Roosevelt also asked him, in 
 case he shrank from giving the name of his inform- 
 ant, to give the date when the alleged examination 
 took place. He even offered to open the files to any 
 representative the Senator chose to send. Gorman, 
 however, "not hitherto known as a sensitive soul," 
 as Roosevelt remarks, "expressed himself as so 
 shocked at the thought that the veracity of the 
 bright young man should be doubted, that he could 
 not bring himself to answer my letter." Accordingly, 
 Roosevelt made a public statement that the Com- 
 missioners had never asked the questions which 
 Gorman alleged. Gorman waited until the next ses- 
 sion of Congress and then, in a speech before the 
 Senate, complained that he had received a very 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 95 
 
 "impudent" letter from Commissioner Roosevelt 
 "cruelly" calling him to account, when he was 
 simply endeavoring to right a great wrong which the 
 Commission had committed. But neither then nor 
 afterwards did he furnish "any clue to the identity 
 of that child of his fondest fancy, the bright young 
 man without a name." 
 
 Roosevelt must have chuckled with a righteous 
 exultation at such evidence as this that the Lord had 
 delivered the Philistines into his hands; and his 
 abomination of the Spoils System must have deep- 
 ened when he saw its Grosvenors and its Gormans 
 brazen out the lies he caught them telling. 
 
 When the spoilsmen failed to get rid of the Com- 
 mission by ridicule and by open attack, they re- 
 sorted to the trick of not appropriating money for it 
 in this or that district. But this did not succeed, for 
 the Commission, owing to lack of funds, held no 
 examinations in those districts, and therefore no 
 candidates from them could get offices. This made 
 the politicians unpopular with the hungry office- 
 seekers whom they deprived of their food at the 
 public trough. 
 
 The Commission had to struggle, however, not 
 only to keep unfit candidates out of office, but to 
 keep in office those who discharged their duty hon- 
 estly and zealously. After every election there came 
 
96 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 a rush of Congressmen and others, to turn out the 
 tried and trusty employees and to put in their own 
 applicants. Such an overturn was of course detri- 
 mental to the service; first, because it substituted 
 greenhorns for trained employees, and next, because 
 it introduced the haphazard of politicians' whims 
 for a just scheme of promotion and retention in 
 office. Roosevelt lamented bitterly over the injustice 
 and he denounced the waste. Many cases of grievous 
 hardship came to his notice. Widows, whose only 
 means of support for themselves and their little chil- 
 dren was their salary, were thrown upon the street 
 in order that rapacious politicians might secure 
 places for their henchmen. Roosevelt might plead, 
 but the politician remained obdurate. What was the 
 tragic lot of a widow and starving children compared 
 with keeping promises with greedy "heelers"? 
 Roosevelt saw that there was no redress except 
 through the extension of the classified service. 
 This he urged at all times, and ten years later, when 
 he was himself President, he added more than fifty 
 thousand ofiices to the list of those which the spoils- 
 men could not clutch. 
 
 He served six years as Civil Service Commissioner, 
 being reappointed in 1892 by President Cleveland. 
 The overturn in parties which made Cleveland 
 President for the second time, enabled Roosevelt to 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 97 
 
 watch more closely the working of the Reform Sys- 
 tem and he did what he could to safeguard those 
 Government employees who were Republicans from 
 being ousted for the benefit of Democrats. In general, 
 he believed in laying down certain principles on the 
 tenure of office and in standing resolutely by them. 
 Thus, in 1891, under Harrison, on being urged to 
 retain General Corse, the excellent Democratic Post- 
 master of Boston, he replied to his friend Curtis 
 Guild that Corse ought to be continued as a matter 
 of principle and not because Cleveland, several years 
 before, had retained Pearson, the Republican Post- 
 master of New York, as an exception. 
 
 At the end of six years, Roosevelt felt that he had 
 worked on the Commission long enough to let the 
 American people understand how necessary it was 
 to maintain and extend the Merit System in the 
 Civil Service. A sudden access of virtue had just 
 cast out the Tammany Ring in New York City and 
 set up Mr. Strong, a Reformer, as Mayor. He wished 
 to secure Roosevelt's help and Roosevelt was eager 
 to give it. The Mayor offered him the headship of 
 the Street Cleaning Department, but this he de- 
 clined, not because he thought the place beneath 
 him, but because he lacked the necessary scientific 
 qualifications, and Mayor Strong was lucky in find- 
 ing for it the best man in the countiy, Colonel 
 
98 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 George E. Waring. Accordingly, the Mayor ap- 
 pointed Roosevelt President of the Board of Police 
 Commissioners, and he accepted. 
 
 The PoHce System in New York City in 1895, 
 when Roosevelt took control, was a monstrosity 
 which, in almost every respect, did exactly the oppo- 
 site from what the Police System is organized to do. 
 Moral values had been so perverted that it took a 
 strong man to hold fast to the rudimentary distinc- 
 tions between Good and Evil. The Police existed, in 
 theory, to protect the lives and property of respect- 
 able citizens; to catch law-breakers and hand them 
 over to the courts for punishment; to hunt down 
 gamblers, swindlers, and all the other various crim- 
 inals and purveyors of vice. In reality, the Police 
 under Tammany abetted crime and protected the 
 vicious. This they did, not because they had any 
 special hostility to Virtue — they probably knew too 
 little about it to form a dispassionate opinion any- 
 way — but because Vice paid better. They held the 
 cynical view that human nature will always breed a 
 great many persons having a propensity to licentious 
 or violent habits ; that laws were made to check and 
 punish these persons, and that they might go their 
 pernicious ways unmolested if the Police took no 
 notice of them. So the Police established a system of 
 immunity which anybody could enjoy by paying the 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 99 
 
 price. Notorious gambling-hells "ran wide open" 
 after handing the required sum to the high police 
 official who extorted it. Hundreds of houses of ill- 
 fame carried on their hideous traffic undisturbed, so 
 long as the Police Captain of the district received 
 his weekly bribe. Gangs of roughs, toughs, and gun- 
 men pursued their piratical business without think- 
 ing of the law, for they shared their spoils with the 
 supposed officers of the law. And there were more 
 degenerate miscreants still, who connived with the 
 Police and went unscathed. As if the vast sums col- 
 lected from these willing bribers were not enough, 
 the Police added a system of blackmail to be levied 
 on those who were not deliberately vicious, but who 
 sought convenience. If you walked downtown you 
 found the sidewalk in front of certain stores almost 
 barricaded by packing-boxes, whereas next door the 
 way might be clear. This simply meant that the firm 
 which wished to use the sidewalk for its private 
 advantage paid the policeman on that beat, and he 
 looked the other way. As there was an ordinance 
 against almost every conceivable thing, so the Police 
 had a price for making every ordinance a dead letter. 
 Was this a cosmic joke, a nightmare of cynicism, 
 a delusion? No, Ncav York was classed in the refer- 
 ence books as a Christian city, and this was its 
 Christianity. 
 
100 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt knew the seamless bond which con- 
 nected the crime and vice of the city with corrupt 
 politics. The party Bosses, Republicans and Demo- 
 crats alike, were the final profiters from police black- 
 mail and bribery. As he held his mandate from a 
 Reform Administration, he might expect to be aided 
 by it on the political side; at least, he did not fear 
 that the heads of the other departments would 
 secretly work to block his purification of the Police. 
 
 A swift examination showed him that the New 
 York Police Department actually protected the crim- 
 inals and promoted every kind of iniquity which it 
 existed to put down. It was as if in a hospital which 
 should cure the sick, the doctors, instead of curing 
 disease, should make the sick worse and should make 
 the well sick. How was Roosevelt, equally valiant 
 and honest, to conquer this Hydra? He took the 
 straight way dictated by common sense. First of all, 
 he gained the confidence and respect of his men. He 
 said afterwards, that even at its worst, when he went 
 into office, the majority of the Police wanted to do 
 right ; that their instincts were loyal ; and this meant 
 much, because they were tempted on all sides by 
 vicious wrongdoers; they had constantly before them 
 the example of superiors who took bribes and they 
 received neither recognition nor praise for their own 
 worthy deeds. 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS loi 
 
 The Force came very soon to understand that 
 under Roosevelt every man would get a "square 
 deal." "Pulls" had no efficacy. The Chief Commis- 
 sioner personally kept track of as many men as he 
 could. When he saw in the papers one morning that 
 Patrolman X had saved a woman from drowning, 
 he looked him up, found that the man had been 
 twenty-two years in the service, had saved twenty- 
 five lives, and had never been noticed, much less 
 thanked, by the Commission. More than this, he 
 had to buy his own uniform, and as this was often 
 rendered unfit for further use when he rescued per- 
 sons from drowning, or from a burning house, his 
 heroism cost him much in dollars and cents. By 
 Roosevelt's orders the Department henceforth paid 
 for new uniforms in such cases, and it awarded med- 
 als. By recognizing the good, and by weeding out as 
 fast as possible the bad members of the Force, 
 Roosevelt thus organized the best body of Police 
 which New York City had ever seen. There were, of 
 course, some black sheep among them whom he 
 could not reach, but he changed the fashion, so that 
 it was no longer a point of excellence to be a black 
 sheep. 
 
 Roosevelt rigorously enforced the laws, without 
 regard to his personal opinion. It happened that at 
 that time the good people of New York insisted that 
 
102 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 liquor saloons should do no business on Sundays. 
 This prohibition had long been on the statute book, 
 but it had been generally evaded because the saloon- 
 keepers had paid the Bosses, who controlled the 
 Police Department, to let them keep open — usually 
 by a side door — on Sundays. Indeed, the statute 
 was evidently passed by the Bosses in order to widen 
 their opportunity for blackmail; but in this they 
 overreached themselves. For the liquor-sellers at 
 last revolted, and they held conferences with the 
 Bosses — David B. Hill was then the Democratic 
 State Boss and Richard Croker the Tammany Boss 
 — and they published in the Wine and Spirit Gazette, 
 their organ, this statement: "An agreement was 
 made between the leaders of Tammany Hall and the 
 liquor-dealers, according to which the monthly 
 blackmail paid to the force should be discontinued 
 in return for political support." Croker and his pals, 
 taking it as a matter of course that the public knew 
 their methods, neither denied this incriminating 
 statement nor thought it w^orth noticing. 
 
 For a while all the saloons enjoyed equal immunity 
 in selling drinks on Sunday. Then came Roosevelt 
 and ordered his men to close every saloon. Many of 
 the bar-keepers laughed incredulously at the patrol- 
 man who gave the order; many others flew into a 
 rage. The public denounced this attempt to strangle 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 103 
 
 its liberties and reviled the Police Chief as the would- 
 be enforcer of obsolescent blue laws. But they could 
 not frighten Roosevelt: the saloons were closed. 
 Nevertheless, even he could not prevail against the 
 overwhelming desire for drink. Crowds of virtuous 
 citizens preferred an honest police force, but they 
 preferred their beer or their whiskey still more, and 
 joined with the criminal classes, the disreputables, 
 and all the others who regarded any law as out- 
 rageous which interfered with their personal habits. 
 Accordingly, since they could not budge Roosevelt, 
 they changed the law. A compliant local judge dis- 
 covered that it was lawful to take what drink you 
 chose with a meal, and the result was that, as Roose- 
 velt describes it, a man by eating one pretzel might 
 drink seventeen beers. 
 
 Roosevelt himself visited all parts of the city and 
 chiefly those where Vice grew flagrant at night. The 
 journalists, who knew of his tours of inspection and 
 were always on the alert for the picturesque, likened 
 him to the great Caliph who in similar fashion inves- 
 tigated Baghdad, and they nicknamed him Haroun 
 al Roosevelt. He had for his companion Jacob Riis, 
 a remarkable Dane who migrated to this country in 
 youth, got the position of reporter on one of the 
 New York dailies, frequented the courts, studied 
 the condition of the abject poor in the tenement- 
 
I04 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 houses, and the haunts where Vice breeds Hke scum 
 on stagnant pools, and wrote a book, "How the 
 Other Half Lives," which startled the consciences of 
 the well-to-do and the virtuous. Riis showed Roose- 
 velt everything. Police headquarters were in Mul- 
 berry Street, and yet within a stone's throw iniquity 
 flourished. He guided him through the Tenderloin 
 District, and the wharves, and so they made the 
 rounds of the vast city. More than once Roosevelt 
 surprised a shirking patrolman on his beat, but his 
 purpose they all knew was to see justice done, and to 
 keep the officers of the Force up to the highest stand- 
 ard of duty. 
 
 One other anecdote concerning his experience as 
 Police Commissioner I repeat, because it shows by 
 what happy touches of humor he sometimes dis- 
 persed menacing clouds. A German Jew-baiter, 
 Rector Ahlwardt, came over from Berlin to preach 
 a crusade against the Jews. Great trepidation spread 
 through the Jewish colony and they asked Roosevelt 
 to forbid Ahlwardt from holding public meetings 
 against them. This, he saw, would make a martyr of 
 the German persecutor and probably harm the Jews 
 more than it would help them. So Roosevelt be- 
 thought him of a device which worked perfectly. He 
 summoned forty of the best Jewish policemen on the 
 Force and ordered them to preserve order in the hall 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 105 
 
 and prevent Ahlwardt from being interrupted or 
 abused. The meeting passed off without disturbance; 
 Ahlwardt stormed in vain against the Jews ; the audi- 
 ence and the pubHc saw the humor of the affair and 
 Jew-baiting gained no foothold in New York City. 
 
 Although Roosevelt thoroughly enjoyed his work 
 as Police Commissioner, he felt rightly that it did 
 not afford him the freest scope to exercise his pow- 
 ers. Much as he valued executive work, the putting 
 into practice and carrying out of laws, he felt more 
 and more strongly the desire to make them, and his 
 instinct told him that he was fitted for this higher 
 task. When, therefore, the newly elected Republican 
 President, William McKinley, offered him the ap- 
 parently modest position of Assistant Secretary of 
 the Navy, he accepted it. 
 
 There was general grieving in New York City — 
 except among the criminals and Tammany — at the 
 news of his resignation. All sorts of persons ex- 
 pressed regrets that were really sincere, and their 
 gratitude for the good which he had done for them 
 all. Some of them protested that he ought not to 
 abandon the duty which he had discharged so val- 
 iantly. One of these was Edwin L. Godkin, editor of 
 The Nation and the New York Evening Post, a critic 
 who seldom spoke politely of anything except ideals 
 which had not been attained, or commended per- 
 
io6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 sons who were not dead and so beyond reach of 
 praise. Since Roosevelt himself has quoted this pas- 
 sage from Godkin's letter to him, I think it ought to 
 be reprinted here: " I have a concern, as the Quakers 
 say, to put on record my earnest belief that in New 
 York you are doing the greatest work of which any 
 American today is capable, and exhibiting to the 
 young men of the country the spectacle of a very 
 important office administered by a man of high 
 character in the most efficient way amid a thousand 
 difficulties. As a lesson in politics I cannot think of 
 anything more instructive." 
 
 Godkin was a great power for good, in spite of the 
 obvious unpopularity which an incessant critic can- 
 not fail to draw down upon himself. The most pessi- 
 mistic of us secretly crave a little respite when for 
 half an hour we may forget the circumambient and 
 all-pervading gloom: music, or an entertaining book, 
 or a dear friend lifts the burden from us. And then 
 comes our uncompromising pessimist and chides us 
 for our softness and for letting ourselves be led 
 astray from our pessimism. His Jeremiads are prob- 
 ably justified, and as the historian looks back he 
 finds that they give the truest statement of the past; 
 for the present must be very bad, indeed, if it does 
 not discover conditions still worse in the past from 
 which it has emerged. But Godkin living could not 
 
APPLYING MORALS TO POLITICS 107 
 
 escape from two sorts of unsympathetic depre- 
 dators: first, the wicked who smarted under his 
 just scourge, and next, the upright, who tired of 
 unremittent censure, although they admitted that it 
 was just. 
 
 Roosevelt came, quite naturally, to set the doer 
 above the critic, who, he thought, quickly degener- 
 ated into a fault-finder and from that into a common 
 scold. When a man plunges into a river to save some- 
 body from drowning, if you do not plunge in your- 
 self, at least do not jeer at him for his method of 
 swimming. So Roosevelt, who shrank from no bod- 
 ily or moral risk himself, held in scorn the "timid 
 good," the "acidly cantankerous," the peace-at-any- 
 price people, and the entire tribe of those who, in- 
 stead of attacking iniquities and abuses, attacked 
 those who are desperately engaged in fighting these. 
 For this reason he probably failed to absorb from 
 Godkin's criticism some of the benefit which it 
 might have brought him. The pills were bitter, but 
 salutary. While he was Police Commissioner one of 
 Joseph Choate's epigrams passed current and is still 
 worth recalling. When some one remarked that New 
 York was a very wicked city, Choate replied, " How 
 can you expect it to be otherwise, when Dana makes 
 Vice so attractive in the Sun every morning, and 
 Godkin makes Virtue so odious in the Post every 
 
io8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 afternoon?" Charles A. Dana, the editor of the Sun, 
 the stanch supporter of Tammany Hall, and the 
 apologist of almost every evil movement for nearly 
 thirty years, was a writer of diabolical cleverness 
 whose newspaper competed with Godkin's among 
 the intellectual readers in search of amusement. At 
 one time, when Godkin had been particularly caus- 
 tic, and the Mugwumps at Harvard were unusually 
 critical, Roosevelt attended a committee meeting at 
 the University. After talking with President Eliot, 
 he went and sat by a professor, and remarked, play- 
 fully, " Eliot is really a good fellow at heart. Do you * 
 suppose that, if he bit Godkin, it would take? " 
 
 So Roosevelt went back to Washington to be 
 henceforth, as it proved, a national figure whose 
 career was to be forever embedded in the structural 
 growth of the United States. 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ROUGH RIDER 
 
 HEN Roosevelt returned to Washington in 
 March, 1897, to take up his duties as a subor- 
 dinate officer in the National Government, he was 
 thirty-eight years old; a man in the prime of life, 
 with the strength of an ox, but quick in movement, 
 and tough in endurance. A rapid thinker, his intel- 
 lect seemed as impervious to fatigue as was his en- 
 ergy. Along with this physical and intellectual make- 
 up went courage of both kinds, passion for justice, 
 and a buoying sense of obligation towards his fel- 
 lows and the State. His career thus far had prepared 
 him for the highest service. Born and brought up 
 amid what our society classifiers, with their sure 
 democratic instincts, loved to call the "aristo- 
 cratic" circle in New York, his three years in the 
 Assembly at Albany introduced him to the motley 
 group of Representatives of high and low, bank 
 presidents and farmers, blacklegs and philanthro- 
 pists, who gathered there to make the laws for New 
 York State. There he displayed the preference, char- 
 acteristic of him through life, of choosing his in- 
 timates irrespective of their occupation or social 
 
no THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 label. Then he went out on the Plains and learned 
 to live with wild men, for whom the artificial distinc- 
 tions of civilization had no meaning. He adapted 
 himself to a primeval standard in which courage and 
 a rough sense of honor were the chief virtues. But 
 this experience did still more for him than prove his 
 personal power of getting along with such lower 
 types of men, for it revealed to him the human ex- 
 tremes of the American Nation. How vast it was, 
 how varied, how intricate, and, potentially, how 
 sublime! Lincoln, coming out of the Kentucky back- 
 woods, first to Springfield, Illinois, then to Chicago 
 in its youth, and finally to Washington, similarly 
 passed in review the American contrasts of his time. 
 More specific was Roosevelt's training as a Civil 
 Service Commissioner. The public had been ap- 
 plauding him as a youthful prodigy, as a fellow of 
 high spirit, of undisputed valor, of brilliant flashes, 
 of versatility, but the worldly-wise, who have been 
 too often fooled, were haunted by the suspicion that 
 perhaps this astonishing young man would turn out 
 to be only a meteor after all. His six years of routine 
 work on the Civil Service Commission put this anxi- 
 ety to rest. That work could not be carried on suc- 
 cessfully by a man of moods and spurts, but only 
 by a man of solid moral basis, who could not be 
 disheartened by opposition or deflected by threats 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER in 
 
 or by temptations, and, as I have before suggested, 
 the people began to accustom itself to the fact that 
 whatever position Roosevelt filled was conspicuous 
 precisely because he filled it. A good while was still 
 to elapse before we understood that notoriety was 
 inseparable from him, and did not need to be ex- 
 plained by the theor>^ that he was constantly setting 
 traps for self-advertisement. 
 
 As Police Commissioner of New York City he con- 
 tinued his familiar methods, and deepened the im- 
 pression he had created. He carried boldness to the 
 point of audacity and glorified the "square deal." 
 Whatever he undertook, he drove through with the 
 remorselessness of a zealot. He made no pretense of 
 treating humbugs and shams as if they were honest 
 and real; and when he found that the laws which 
 were made to punish criminals, were used to protect 
 them, no scruple prevented him from achieving the 
 spirit of the law, although he might disregard its 
 perverted letter. 
 
 Ponder this striking example. The City of New 
 York forbade the sale of liquor to minors. But this 
 ordinance was so completely unobserved that a 
 large proportion of the common drunks brought be- 
 fore the Police Court were lads and even young girls, 
 to whom the bar-tenders sold with impunity. The 
 children, often the little children of depraved par- 
 
112 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ents, "rushed the growler"; factory hands sent the 
 boys out regularly to fetch their bottle or bucket of 
 drink from the saloons. Everybody knew of these 
 breaches of the law, but the framers of the law had 
 taken care to make it very difficult to procure legal 
 evidence of those breaches. The public conscience 
 was pricked a little when the newspapers told it that 
 one of the youths sent for liquor had drunk so much 
 of it that he fell into a stupor, took refuge in an old 
 building, and that there the rats had eaten him alive. 
 Whether it was before or after this horror that Chief 
 Commissioner Roosevelt decided to take the law 
 into his own hands, I do not know, but what he did 
 was swift. The Police engaged one of the minors, who 
 had been in the habit of going to the saloons, to go 
 for another supply, and then to testify. This sum- 
 mary proceeding scared the rum-dealers and, no 
 doubt, they guarded against being caught again. 
 But the victims of moral dr^' rot held up their hands 
 in rebuke and one of the city Judges wept meta- 
 phorical tears of chagrin that the Police should en- 
 gage in the awful crime of enticing a youth to com- 
 mit crime. The record does not show that this Judge, 
 or any other, had ever done anything to check the 
 practice of selling liquor to minors, a practice which 
 inevitably led thousands of the youth of New York 
 Citv to become drunkards. 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 113 
 
 How do you judge Roosevelt's act? Do you admit 
 that a little wrong may ever be done in order to se- 
 cure a great right? Roosevelt held, in such cases, that 
 the wrong is only technical, or a blind set up by the 
 wicked to shield themselves. The danger of allowing 
 each person to play with the law, as with a toy, is 
 evident. That way lies Jesuitr>^; but each infringe- 
 ment must be judged on its own merits, and as 
 Roosevelt followed more and more these short cuts 
 to justice he needed to be more closely scrutinized. 
 Was his real object to attain justice or his own 
 desires? 
 
 The Roosevelts moved back to Washington in 
 March, 1897, and Theodore at once went to work in 
 the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 
 that amazing building which John Hay called " Mul- 
 lett's masterpiece, " where the Navy, War, and State 
 Departments found shelter under one roof. The Sec- 
 retary of the Navy was John D. Long, of Massachu- 
 setts, who had been a Congressman and Governor, 
 was a man of cultivation and geniality, and a lawyer 
 of high reputation. Although sixty years old, he was 
 believed never to have made an enemy either in 
 politics or at the Bar. Those who knew the two 
 gentlemen wondered whether the somewhat leis- 
 urely and conservative Secretary could leash in his 
 restless young First Assistant, with his Titanic en- 
 
114 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ergy and his head full of projects. No one believed 
 that even Roosevelt could startle Governor Long 
 out of his habitual urbanity, but every one could 
 foresee that they might so clash in policy that either 
 the head or the assistant would have to retire. 
 
 Nothing is waste that touches the man of genius. 
 So the two years which Roosevelt spent in writing, 
 fifteen years before, the "History of the Naval War 
 of 1812," now served him to good purpose; for it 
 gave him much information about the past of the 
 United States Navy and it quickened his interest in 
 the problems of the Navy as it should be at that 
 time. The close of the Civil War in 1865 left the 
 United States with a formidable fleet, which during 
 the next quarter of a century deteriorated until it 
 comprised only a collection of rotting and unservice- 
 able ships. Then came a reaction, followed by the 
 construction of an up-to-date fleet, and by the recog- 
 nition by Congress that the United States must pur- 
 sue a modern policy in naval affairs. Roosevelt had 
 always felt the danger to the United States of main- 
 taining a despicable or an inadequate Navy, and 
 from the moment he entered the Department he set 
 about pushing the construction of the unfinished 
 vessels and of improving the quality of the personnel. 
 
 He was impelled to do this, not merely by his 
 instinct to bring whatever he undertook up to the 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 115 
 
 highest standard, but also because he had a premo- 
 nition that a crisis was at hand which might call the 
 country at an instant's notice to protect itself with 
 all the power it had. Two recent events aroused his 
 vigilance. In December, 1895, President Cleveland 
 sent to England a message upholding the Monroe 
 Doctrine and warning the British that they must 
 arbitrate their dispute with Venezuela over a boun- 
 dary, or fight. This sledgehammer blow at England's 
 pride might well have caused war had not sober 
 patriots on both sides of the Atlantic, aghast at this 
 shocking possibility, smoothed the way to an under- 
 standing, and had not the British Government itself 
 acknowledged the rightness of the demand for arbi- 
 tration. So the danger vanished, but Roosevelt, and 
 every other thoughtful American, said to himself, 
 "Suppose England had taken up the challenge, what 
 had we to defend ourselves with?" And we com- 
 pared the long roll of the great British Fleet with the 
 paltry list of our own ships, and realized that we 
 should have been helpless. 
 
 The other fact which impressed Roosevelt was the 
 insurrection in Cuba which kept that island in per- 
 petual disorder. The cruel means, especially recon- 
 centration and starvation, by which the Spaniards 
 tried to put down the Cubans stirred the sympathy 
 of the Americans, and the number of those who be- 
 
ii6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 lieved that the United States ought to interfere in 
 behalf of humanity grew from month to month. A 
 spark might kindle an explosion. Obviously, there- 
 fore, the United States must have a Navy equipped 
 and ready for any emergency in the Caribbean. 
 
 During his first year in office, Assistant Secretary 
 Roosevelt busied himself with all the details of 
 preparation; he encouraged the enthusiasm of the 
 officers of the New Navy, for he shared their hopes; 
 he added, wherever he could, to its efficiency, as 
 when by securing from Congress an appropriation 
 of nearly a million dollars — which seemed then 
 enormous — for target practice. He promoted a spirit 
 of alertness — and all the while he watched the hori- 
 zon towards Cuba where the signs grew angrier and 
 angrier. 
 
 But the young Secretary had to act with circum- 
 spection. In the first place the policy of the Depart- 
 ment was formulated by Secretary Long. In the next 
 place the Navy could not come into action until 
 President McKinley and the Department of State 
 gave the word. The President, desiring to keep the 
 peace up to the very end, would not countenance 
 any move which might seem to the Spaniards either 
 a threat or an insult. As the open speeding-up of 
 naval preparations would be construed as both, 
 nothing must be done to excite alarm. In the autumn 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 117 
 
 of 1897, however, some of the Spaniards at Havana 
 treated the American residents there with so much 
 surHness that the American Government took the 
 precaution to send a battleship to the Havana Har- 
 bor as a warning to the menacing Spaniards, and as 
 a protection, in case of outbreak, to American citi- 
 zens and their property. 
 
 But what was meant for a precaution proved to be 
 the immediate cause of war. Early in the evening of 
 February 15, 1898, the battleship Maine, peaceably 
 riding at her moorings in the harbor, was blown up. 
 Two officers and 264 enlisted men were killed by the 
 explosion and in the sinking of the ship. Nearly as 
 many more, with Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, the 
 commander, were rescued. The next morning the 
 newspapers carried the report to all parts of the 
 United States, and, indeed, to the whole world. A 
 tidal wave of anger surged over this country. "That 
 means war!" was the common utterance. Some of 
 us, who abhorred the thought of war, urged that 
 at least we wait until the guilt could be fixed. The 
 reports of the catastrophe conflicted. Was the ship 
 destroyed by the explosion of shells in its own maga- 
 zine, or was it blown up from outside? If the latter, 
 who set off the mine? The Spaniards? It seemed un- 
 likely, if they wished war, that they should resort to 
 so clumsy a provocation! Might not the insurgents 
 
ii8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 themselves have done it, In order to force the United 
 States to interfere? While the country waited, the 
 anger grew. At Washington, nobody denied that war 
 was coming. All that our diplomacy attempted to do 
 was to stave off the actual declaration long enough 
 to give time for our naval and military preparation. 
 
 I doubt whether Roosevelt ever worked with 
 greater relish than during the weeks succeeding the 
 blowing-up of the Maine. At last he had his oppor- 
 tunity, which he improved night and day. The Navy 
 Department arranged in hot haste to victual the 
 ships ; to provide them with stores of coal and ammu- 
 nition; to bring the crews up to their full quota by 
 enlisting; to lay out a plan of campaign; to see to 
 the naval bases and the lines of communication ; and 
 to cooperate with the War Department in making 
 ready the land fortifications along the shore. Of 
 course all these labors did not fall on Roosevelt's 
 shoulders alone, but being a tireless and willing 
 worker he had more than one man's share in the 
 preparations. 
 
 But the great fact that war was coming — war, 
 the test — delighted him, and his sense of humor 
 was not allowed to sleep. For the peace-at-any-price 
 folk, the denouncers of the Navy and the Army, the 
 preachers of the doctrine that as all men are good it 
 was wicked to build defenses as if we suspected the 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 119 
 
 goodness of our neighbors, now rushed to the Govern- 
 ment for protection. A certain lady of importance, 
 who had a seaside villa, begged that a battleship 
 should be anchored just outside of it. Seaboard 
 cities frantically demanded that adequate protection 
 should be sent to them. The spokesman for one of 
 these cities happened to be a politician of such im- 
 portance that President McKinley told the Assistant 
 Secretary that his request must be granted. Accord- 
 ingly, Roosevelt put one of the old monitors in com- 
 mission, and had a tug tow it, at the imminent risk 
 of its crew, to the harbor which it was to guard, and 
 there the water-logged old craft stayed, to the relief 
 of the inhabitants of the city and the self-satisfaction 
 of the Congressman who was able to give them so 
 shining a proof of his power with the Administration. 
 Many frightened Bostonians transferred their secu- 
 rities to the bank vaults of Worcester, and they, too, 
 clamored for naval watch and ward. Roosevelt must 
 have been made unusually merry by such tidings 
 from Boston, the city which he regarded as particu- 
 larly prolific in "the men who formed the lunatic 
 fringe in all reform movements." 
 
 It did not astonish him that the financiers and the 
 business men, who were amassing great fortunes in 
 peace, should frown on war, which interrupted their 
 fortune-making; but he laughed when he remem- 
 
I20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 bered what they and many other vague pacifists had 
 • been solemnly proclaiming. There was the Senator, 
 for instance, who had denied that we needed a Navy, 
 because, if the emergency came, he said, we could 
 improvise one, and "build a battleship in every 
 creek." There were also the spread-eagle Americans, 
 the swaggerers and braggarts, who amused them- 
 selves in tail-twisting and insulting other nations so 
 long as they could do this with impunity; but now 
 they were brought to book, and their fears magnified 
 the possible danger they might run from the inva- 
 sion of irate Spaniards. Their imagination pictured 
 to them the poor old Spanish warship Viscaya, as 
 having as great possibility for destruction as the 
 entire British Fleet itself. 
 
 At all these things Roosevelt laughed to himself, 
 because they confirmed the gospel of military and 
 naval preparedness, which he had been preaching 
 for years, the gospel which these very opponents 
 reviled him for; but instead of contenting himself 
 by saying to them, "I told you so," he pushed on 
 preparations for war at full speed, determined to 
 make the utmost of the existing resources. The Navy 
 had clearly two tasks before it. It must blockade 
 Cuba, which entailed the patrol of the Caribbean Sea 
 and the protection of the Atlantic ports, and it must 
 prevent the Spanish Fleet, known to be at the 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 121 
 
 Philippines, from crossing the Pacific Ocean, harass- 
 ing our commerce, and threatening our harbors on 
 our Western coast. Through Roosevelt's instrumen- 
 tality, Commodore George Dewey had been ap- 
 pointed in the preceding autumn to command our 
 Asiatic Squadron, and while, in the absence of Gov- 
 nor Long, Roosevelt was Acting-Secretary, he sent 
 
 the following dispatch : 
 
 Washington, February 25, '98. 
 Dewey, Hong Kong: 
 
 Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. 
 Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, 
 your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not 
 leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in 
 Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders. 
 
 Roosevelt 
 
 I would not give the impression that Roosevelt 
 was the dictator of the Navy Department, or that 
 all, or most, of its notable achievements came from 
 his suggestion, but the plain fact is, wherever you 
 look at its most active and fruitful preparations for 
 war, you find him vigorously assisting. The order 
 he sent Commodore Dewey led directly to the chief 
 naval event of the war, the destruction of the Span- 
 ish Fleet by our Asiatic Squadron in Manila Bay, on 
 May 1st. Long before this victory came to pass, how- 
 ever, Roosevelt had resigned from the Navy Depart- 
 ment and was seeking an ampler outlet for his 
 energy. 
 
122 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Having accomplished his duty as Assistant Secre- 
 tary — a post which he felt was primarily for a 
 civilian — he thought that he had a right to retire 
 from it, and to gratify his long-cherished desire to 
 take part in the actual warfare. He did not wish, he 
 said, to have to give some excuse to his children for 
 not having fought in the war. As he had insisted that 
 we ought to free Cuba from Spanish tyranny and 
 cruelty, he could not consistently refuse to join ac- 
 tively in the liberation. A man who teaches the duty 
 of fighting should pay with his body when the fight- 
 ing comes. 
 
 General Alger, the Secretary of War, had a great 
 liking for Roosevelt, offered him a commission in the 
 Army, and even the command of a regiment. This 
 he prudently declined, having no technical military 
 knowledge. He proposed instead, that Dr. Leonard 
 Wood should be made Colonel, and that he should 
 serve under Wood as Lieutenant-Colonel. By pro- 
 fession, Wood was a physician, who had graduated 
 at the Harvard Medical School, and then had been 
 a contract surgeon with the American Army on the 
 plains. In this service he went through the roughest 
 kind of campaigning and, being ambitious, and hav- 
 ing an instinct for military science, he studied the 
 manuals and learned from them and through actual 
 practice the principles of war. In this way he became 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 123 
 
 competent to lead troops. He was about two years 
 younger than Roosevelt, with an iron frame, great 
 tenacity and endurance, a man of few words, but of 
 clear sight and quick decision. 
 
 While Roosevelt finished his business at the Navy 
 Department, Colonel Wood hurried to San Antonio, 
 Texas, the rendezvous of the First Regiment of 
 Volunteer Cavalry. A call for volunteers, issued by 
 Roosevelt and endorsed by Secretary Alger, spread 
 through the West and Southwest, and it met with a 
 quick response. Not even in Garibaldi's famous 
 Thousand was such a strange crowd gathered. It 
 comprised cow-punchers, ranchmen, hunters, pro- 
 fessional gamblers and rascals of the Border, sports- 
 men, mingled with the society sports, former foot- 
 ball players and oarsmen, polo-players and lovers of 
 adventure from the great Eastern cities. They all 
 had one quality in common — courage — and they 
 were all bound together by one common bond, devo- 
 tion to Theodore Roosevelt. Nearly every one of 
 them knew him personally; some of the Western 
 men had hunted or ranched with him; some of the 
 Eastern had been with him in college, or had had 
 contact with him in one of the many vicissitudes of 
 his career. It was a remarkable spectacle, this flock- 
 ing to a man not yet forty years old, whose chief 
 work up to that time had been in the supposed com- 
 
124 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 monplace position of a Civil Service Commissioner 
 and of a New York Police Commissioner! But Roose- 
 velt's name was already known throughout the 
 country: it excited great admiration in many, grave 
 doubts in many, and curiosity in all. 
 
 His friends urged him not to go. It seemed to some 
 of us almost wantonly reckless that he should put 
 his life, which had been so valuable and evidently 
 held the promise of still higher achievement, at the 
 risk of a Spanish bullet, or of yellow fever in Cuba, 
 for the sake of a cause which did not concern the 
 safety of his country. But he never considered risks 
 or chances. He felt it as a duty that we must free 
 Cuba, and that every one who recognized this duty 
 should do his share in performing it. No doubt the 
 excitement and the noble side of our war attracted 
 him. No doubt, also, that he remembered that the 
 reputation of a successful soldier had often proved a 
 ladder to political promotion in our Republic. Every 
 reader of our history, though he were the dullest, 
 understood that. But that was not the chief reason, 
 or even an important one, in shaping his decision. 
 
 He went to San Antonio in May, and worked 
 without respite in learning the rudiments of war and 
 in teaching them to his motley volunteers, who were 
 already called by the public, and will be known in his- 
 tory, as the " Rough Riders." He felt relieved when 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. 
 ROOSEVELT AS A ROUGH RIDER 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 125 
 
 "Teddy's Terrors," one of the nicknames proposed, 
 did not stick to them. At the end of the month the 
 regiment proceeded to Tampa, Florida, whence part 
 of it sailed for Cuba on the transport Yucatan. It 
 sufficiently indicates the state of chaos which then 
 reigned in our Army preparations, that half the regi- 
 ment and all the horses and mules were left behind. 
 Arrived in Cuba, the first troops, accustomed only 
 to the saddle, had to hobble along as best they could, 
 on foot, so that some wag rechristened them "Wood's 
 Weary Walkers." The rest of the regiment, with the 
 mounts, came a little later, and at Las Guasimas 
 they had their first skirmish with the Spaniards. 
 Eight of them were killed, and they were buried in 
 one grave. Afterward, in writing the history of the 
 Rough Riders, Roosevelt said: "There could be no 
 more honorable burial than that of these men in a 
 common grave — Indian and cowboy, miner, packer, 
 and college athlete — the man of unknown ancestry 
 from the lonely Western plains, and the man who 
 carried on his watch the crests of the Stuyvesants 
 and the Fishes, one in the way they had met death, 
 just as during life they had been one in their daring 
 and their loyalty." ^ 
 
 I shall not attempt to follow in detail the story of 
 the Rough Riders, but shall touch only on those 
 
 ^ The Rough Riders, 120. 
 
126 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 matters which refer to Roosevelt himself. Wood, 
 having been promoted to Brigadier-General, in com- 
 mand of a larger unit, Theodore became Colonel of 
 the regiment. On July i and 2 he commanded the 
 Rough Riders in their attack on and capture of San 
 Juan Hill, in connection with some colored troops. 
 In this engagement, their nearest approach to a 
 battle, the Rough Riders, who had less than five hun- 
 dred men in action, lost eighty-nine in killed and 
 wounded. Then followed a dreary life in the trenches 
 until Santiago surrendered; and then a still more 
 terrible experience while they waited for Spain to 
 give up the war. Under a killing tropical sun, receiv- 
 ing irregular and often damaged food, without tent 
 or other protection from the heat or from the rain, 
 the Rough Riders endured for weeks the ravages of 
 fever, climate, and privation. To realize that their 
 sufferings were directly owing to the blunders and 
 incompetence of the War Department at home, 
 brought no consolation, for the soldiers could see no 
 reason why the Department should not go on blun- 
 dering indefinitely. One of the Rough Riders told me 
 that, when stricken with fever, he lay for days on 
 the beach, and that anchored within the distance a 
 tennis-ball could be thrown was a steamer loaded 
 with medicines, but that no orders were given to 
 bring them ashore! 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 127 
 
 The Rough Riders were hard hit by disease, but 
 not harder than the other regiments in the Army. 
 Every one of their officers, except the Colonel and 
 another, had yellow fever, and at one time more 
 than half of the regiment was sick. A terrible depres- 
 sion weighed them down. They almost despaired, 
 not only of being relieved, but of living. To face the 
 entire Spanish Army would have been a great joy, 
 compared with this sinking, melting away, against 
 the invisible fever. 
 
 The Administration at Washington, however, al- 
 though it knew the condition of the Army in Cuba, 
 seemed indifferent rather than anxious, and talked 
 about moving the troops into the interior, to the 
 high ground round San Luis. Thereupon, Roosevelt 
 wrote to General Shafter, his commanding officer: 
 
 To keep us here, in the opinion of every officer commanding 
 a division or a brigade, will simply involve the destruction of 
 thousands. There is no possible reason for not shipping prac- 
 tically the entire command North at once. . . . 
 
 All of us are certain, as soon as the authorities at Washing- 
 ton fully appreciate the conditions of the army, to be sent 
 home. If we are kept here it will in all human probability 
 mean an appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate 
 that over half the army, if kept here during the sickly season, 
 will die. 
 
 This is not only terrible from the standpoint of the indi- 
 vidual lives lost, but it means ruin from the standpoint of 
 military efficiency of the flower of the American Army, for 
 the great bulk of the regulars are herewith you. The sick-list, 
 
128 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 large though it is, exceeding four thousand, affords but a 
 faint index of the debilitation of the army. Not ten per cent 
 are fit for active work. 
 
 This letter General Shafter really desired to have 
 written, but when Roosevelt handed it to him, he hes- 
 itated to receive it. Still Roosevelt persisted, left it in 
 the General's hands, and the General gave it to the 
 correspondent of the Associated Press who was pres- 
 ent. A few hours later it had been telegraphed to the 
 United States. Shafter called a council of war of the 
 division and brigade commanders, which he invited 
 Roosevelt to attend, although his rank as Colonel did 
 not entitle him to take part. When the Generals heard 
 that the Army was to be kept in Cuba all summer 
 and sent up into the hills, they agreed that Roose- 
 velt's protest must be supported, and they drew up 
 the famous "Round Robin" in which they repeated 
 Roosevelt's warnings. Neither President McKinley 
 nor the War Department could be deaf to such a 
 statement as this: "This army must be moved at 
 once or perish. As the army can be safely moved 
 now, the persons responsible for preventing such a 
 move will be responsible for the unnecessary loss of 
 many thousands of lives." 
 
 This letter also was immediately published at 
 home, and outcries of horror and indignation went 
 up. A few sticklers for military etiquette professed 
 
Copyright l)y Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. 
 WITH GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER AND LEONARD WOOD 
 
THE ROUGH RIDER 129 
 
 to be astonished that any officer should be guilty of 
 the insubordination which these letters implied, and, 
 of course, the blame fell on Roosevelt. The truth is 
 that Shafter, dismayed at the condition of the Fifth 
 Army, and at his own inability to make the Govern- 
 ment understand the frightful doom which was im- 
 pending, deliberately chose Roosevelt to commit the 
 insubordination; for, as he was a volunteer officer, 
 soon to be discharged, the act could not harm his 
 future, whereas the regular officers were not likely to 
 be popular with the War Department after they had 
 called the attention of the world to its maleficent in- 
 competence. 
 
 Washington heard the shot fired by the Colonel of 
 the Rough Riders, and without loss of time ordered 
 the Army home. The sick were transported by thou- 
 sands to Montauk Point, at the eastern end of Long 
 Island, where, in spite of the best medical care which 
 could be improvised, large numbers of them died. 
 But the Army knew, and the American public knew, 
 that Roosevelt, by his "insubordination," had saved 
 multitudes of lives. At Montauk Point he was the 
 most popular man in America. 
 
 This concluded Roosevelt's career as a soldier. The 
 experience introduced to the public those virile qual- 
 ities of his with which his friends were familiar. He 
 had not endured the hardships of ranching and hunt- 
 
I30 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ing in vain. If life on the Plains democratized him, life 
 with the Rough Riders did also; indeed, without the 
 former there would have been no Rough Riders and 
 no Colonel Roosevelt. He learned not only how to 
 lead a regiment according to the tactics of that day, 
 but also — and this was far more important — he 
 learned how disasters and the waste of lives, and 
 treasure, and the ignominy of a disgracefully man- 
 aged campaign, sprang directly from unpreparedness. 
 This burned indelibly into his memory. It stimulated 
 all his subsequent appeals to make the Army and 
 Navy large enough for any probable sudden demand 
 upon them. "America the Unready" had won the war 
 against a decrepit, impoverished, third-rate power, 
 but had paid for her victory hundreds of millions of 
 dollars and tens of thousands of lives; what would 
 the count have mounted to had she been pitted 
 against a really formidable foe? Would she have won 
 at all against any enemy fully prepared and of nearly 
 equal strength? Many of us dismissed Roosevelt's 
 warnings then as the outpourings of a Jingo, of one 
 who loved war for war's sake, and wished to graft 
 onto the peaceful traditions and standards of our 
 Republic the militarism of Europe. We misjudged 
 him. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK — VICE-PRESIDENT 
 
 WHILE Roosevelt was at jMontauk Point wait- 
 ing with his regiment to be mustered out, and 
 cheering up the sick soldiers, he had direct proof 
 that every war breeds a President. For the politi- 
 cians went down to call on him and, although they 
 did not propose that he should be a candidate for 
 the Presidency — that was not a Presidential year — 
 they looked him over to see how he would do for 
 Governor of New York. Since Cleveland set the 
 fashion in 1882, the New York governorship was 
 regarded as the easiest stepping-stone to the Presi- 
 dency. Roosevelt's popularity was so great that if 
 the matter had been left in the hands of the people, 
 he would have been nominated with a rush; but the 
 Empire State was dominated by Bosses — Senator 
 David B. Hill, the Democratic State Boss, Senator 
 Thomas C. Piatt, the Republican State Boss, and 
 Richard Croker, Boss of Tammany, — who had in- 
 timate relations with the wicked of both parties, and 
 often decided an election by throwing their votes or 
 withholding them. 
 
 Senator Piatt enjoyed, with Senator Quay of Penn- 
 
132 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 sylvania, the evil reputation of being the most un- 
 scrupulous Boss in the United States. I do not under- 
 take to say whether the palm should go to him or to 
 Quay, but no one disputes that Piatt held New York 
 State in his hand, or that Quay held Pennsylvania in 
 his. By the year 1898, both were recognized as repre- 
 senting a type of Boss that was becoming extinct. 
 The business-man type, of which Senator Aldrich was 
 a perfect exponent, was pushing to the front. Quay, 
 greedy of money, had never made a pretense of show- 
 ing even a conventional respect for the Eighth Com- 
 mandment; Piatt, on the other hand, seems not to 
 have enriched himself by his political deals, but to 
 have taken his pay in the gratification he enjoyed 
 from wielding autocratic power. Piatt also betrayed 
 that he dated from the last generation by his re- 
 ligiosity. He used his piety as an elephant uses his 
 proboscis, to reach about and secure desired objects, 
 large or small, the trunk of a tree or a bag of peanuts. 
 He was a Sunday-School teacher and, I believe, a 
 deacon of his church. Roosevelt says that he occa- 
 sionally interlarded his political talk with theological 
 discussion, but that his very dr>^ theology was wholly 
 divorced from moral implications. The wonderful 
 chapter on "The New York Governorship," in 
 Roosevelt's "Autobiography," ought to be read by 
 every American, because it gives the most remarka- 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 133 
 
 ble account of the actual working of the political 
 Machine in a great American State, the disguises 
 that Machine wore, its absolute unscrupulousness, 
 its wickedness, its purpose to destroy the ideals of 
 democracy. And Roosevelt's analysis of Piatt may 
 stand alongside of Machiavelli's portraits of the 
 Italian Bosses four hundred years before — they 
 were not called Bosses then. 
 
 Senator Piatt did not wish to have Roosevelt hold 
 the governorship, or any other office in which the 
 independent young man might worry the wily old 
 Senator.^ But the Republican Party in New York 
 State happened to be in such a very bad condition 
 that the likelihood that it would carry the election 
 that autumn was slight: for the public had tempo- 
 rarily tired of Machine rule. Piatt's managers saw 
 that they must pick out a really strong candidate and 
 they understood that nobody at that moment could 
 rival Roosevelt's popularity. So they impressed on 
 Piatt that he must accept the Rough Rider Chief, 
 and Mr. Lemuel Quigg, an ex-Congressman, a jour- 
 nalist formerly on the New York Tribune, a stanch 
 Republican, who nevertheless recognized that dis- 
 cretion and intelligence might sometimes be allowed 
 a voice in Machine dictation, journeyed to Montauk 
 and had a friendly, frank conversation with the 
 Colonel. 
 
 ^ Piatt and Quay were both born in 1833. 
 
134 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Quigg spoke for nobody but himself; he merely 
 wished to sound Roosevelt. Roosevelt made no 
 pledges; he defined his general attitude and wished 
 to understand what the Piatt Machine proposed. 
 Quigg said that Piatt admitted that the present Gov- 
 ernor, Black, could not be reelected, but that he had 
 doubts as to Roosevelt's docility. Republican lead- 
 ers and local chairmen in all parts of the State, how- 
 ever, enthusiastically called for Roosevelt, and Quigg 
 did not wish to have the Republican Party split into 
 two factions. He believed that Piatt would accede 
 if he could be convinced that Roosevelt would not 
 "make war on him." Roosevelt, without promising 
 anything, replied that he had no intention of mak- 
 ing "war on Mr. Piatt, or on anybody else, if war 
 could be avoided." He said 
 
 that what [he] wanted was to be Governor and not a faction 
 leader; that [he] certainly would confer with the organization 
 men, as with everybody else who seemed to [him] to have 
 knowledge of and interest in public affairs, and that as to 
 Mr. Piatt and the organization leaders, [he] would do so in 
 the sincere hope that there might always result harmony of 
 opinion and purpose; but that while [he] would try to get on 
 well with the organization, the organization must with equal 
 sincerity strive to do what [he] regarded as essential for the 
 public good; and that in every case, after full consideration 
 of what everybody had to say who might possess real knowl- 
 edge of the matter, [he] should have to act finally as [his] 
 own judgment and conscience dictated, and administer the 
 State Government as [he] thought it ought to be administered.^ 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 295. 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 135 
 
 Having assured Roosevelt that his statements 
 were exactly what Quigg expected, Quigg returned 
 to New York City, reported his conversation to 
 Piatt, and, in due season, the free citizens of New 
 York learned that, with Piatt's consent, the Colonel 
 of the Rough Riders would be nominated by the Re- 
 publican State Convention for the governorship of 
 New York. 
 
 During the campaign, Roosevelt stumped the 
 State at a pace unknown till then. It was his first 
 real campaign, and he went from place to place in a 
 special train speaking at every stop from his car 
 platform or, in the larger towns, staying long enough 
 to address great audiences out of doors or in the local 
 theatre. In November, he was elected by a majority 
 of 18,000, a slender margin as it looks now, but suffi- 
 cient for its purpose, and representing a really nota- 
 ble victory, because it had been expected that the 
 Democrats would beat any other Republican can- 
 didate but him by overwhelming odds. So, after 
 an absence of fifteen years, he returned to dwell in 
 Albany. 
 
 Before he was sworn in as Governor, he had al- 
 ready measured strength with Senator Piatt. The 
 Senator asked him with amiable condescension 
 whether he had any special friends he would like 
 to have appointed on the committees. Roosevelt 
 
136 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 expressed surprise, supposing that the Speaker ap- 
 pointed committees. Then Piatt told him that the 
 Speaker had not been agreed upon yet, but that of 
 course he would name the list given to him. Roose- 
 velt understood the situation, but said nothing. A 
 week later, however, at another conference, Piatt 
 handed him a telegram, in which the sender accepted 
 with pleasure his appointment as Superintendent of 
 Public Works. Roosevelt liked this man and thought 
 him honest, but he did not think him the best person 
 for that particular work, and he did not intend as 
 Governor to have his appointments dictated to him, 
 because he would naturally be held responsible for 
 his appointees. When he told Piatt that that man 
 would not do, the Senator flew into a passion; he had 
 never met such insubordination before in any public 
 official, and he decided to fight the issue from the 
 start. Roosevelt did not allow himself to lose his tem- 
 per; he was perfectly polite while Piatt let loose his 
 fury ; and before they parted Piatt understood which 
 was master. The Governor appointed Colonel Par- 
 tridge to the position and, as it had chiefly to do with 
 the canals of the State, it was most important. In- 
 deed, the canal scandals under Roosevelt's prede- 
 cessor. Governor Black, had so roused the popular 
 conscience that it threatened to break down the su- 
 premacy of the Republican Party. 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 137 
 
 Jacob Riis describes Roosevelt's administration as 
 introducing the Ten Commandments into the gov- 
 ernment at Albany, and we need hardly be told that 
 the young Governor applied his usual methods and 
 promoted his favorite reforms. Finding the Civil 
 Service encrusted with abuses, he pushed legislation 
 which established a high standard of reform. The 
 starch which had been taken out of the Civil Service 
 Law under Governor Black was put back, stiffened. 
 He insisted on enforcing the Factory Law, for the 
 protection of operatives; and the law regulating 
 sweat-shops, which he inspected himself, with Riis 
 for his companion. 
 
 Perhaps his hottest battle was over the law to tax 
 corporations which held public franchises. This 
 touched the owners of street railways in the cities and 
 towns, and many other corporations which enjoyed 
 a monopoly in managing quasi-public utilities. "In 
 politics there is no politics," said that elderly early 
 mentor of Roosevelt when he first sat in the Assem- 
 bly. Legislatures existed simply to do the bidding 
 of Big Business, was the creed of the men who con- 
 trolled Big Business. They contributed impartially 
 to the Republican and Democratic campaign funds. 
 They had Republican Assemblymen and Democratic 
 Assemblymen in their service, and their lobbyists 
 worked harmoniously with either party. Merely to 
 
138 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 suggest that the special privileges of the corpora- 
 tions might be open to discussion was sacrilege. No 
 wonder, therefore, that the holders of public fran- 
 chises marshaled all their forces against the Gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 Boss Piatt wrote Roosevelt a letter — one of the 
 sort inspired more by sorrow than by anger — to 
 the effect that he had been warned that the Gover- 
 nor was a little loose on the relations of capital and 
 labor, on trusts and combinations, and, in general, 
 on the right of a man to run his business as he chose, 
 aways respecting, of course, the Ten Command- 
 ments and the Penal Code. The Senator was shocked 
 and pained to perceive that this warning had a real 
 basis, and that the Governor's "altruism" in behalf 
 of the people had led him to urge curtailing the 
 rights of corporations. Roosevelt, instead of feeling 
 contrite at this chiding, redoubled his energy. The 
 party managers buried the bill. Roosevelt then sent 
 a special message, as the New York Governors are 
 empowered to do. It was laid on the Speaker's desk, 
 but no notice was taken of it. The next morning he 
 sent this second message to the Speaker: 
 
 I learn that the emergency message which I sent last eve- 
 ning to the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill has 
 not been read. I, therefore, send hereby another. I need not 
 impress upon the Assembly the need of passing this bill at 
 once. ... It establishes the principle that hereafter corpora- 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 139 
 
 tions holding franchises from the pubHc shall pay their just 
 share of the public burden.^ 
 
 The Speaker, the Assembly, and the Machine now 
 gave heed. The corporations saw that it would be 
 suicidal to bring down on themselves the avalanche 
 of fury which was accumulating. The bill passed. 
 Roosevelt had set a precedent for controlling cor- 
 porate truculence. 
 
 While Roosevelt was accomplishing these very 
 real triumphs for justice and popular welfare, the 
 professional critics went on finding fault with him. 
 Although the passage of one bill after another gave 
 tangible proof that, far from being Piatt's "man," 
 or the slave of the Machine, he followed his own 
 ideals, did not satisfy these critics. They suspected 
 that there was some wickedness behind it, and they 
 professed to be greatly disturbed that Roosevelt fre- 
 quently breakfasted or dined with Piatt. What could 
 this mean except that he took his instructions from 
 the Boss? How could he, who made a pretense of 
 righteousness, consent to visit the Sunday-School 
 political teacher, much less to sit at the table with 
 him? The doubts and anxieties of these self-ap- 
 pointed defenders of public morals, and of the Re- 
 public even, found a spokesman in a young journalist 
 who had then come recently from college. This per- 
 
 ^ Riis, 221. 
 
140 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 son, whom we will call X., met Mr. Roosevelt at a 
 public reception and with the brusqueness, to put it 
 mildly, of a hereditary reformer, he demanded to 
 know why the Governor breakfasted and dined with 
 Boss Piatt. Mr. Roosevelt replied, with that cour- 
 tesy of his which was never more complete than 
 when it conveyed his sarcasm, that a person in pub- 
 lic office, like himself, was obliged to meet officially 
 all kinds of men and women, and he added: "Why, 
 Mr. X., I have even dined with your father." X. did 
 not pursue his investigation, and the bystanders, 
 who had vague recollections of the father's misfor- 
 tunes in Wall Street, thought that the son was a 
 little indiscreet even for a hereditary reformer. 
 
 The truth about Roosevelt's going to Piatt and 
 breakfasting with him was very simple. The Senator 
 spent the week till Friday afternoon in Washington, 
 then he came to New York for Saturday and Sunday. 
 Being somewhat infirm, although he was not, as we 
 now reckon, an old man, he did not care to extend 
 his trip to Albany, and so the young and vigorous 
 Governor ran down from Albany and, at breakfast 
 with Piatt, discussed New York State affairs. What 
 I have already quoted indicates, I think, that no- 
 body knew better than the Boss himself that Roose- 
 velt was not his "man." 
 
 One other example is too good to omit. The Super- 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 141 
 
 intendent of Insurance was really one of Piatt's men, 
 and a person most grateful to the insurance com- 
 panies. Governor Roosevelt, regarding him as unfit, 
 not only declined to reappoint him, but actually ap- 
 pointed in his stead a superintendent whom Piatt 
 and the insurance companies could not manage, and 
 so hated. Piatt remonstrated. Finding his arguments 
 futile, he broke out in threats that if his man was 
 not reappointed, he would fight. He would forbid 
 the Assembly to confirm Roosevelt's candidate. 
 Roosevelt replied that as soon as the Assembly ad- 
 journed, he should appoint his candidate tempo- 
 rarily. Piatt declared that when it reconvened, the 
 Assembly would throw him out. This did not, how- 
 ever, frighten Roosevelt, who remarked that, al- 
 though he foresaw he should have an uncomfortable 
 time himself, he would "guarantee to make his 
 opponents more uncomfortable still." 
 
 Later that day Piatt sent one of his henchmen to 
 deliver an ultimatum to the Governor. He repeated 
 Piatt's threats, but was unable to make an impres- 
 sion. Roosevelt got up to go. "You know it means 
 your ruin?" said the henchman solemnly. "Well, 
 we will see about that," Roosevelt replied, and had 
 nearly reached the door when the henchman, anxious 
 to give the prospective victim a last chance, warned 
 him that the Senator would open the fight on the 
 
142 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 next day, and keep it up to the bitter end. "Yes," 
 replied the Governor; "good-night." And he was just 
 going out, when the henchman rushed after him, call- 
 ing, "Hold on ! We accept. Send in your nomination. 
 The Senator is very sorry, but will make no further 
 opposition." ^ Roosevelt adds that the bluff was 
 carried through to the limit, but that after it failed, 
 Piatt did not renew his attempt to interfere with him. 
 
 Nevertheless, Roosevelt made no war on Piatt or 
 anybody else, merely for the fun of it. "We must 
 use the tools we have," said Lincoln to John Hay; 
 and Lincoln also had many tools which he did not 
 choose, but which he had to work with. Roosevelt 
 differed from the doctrinaire reformer, who would 
 sit still and do nothing unless he had perfectly clean 
 tools and pure conditions to work with. To do noth- 
 ing until the millennium came would mean, of 
 course, that the Machine would pursue its methods 
 undisturbed. Roosevelt, on the contrary, knew that 
 by cooperating with the Machine, as far as his con- 
 science permitted, he could reach results much better 
 than it aimed at. 
 
 Here are three of his letters to Piatt, written at a 
 time when the young journalist and the reformers of 
 his stripe shed tears at the thought that Theodore 
 Roosevelt was the obsequious servant of Boss Piatt. 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 317. 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 143 
 
 The first letter refers to Roosevelt's nomination 
 to the Vice-Presidency, a possibility which the public 
 was already discussing. The last two letters, written 
 after he had been nominated by the Republicans, 
 relate to the person whom he wished to see succeed 
 himself as Governor of New York. 
 
 Roosevelt to Platt 
 
 February i, 1900 
 
 First, and least important. If you happened to have seen 
 the Evening Post recently, you ought to be amused, for it is 
 moralizing with lofty indignation over the cringing servility 
 I have displayed in the matter of the insurance superintend- 
 ent. I fear it will soon take the view that it cannot possibly 
 support you as long as you associate with me ! 
 
 Now as to serious matters. I have, of course, done a great 
 deal of thinking about the Vice-Presidency since the talk I 
 had with you followed by the letter from Lodge and the visit 
 from Payne, of Wisconsin. I have been reserving the matter 
 to talk over with you, but in view of the publication in the 
 Sun this morning, I would like to begin the conversation, as 
 it were, by just a line or two now. I need not speak of the 
 confidence I have in the judgment of you and Lodge, yet I 
 can't help feeling more and more that the Vice-Presidency is 
 not an ofifice in which I could do anything and not an office 
 in which a man who is still vigorous and not past middle life 
 has much chance of doing anything. As you know, I am of an 
 active nature. In spite of all the work and all the worry, — 
 and very largely because of your own constant courtesy and 
 consideration, my dear Senator, — I have thoroughly en- 
 joyed being Governor. I have kept every promise, express or 
 implied, I made on the stump, and I feel that the Republican 
 Party is stronger before the State because of my incumbency. 
 
144 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Certainly everything is being managed now on a perfectly 
 straight basis and every office is as clean as a whistle. 
 
 Now, I should like to be Governor for another term, espe- 
 cially if we are able to take hold of the canals in serious shape. 
 But as Vice-President, I don't see there is anything I can do. 
 I would simply be a presiding officer, and that I should find 
 a bore. As you know, I am a man of moderate means (al- 
 though I am a little better off than the Sun's article would 
 indicate) and I should have to live very simply in Washington 
 and could not entertain in any way as Mr. Hobart and Mr. 
 Morton entertained. My children are all growing up and I find 
 the burden of their education constantly heavier, so that I 
 am by no means sure that I ought to go into public life at all, 
 provided some remunerative work offered itself. The only 
 reason I would like to go on is that as I have not been a money 
 maker I feel rather in honor bound to leave my children the 
 equivalent in a way of a substantial sum of actual achieve- 
 ment in politics or letters. Now, as Governor, I can achieve 
 something, but as Vice-President I should achieve nothing. 
 The more I look at it, the less I feel as if the Vice-Presidency 
 offered anything to me that would warrant my taking it. 
 
 Of course, I shall not say anything until I hear from you, 
 and possibly not until I see you, but I did want you to know 
 just how I felt. 
 
 Roosevelt to Platt 
 
 Oyster Bay, August 13, 1900 
 I noticed in Saturday's paper that you had spoken of my 
 suggesting Judge Andrews. I did not intend to make the sug- 
 gestion public, and I wrote you with entire freedom, hoping 
 that perhaps I could suggest some man who would commend 
 himself to your judgment as being acceptable generally to 
 the Republican Party. I am an organization Republican of a 
 very strong type, as I understand the word "organization," 
 but in trying to suggest a candidate for Governor, I am not 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 145 
 
 seeking either to put up an organization or a non-organization 
 man, but simply a first-class Republican, who will commend 
 himself to all Republicans, and, for the matter of that, to all 
 citizens who wish good government. Judge Andrews needs 
 no endorsement from any man living as to his Republicanism. 
 From the time he was Mayor of Syracuse through his long 
 and distinguished service on the bench he has been recognized 
 as a Republican and a citizen of the highest type. I write this 
 because your interview seems to convey the impression, which 
 I am sure you did not mean to convey, that in some way my 
 suggestions are antagonistic to the organization. I do not 
 understand quite what you mean by the suggestion of my 
 friends, for I do not know who the men are to whom you thus 
 refer, nor why they are singled out for reference as making 
 any suggestions about the Governorship. 
 
 In your last interview, I understood that you wished me to 
 be back in the State at the time of the convention. As I wish 
 to be able to give the nominee hearty and effective support, 
 this necessarily means that I do have a great interest in whom 
 is nominated. 
 
 Roosevelt to Platt 
 
 Oyster Bay, August 20, 1900 
 I have your letter of the i6th. I wish to see a straight Re- 
 publican nomination for the governorship. The men whom I 
 have mentioned, such as ex-Judge Andrews and Secretary 
 Root, are as good Republicans as can be found in the State, 
 and I confess I have n't the slightest idea what you mean 
 when you say, " if we are to lower the standard and nominate 
 such men as you suggest, we might as well die first as last." 
 To nominate such a man as either of these is to raise the 
 standard ; to speak of it as lowering the standard is an utter 
 misuse of words. 
 
 You say that we must nominate some Republican who 
 "will carry out the wishes of the organization," and add that 
 
146 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 " I have not yet made up my mind who that man is." Of one 
 thing I am certain, that, to have it piibhcly known that the 
 candidate, whoever he may be, "will carry out the wishes of 
 the organization," would insure his defeat; for such a state- 
 ment implies that he would merely register the decrees of a 
 small body of men inside the Republican Party, instead of 
 trying to work for the success of the party as a whole and of 
 good citizenship generally. It is not the business of a Governor 
 to "carry out the wishes of the organization" unless these 
 wishes coincide with the good of the Party and of the State. 
 If they do, then he ought to have them put into effect; if they 
 do not, then as a matter of course he ought to disregard them. 
 To pursue any other course would be to show servility; and a 
 servile man is always an undesirable — not to say a contempt- 
 ible — public servant. A Governor should, of course, try in 
 good faith to work with the organization; but under no cir- 
 cumstances should he be servile to it, or "carry out its wishes " 
 unless his own best judgment is that they ought to be carried 
 out. I am a good organization man myself, as I understand the 
 word "organization," but it is in the highest degree foolish 
 to make a fetish of the word "organization " and to treat any 
 man or any small group of men as embodying the organiza- 
 tion. The organization should strive to give effective, intelli- 
 gent, and honest leadership to and representation of the 
 Republican Party, just as the Republican Party strives to 
 give wise and upright government to the State. When what 
 I have said ceases to be true of either organization or party, 
 it means that the organization or party is not performing its 
 duty, and is losing the reason for its existence.^ 
 
 Roosevelt's independence as Governor of New 
 York, and the very important reforms which, in 
 spite of the Machine, he had driven through, greatly 
 increased his personal popularity throughout the 
 
 ^ Washburn, 34-38. 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 147 
 
 country. To citizens, East and West, who knew 
 nothing about the condition of the factories, canals, 
 and insurance institutions in New York State, the 
 name ''Roosevelt" stood for a man as honest as he 
 was energetic, and as fearless as he was true. Piatt 
 and the Machine naturally wished to get rid of this 
 marplot, who could not be manipulated, who held 
 strange and subversive ideas as to the extent to 
 which the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code 
 should be allowed to encroach on politics and Big 
 Business, and who was hopelessly "altruistic" in 
 caring for the poor and down-trodden and outcast. 
 Even Piatt knew that, while it would not be safe for 
 him to try to dominate the popular hero against his 
 own preference and that of the public, still to shelve 
 Roosevelt in the office of Vice-President would bring 
 peace to the sadly disturbed Boss, and would restore 
 jobs to many of his greedy followers. So he talked up 
 the Vice- Presidency for Roosevelt, and he let the 
 impression circulate that in the autumn there would 
 be a new Governor. 
 
 Roosevelt, however, repeated to many persons the 
 views he wrote to Piatt in the letter quoted above, 
 and his friends and opponents both understood that 
 he wished to continue as Governor for another two 
 years, to carry on the fight against corruption, and 
 to save himself from being laid away in the Vice- 
 
148 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Presidency — the receiving-tomb of many ambitious 
 politicians. In spite of the fact that within thirty- 
 five years, by the assassination of two Presidents, 
 two Vice-Presidents had succeeded to the highest 
 office in the Nation, Vice-Presidents were popularly 
 regarded as being mere phantoms without any real 
 power or influence as long as their term lasted, and 
 cut off from all hopes in the future. Roosevelt him- 
 self had this notion. But the Presidential conven- 
 tions, with criminal disregard of the qualifications of 
 a candidate to perform the duties of President if 
 accident thrust them upon him, went on recklessly 
 nominating nonentities for Vice-President. 
 
 The following extract from a confidential letter 
 by John Hay, Secretary of State, to Mr. Henry 
 White, at the American Embassy in London, reveals 
 the attitude towards Roosevelt of the Administra- 
 tion itself. Allowance must be made, of course, for 
 Hay's well-known habit of persiflage: 
 
 Hay to Henry White 
 
 Teddy has been here : have you heard of it? It was more fun 
 than a goat. He came down with a sombre resolution thrown 
 on his strenuous brow to let McKinley and Hanna know 
 once for all that he would not be Vice-President, and found 
 to his stupefaction that nobody in Washington, except Piatt, 
 had ever dreamed of such a thing. He did not even have a 
 chance to launch his nolo episcopari at the Major. That states- 
 man said he did not want him on the ticket — that he would 
 
GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK 149 
 
 be far more valuable in New York — and Root said, with his 
 frank and murderous smile, "Of course not — you're not fit 
 for it." And so he went back quite eased in his mind, but con- 
 siderably bruised in his amour propre. 
 
 In February', Roosevelt issued a public notice that 
 he would not consent to run for the Vice-Presidency, 
 and throughout the spring, until the meeting of the 
 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, on June 
 2 1st, he clung to that determination. Piatt, anxious 
 lest Roosevelt should be reelected Governor against 
 the plans of the Machine, quietly worked up a 
 "boom" for Roosevelt's nomination as Vice-Presi- 
 dent ; and he connived with Quay to steer the Penn- 
 sylvania delegation in the same direction. The dele- 
 gates met and renominated McKinley as a matter 
 of course. Then, with irresistible pressure, they in- 
 sisted on nominating Roosevelt. Swept off his feet, 
 and convinced that the demand came genuinely 
 from representatives from all over the country, he 
 accepted, and was chosen by acclamation. The Boss- 
 led delegations from New York and Pennsylvania 
 added their votes to those of the real Roosevelt 
 enthusiasts. 
 
 Happy, pious Tom Piatt, relieved from the night- 
 mare of having to struggle for two years more with 
 a Reform Governor at Albany ! Some of Roosevelt's 
 critics construed his yielding, at the last moment, as 
 
150 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 evidence of his being ruled by Piatt after all. But this 
 insinuation collapsed as soon as the facts were known. 
 As an episode in the annals of political sport, I 
 should like to have had Roosevelt run for Governor 
 a second time, defy Piatt and all his imps, and be 
 reelected. 
 
 As I have just quoted Secretar}^ Hay's sarcastic 
 remarks on the possibility that Roosevelt might be 
 the candidate for Vice-President, I will add this 
 extract from Hay's note to the successful candidate 
 himself, dated June 21st: 
 
 As it is all over but the shouting, I take a moment of this 
 cool morning of the longest day in the year to offer you my 
 cordial congratulations, . . . You have received the greatest 
 compliment the country could pay you, and although it was 
 not precisely what you and your friends desire, I have no 
 doubt it is all for the best. Nothing can keep you from doing 
 good work wherever you are — nor from getting lots of fun 
 out of it.^ 
 
 The Presidential campaign which followed, shook 
 the country only a little less than that of 1896 had 
 done. For William J. Br>'an was again the Demo- 
 cratic candidate, honest money — the gold against 
 the silver standard — was again the issue — al- 
 though the Spanish War had injected Imperialism 
 into the Republican platform — and the conserva- 
 tive elements were still anxious. The persistence of 
 * VV. R. Thayer: John Hay, 11, 343. 
 
VICE-PRESIDENT 151 
 
 the Free Silver heresy and of Bryan's hold on the 
 popular imagination alarmed them; for it seemed to 
 contradict the hope implied in Lincoln's saying that 
 you can't fool all the people all the time. Here was 
 a demagogue, who had been exposed and beaten four 
 years before, who raised his head — or should I say 
 his voice? — with increased effrontery' and to an 
 equally large and enthusiastic audience. 
 
 Roosevelt took his full share in campaigning for 
 the Republican ticket. He spoke in the East and in 
 the West, and for the first time the people of many 
 of the States heard him speak and saw his actual 
 presence. His attitude as a speaker, his gestures, the 
 way in which his pent-up thoughts seemed almost to 
 strangle him before he could utter them, his smile 
 showing the white rows of teeth, his fist clenched as 
 if to strike an invisible adversary, the sudden drop- 
 ping of his voice, and leveling of his forefinger as he 
 became almost conversational in tone, and seemed to 
 address special individuals in the crowd before him, 
 the strokes of sarcasm, stern and cutting, and the 
 swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude 
 in a roar, became in that summer and autumn fa- 
 miliar to millions of his countrymen; and the car- 
 toonists made his features and gestures familiar to 
 many other millions. On his Western trip, Roosevelt 
 for a companion and understudy had Curtis Guild, 
 
152 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 and more than once when Roosevelt lost his voice 
 completely, Guild had to speak for him. Up to elec- 
 tion day in November, the Republicans did not feel 
 confident, but when the votes were counted, McKin- 
 ley had a plurality of over 830,000, and beat Bryan 
 by more than a million. 
 
 By an absurd and bungling practice, which obtains 
 in our political life, the Administration elected in 
 November does not take office until the following 
 March, an interval which permits the old Adminis- 
 tration, often beaten and discredited, to continue in 
 office for four months after the people have turned it 
 out. As we have lately seen, such an Administration 
 does not experience a death-bed repentance, but 
 employs the moratorium to rivet upon the country 
 the evil policies which the people have repudiated. 
 This interval Roosevelt spent in finishing his work 
 as Governor of New York State, and in removing 
 to Washington. Then he had a foretaste of the life 
 of inactivity to which the Vice-Presidency doomed 
 him. 
 
 After being sworn in on March 4, 1901, his only 
 stated duty was to preside over the Senate, but as 
 the Senate did not usually sit during the hot weather, 
 he had still more leisure thrust upon him. Of course, 
 he could write, and there never was a time, even at 
 his busiest, when he had not a book, or addresses, 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. 
 IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1904 
 
VICE-PRESIDENT 153 
 
 or articles on the stocks. But writing alone was not 
 now sufficient to exercise his very vigorous faculties. 
 Perhaps, for the first time in his life, he may have 
 had a foreboding of what ennui meant. He consulted 
 Justice White, now Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court, whether it would be proper for him to enroll 
 himself as a student in the Washington Law School. 
 Justice White feared that this might be regarded as 
 a slight to the dignity of the Vice-Presidential office, 
 but he told Roosevelt what law-books to read, and 
 offered to quiz him every Saturday evening. Before 
 autumn came, however, when they could carry out 
 their plan, a tragic event altered the course of Roose- 
 velt's career. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 DURING the summer of 1901, the city of 
 Buffalo, New York, held a Pan-American Expo- 
 sition. President McKinley visited this and, while 
 holding a public reception on September 6, he was 
 twice shot by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish anarchist. 
 When the news reached him, Roosevelt went straight 
 to Buffalo, to attend to any matters which the Presi- 
 dent might suggest; but as the surgeons pronounced 
 the wounds not fatal nor even dangerous, Roosevelt 
 left with a light heart, and joined his family at 
 Mount Tahawrus in the Adirondacks. For several 
 days cheerful bulletins came. Then, on Friday after- 
 noon the 13th, when the Vice-President and his party 
 were coming down from a climb to the top of Mount 
 Marcy, a messenger brought a telegram which read : 
 The President's condition has changed for the worse. 
 
 CORTELYOU. 
 
 The climbers on Mount Marcy were fifty miles 
 from the end of the railroad and ten miles from the 
 nearest telephone at the low^er club-house. They 
 hurried forward on foot, following the trail to the 
 nearest cottage; where a runner arrived with a mes- 
 
PRESIDENT 155 
 
 sage, "Come at once." Further messages awaited 
 them at the lower club-house. President McKinley 
 was dying, and Roosevelt must lose no time. His 
 secretary, William Loeb, telephoned from North 
 Creek, the end of the railroad, that he had had a 
 locomotive there for hours with full steam up. So 
 Roosevelt and the driver of his buckboard dashed on 
 through the night, over the uncertain mountain 
 road, dangerous even by daylight, at breakneck 
 speed. Dawn was breaking when they came to 
 North Creek. There, Loeb told him that President 
 McKinley was dead. Then they steamed back to 
 civilization as fast as possible, reached the main 
 trunk line, and sped on to Buffalo without a mo- 
 ment's delay. It was afternoon when the special 
 train came into the station, and Roosevelt, having 
 covered the distance of 440 miles from Mount 
 Marcy, was driven to the house of Ansley Wilcox. 
 Most of the Cabinet had preceded him to Buffalo, 
 and Secretary Root, the ranking member present — 
 Secretary Hay having remained in Washington — 
 asked the Vice-President to be sworn In at once. 
 Roosevelt replied: 
 
 I shall take the oath of office in obedience to your request, 
 sir, and in doing so, it shall be my aim to continue absolutely 
 unbroken the policies of President McKinley for the peace, 
 prosperity, and honor of our beloved country. 
 
156 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 The oath having been administered, the new Presi- 
 dent said : 
 
 In order to help me keep the promise I have taken, I would 
 ask the Cabinet to retain their positions at least for some 
 months to come. I shall rely upon you, gentlemen, upon your 
 loyalty and fidelity, to help me.^ 
 
 On September 19, John Hay wrote to his intimate 
 friend, Henry Adams: 
 
 I have just received your letter from Stockholm and shud- 
 dered at the awful clairvoyance of your last phrase about 
 Teddy's luck. 
 
 Well, he is here in the saddle again. That is, he is in Canton 
 to attend President McKinley's funeral and will have his 
 first Cabinet meeting in the White House tomorrow. He 
 came down from Buffalo Monday night — and in the station, 
 without waiting an instant, told me I must stay with him — 
 that I could not decline nor even consider. I saw, of course, 
 it was best for him to start off that way, and so I said I would 
 stay, forever, of course, for it would be worse to say I would 
 stay a while than it would be to go out at once. I can still go 
 at any moment he gets tired of me or when I collapse. ^ 
 
 Writing to Lady Jeune at this time Hay said: 
 
 I think you know Mr. Roosevelt, our new President. He 
 is an old and intimate friend of mine: a young fellow of 
 infinite dash and originality. 
 
 In this manner, "Teddy's luck" brought him into 
 the White House, as the twenty-sixth President of 
 the United States. Early in the summer, his old col- 
 ^ Washburn, 40. ^ \y^ r Thayer: John Hay, 11, 268. 
 
PRESIDENT 157 
 
 lege friend and steadfast admirer, Charles Wash- 
 burn, remarked: "I would not like to be in McKin- 
 ley's shoes. He has a man of destiny behind him." 
 Destiny is the one artificer who can use all tools and 
 who finds a short cut to his goal through ways mys- 
 terious and most devious. As I have before remarked, 
 nothing commonplace could happen to Theodore 
 Roosevelt. He emerged triumphant from the receiv- 
 ing-vault of the Vice- Presidency, where his enemies 
 supposed they had laid him away for good. In ancient 
 days, his midnight dash from Mount Marcy, and his 
 flight by train across New York State to Buffalo, 
 would have become a myth symbolizing the response 
 of a hero to an Olympian summons. If we ponder it 
 well, was it indeed less than this? 
 
 In 1899, Mr. James Bryce, the most penetrat- 
 ing of foreign observers of American life had said, 
 in words that now seem prophetic: "Theodore 
 Roosevelt is the hope of American politics." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WORLD WHICH ROOSEVELT CONFRONTED 
 
 TO understand the work of a statesman we 
 must know something of the world in which 
 he Hved. That is his material, out of which he tries 
 to embody his ideals as the sculptor carves his out 
 of marble. We are constantly under the illusions of 
 time. Some critics say, for instance, that Washington 
 fitted so perfectly the environment of the American 
 Colonies during the last half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, that he was the direct product of that environ- 
 ment; I prefer to think, however, that he possessed 
 certain individual traits which, and not the time, 
 made him George Washington, and would have en- 
 abled him to have mastered a different period if he 
 had been born in it. In like manner, having known 
 Theodore Roosevelt, I do not believe that he would 
 have been dumb or passive or colorless or slothful or 
 futile under any other conceivable conditions. Just 
 as it was not New York City, nor Harvard, nor 
 North Dakota, which made him Roosevelt, so the 
 Roosevelt in him would have persisted under what- 
 ever sky. 
 
 The time offers the opportunities. The gift in the 
 
WORLD CONFRONTED BY ROOSEVELT 159 
 
 man, innate and incalculable, determines how he will 
 seize them and what he will do with them. Now it is 
 because I think that Roosevelt had a clear vision of 
 the world in which he dwelt, and saw the path by 
 which to lead and improve it, that his career has 
 profound significance to me. Picturesque he was, 
 and picturesqueness made whatever he did interest- 
 ing. But far deeper qualities made him significant. 
 
 From ancient times, at least from the days of 
 Greece and Rome, Democracy as a political ideal 
 had been dreamed of, and had even been put into 
 practice on a small scale here and there. But its 
 shortcomings and the frailty of human nature made 
 it the despair of practical men and the laughing- 
 stock of philosophers and ironists. Nevertheless, the 
 conviction that no man has a right to enslave an- 
 other w^ould not die. And in modern times the Eng- 
 lish sense of justice and the English belief that a 
 man must have a right to be heard on matters con- 
 cerning himself and his government, forced Democ- 
 racy, as an actual system, to the front. The demand 
 for representation caused the American colonists to 
 break away from England and to govern themselves 
 independently. Every one now sees that this demand 
 was the just and logical carrying forward of English 
 ideals. 
 
 At about the same time, in France, Rousseau, 
 
i6o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 gathering into his own heart, from many sources, the 
 suggestions and emotions of Democracy, uttered 
 them with a voice so magical that it roused millions 
 of other hearts and made the emotions seem intel- 
 lectual proofs. As the magician waves his wand and 
 turns common pebbles into precious stones, so 
 Rousseau turned the dead crater of Europe into a 
 molten volcano. The ideals of Fraternity and Equal- 
 ity were joined with that of Liberty and the three 
 were accepted as indivisible elements of Democracy. 
 In the United States we set our Democratic prin- 
 ciples going. In Europe the Revolution shattered 
 many of the hateful methods of Despotism, shat- 
 tered, but did not destroy them. The amazing genius 
 of Napoleon intervened to deflect Europe from her 
 march towards Democracy and to convert her into 
 the servant of his personal ambition. 
 
 Over here, in spite of the hideous contradiction 
 of slavery, which ate like a black ulcer into a part of 
 our body politic, the Democratic ideal not only pre- 
 vailed, but came to be taken for granted as a heaven- 
 revealed truth, which only fools would question or 
 dispute. In Europe, the monarchs of the Old Regime 
 made a desperate rally and put down Napoleon, 
 thinking that by smashing him they would smash 
 also the tremendous Democratic forces by which he 
 had gained his supremacy. They put back, so far as 
 
WORLD CONFRONTED BY ROOSEVELT i6i 
 
 they could, the old feudal bases of privilege and of 
 more or less disguised tyranny. The Restoration 
 could not slumber quietly, for the forces of the 
 Revolution burst out from time to time. They wished 
 to realize the liberty of which they had had a glimpse 
 in 1789 and which the Old Regime had snatched 
 away from them. The Spirit of Nationality now 
 strengthened their efforts for independence and lib- 
 erty and another Spirit came stalking after both. 
 This was the Social Revolution, which refusing 
 to be satisfied by a merely political victory boldly 
 preached Internationalism as a higher ideal than 
 Nationalism. Truly, Time still devours all his chil- 
 dren, and the hysterical desires bred by half-truths 
 prevent the coming and triumphant reign of Truth. 
 While these various and mutually clashing motives 
 swept Europe along during the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century, a different current hurried the 
 United States Into the rapids. Should they continue 
 to exist as one Union binding together sections with 
 different Interests, or should the Union be dissolved 
 and those sections attempt to lead a separate polit- 
 ical existence? Fortunately, for the preservation of 
 the Union, the question of slavery was uppermost In 
 one of the sections. Slavery could not be dismissed 
 as a merely economic question. Many Americans de- 
 clared that it was primarily a moral Issue. And this 
 
i62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 transformed what the Southern section would gladly 
 have limited to economics into a war for a moral 
 ideal. With the destruction of slavery in the South 
 the preservation of the Union came as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 The Civil War itself had given a great stimulus to 
 industry, to the need of providing military equip- 
 ment and supplies, and of extending, as rapidly as 
 possible, the railroads which were the chief means 
 of transportation. When the war ended in 1865, this 
 expansion went on at an increasing rate. The energy 
 which had been devoted to military purposes was 
 now directed to commerce and industry, to develop- 
 ing the vast unpeopled tracts from the Mississippi 
 to the Pacific, and to exploiting the hitherto neglected 
 or unknown natural resources of the country. Every 
 year science furnished new methods of converting 
 nature's products into man's wealth. Chemistry, the 
 doubtful science, Midas-like, turned into gold every- 
 thing that it touched. There were not native workers 
 enough, and so a steady stream of foreign immi- 
 grants flocked over from abroad. They came at 
 first to better their own fortunes by sharing in the 
 unlimited American harvests. Later, our Captains 
 of Industry, regardless of the quality of the new- 
 comers, and intent only on securing cheap labor to 
 multiply their hoards, combed the lowest political 
 
WORLD CONFRONTED BY ROOSEVELT 163 
 
 and social levels of southern Europe and of western 
 Asia for employees. The immigrants ceased to look 
 upon America as the Land of Promise, the land where 
 they intended to settle, to make their homes, and to 
 rear their children; it became for them only a huge 
 factory where they earned a living and for which 
 they felt no affection. On the contrary, many of them 
 looked forward to returning to their native country 
 as soon as they had saved up a little competence 
 here. The politicians, equally negligent of the real 
 welfare of the United States, gave to these masses 
 of foreigners quick and unscrutinized naturalization 
 as American citizens. 
 
 So it fell out that before the end of the nineteenth 
 century a great gulf was opening between Labor and 
 Capital. Now a community can thrive only when all 
 its classes feel that they have common interests; but 
 since American Labor was largely composed of for- 
 eigners, it acquired a double antagonism to Capital. 
 It had not only the supposed natural antagonism of 
 employee to employer, but also the further cause of 
 misunderstanding, and hostility even, which came 
 from the foreignness of its members. Another omi- 
 nous condition arose. The United States ceased to be 
 the Land of Promise, where any hard-working and 
 thrifty man could better himself and even become 
 rich. The gates of Opportunity were closing. The 
 
l64 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 free lands, which the Nation offered to any one who 
 would cultivate them, had mostly been taken up ; the 
 immigrant who had been a laborer in Europe, was a 
 laborer here. Moreover, the political conditions in 
 Europe often added to the burdens and irritation 
 caused by the industrial conditions there. And the 
 immigrant in coming to America brought with him 
 all his grievances, political not less than industrial. 
 He was too ignorant to discriminate; he could only 
 feel. Anarchy and Nihilism, which were his natural 
 reaction against his despotic oppressors in Germany 
 and Russia, he went on cultivating here, where, by 
 the simple process of naturalization, he became po- 
 litically his own despot in a year or two. 
 
 But, of course, the very core of the feud which 
 threatens to disrupt modern civilization was the dis- 
 covery that, in any final adjustment, the political 
 did not suffice. What availed it for the laborer and 
 the capitalist to be equal at the polls, for the vote of 
 one to count as much as the vote of the other, if the 
 two men were actually worlds apart in their social 
 and industrial lives? Equality must seem to the 
 laborer a cruel deception and a sham unless it results 
 in equality in the distribution of wealth and of oppor- 
 tunity. How this is to be attained I have never seen 
 satisfactorily stated ; but the impossibility of realiz- 
 ing their dreams, or the blank folly of doting on 
 
WORLD CONFRONTED BY ROOSEVELT 165 
 
 them, has never prevented men from striving to 
 obtain them. From this has resulted the frantic pur- 
 suit, during a century and a quarter, of all sorts of 
 projects from Babuvism to Bolshevism, which, if 
 they could not install Utopia overnight, were at 
 least calculated to destroy Civilization as it is. The 
 common feature of the propagandists of all these 
 doctrines seems to be the throwing-over of the Past ; 
 not merely of the proved evils and inadequacies of 
 the Past, but of our conception of right and wrong, 
 of morals, of human relations, and of our duty 
 towards the Eternal, which, having sprung out of 
 the Past, must be jettisoned in a fury of contempt. 
 In short, the destroyers of Society (writhing under 
 the immemorial sting of injustice, which they be- 
 lieved was wholly caused by their privileged fellows, 
 and not even in part inherent in the nature of things) 
 supposed that by blotting out Privilege they could 
 establish their ideals of Justice and Equality. 
 
 In the forward nations of Europe, not less than in 
 the United States, these ideals had been arrived at, 
 at least in name, and so far as concerned politics. 
 Even in Germany, the most rigid of Absolute Despot- 
 isms, a phantasm of political liberty was allowed to 
 flit about the Halls of Parliament. But through the 
 cunning of Bismarck the Socialist masses were bound 
 all the more tightly to the HohenzoUern Despot b}' 
 
i66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 liens which seemed to be socialistic. Nevertheless, 
 the principles of the Social Revolution spread secretly 
 from European country to country, whether it pro- 
 fessed to be Monarchical or Republican. 
 
 In the United States, when Theodore Roosevelt 
 succeeded to the Presidency in 1901, a similar an- 
 tagonism between Capital and Labor had become 
 chronic. Capital was arrogant. Its advance since the 
 Civil War had been unmatched in history. The in- 
 undation of wealth which had poured in, compared 
 with all previous amassing of riches, was as the 
 Mississippi to the slender stream of Pactolus. The 
 men whose energy had created this wealth, and the 
 men who managed and increased it, lost the sense of 
 their proper relations with the rest of the community 
 and the Nation. According to the current opinion 
 progress consisted in doubling wealth in the shortest 
 time possible; this meant the employment of larger 
 and larger masses of labor; therefore laborers should 
 be satisfied, nay, should be grateful to the capitalists 
 who provided them with the means of a livelihood; 
 and those capitalists assumed that what they re- 
 garded as necessary to progress, defined by them, 
 should be accepted as necessary to the prosperity of 
 the Nation. 
 
 Such an alignment of the two elements, which com- 
 posed the Nation, indicated how far the so-called 
 
WORLD CONFRONTED BY ROOSEVELT 167 
 
 Civilization, which modern industriahsm has created, 
 was from achieving that social harmony, which is the 
 ideal and must be the base of every wholesome and 
 enduring State. The condition of the working classes 
 in this country was undoubtedly better than that in 
 Europe. And the discontent and occasional violence 
 here were fomented by foreign agitators who tried to 
 make our workers believe that they were as much op- 
 pressed as their foreign brothers. Wise observers saw 
 that a collision, it might be a catastrophe, was bound 
 to come unless some means could be found to bring 
 concord to the antagonists. Here was surely an 
 amazing paradox. The United States, already pos- 
 sessed of fabulous wealth and daily amassing more, 
 was heading straight for a social and economic revo- 
 lution, because a part of the inhabitants claimed to 
 be the slaves of industrialism and of poverty. 
 
 This slight outline, which every reader can com- 
 plete for himself, will serve to show what sort of a 
 world, especially what sort of an American world, 
 confronted Roosevelt when he took the reins of 
 government. His task was stupendous, the problems 
 he had to solve were baffling. Other public men of the 
 time saw its portents, but he alone seems to have 
 felt that it was his duty to strain every nerve to 
 avert the impending disaster. And he alone, as it 
 seems to me, understood the best means to take. 
 
1 68 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Honesty, Justice, Reason, were not to him mere 
 words to decorate sonorous messages or to catch 
 and placate the hearers of his passionate speeches; 
 they were the most real of all realities, moral agents 
 to be used to clear away the deadlock into which 
 Civilization was settling. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 Roosevelt's foreign policy 
 
 IN taking the oath of office at Buffalo, Roose- 
 velt promised to continue President McKin- 
 ley's poHcies. And this he set about doing loyally. He 
 retained McKinley's Cabinet,^ who were working 
 out the adjustments already agreed upon. McKin- 
 ley was probably the best-natured President who 
 ever occupied the White House. He instinctively 
 shrank from hurting anybody's feelings. Persons who 
 went to see him in dudgeon, to complain against 
 some act which displeased them, found him " a bower 
 of roses," too sweet and soft to be treated harshly. 
 He could say " no " to applicants for office so gently 
 that they felt no resentment. For twenty years he had 
 advocated a protective tariff so mellifluously, and he 
 believed so sincerely in its efficacy, that he could at 
 any time hypnotize himself by repeating his own 
 phrases. If he had ever studied the economic subject, 
 it was long ago, and having adopted the tenets which 
 an Ohio Republican could hardly escape from adopt- 
 ing, he never revised them or even questioned their 
 
 ^ A few months later J. W. Griggs retired as Attorney-General and 
 was succeeded by P. C. Knox, and C. E. Smith was replaced by H. W. 
 Payne as Postmaster-General. 
 
170 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 validity. His protectionism, like cheese, only grew 
 stronger with age. As a politician, he was so hospita- 
 ble that in the campaign of 1896, which was fought 
 to maintain the gold standard and the financial hon- 
 esty of the United States, he showed very plainly 
 that he had no prejudice against free silver, and it 
 was only at the last moment that the Republican 
 managers could persuade him to take a firm stand 
 for gold. 
 
 The chief business which McKinley left behind 
 him, the work which Roosevelt took up and carried 
 on, concerned Imperialism. The Spanish War forced 
 this subject to the front by leaving us in possession 
 of the Philippines and by bequeathing to us the re- 
 sponsibility for Cuba and Porto Rico. We paid Spain 
 for the Philippines, and in spite of constitutional 
 doubts as to how a Republic like the United States 
 could buy or hold subject peoples, we proceeded to 
 conquer those islands and to set up an American 
 administration in them. We also treated Porto Rico 
 as a colony, to enjoy the blessing of our rule. And 
 while we allowed Cuba to set up a Republic of her 
 own, we made it very clear that our benevolent pro- 
 tection w^as behind her. 
 
 All this constituted Imperialism, against which 
 many of our soberest citizens protested. They alleged 
 that as a doctrine it contradicted the fundamental 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 171 
 
 principles on which our nation was built. Since the 
 Declaration of Independence, America had stood 
 before the world as the champion and example of 
 Liberty, and by our Civil War she had purged her- 
 self of Slavery. Imperialism made her the mistress of 
 peoples who had never been consulted. Such moral 
 inconsistency ought not to be tolerated. In addition 
 to it was the political danger that lay in holding 
 possessions on the other side of the Pacific. To keep 
 them we must be prepared to defend them, and de- 
 fense would involve maintaining a naval and mili- 
 tary armament and of stimulating a warlike spirit, 
 repugnant to our traditions. In short. Imperialism 
 made the United States a World Power, and laid her 
 open to its perils and entanglements. 
 
 But while a minority of the men and women of 
 sober judgment and conscience opposed Imperialism, 
 the large majority accepted it, and among these was 
 Theodore Roosevelt. He believed that the recent 
 war had involved us in a responsibility which we 
 could not evade if we would. Having destroyed Span- 
 ish sovereignty in the Philippines, we must see to it 
 that the people of those islands were protected. We 
 could not leave them to govern themselves because 
 they had no experience in government; nor could we 
 dodge our obligation by selling them to any other 
 Power. Far from hesitating because of legal or moral 
 
172 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 doubts, much less of questioning our ability to per- 
 form this new task, Roosevelt embraced Imperialism, 
 with all its possible issues, boldly not to say exult- 
 antly. To him Imperialism meant national strength, 
 the acknowledgment by the American people that 
 the United States are a World Power and that they 
 would not shrink from taking up any burden which 
 that distinction involved. 
 
 When President Cleveland, at the end of 1895, 
 sent his swingeing message in regard to the Vene- 
 zuelan Boundary quarrel, Roosevelt was one of the 
 first to foresee the remote consequences. And by the 
 time he himself became President, less than six 
 years later, several events — our taking of the Ha- 
 waiian Islands, the Spanish War, the island posses- 
 sions which it saddled upon us — confirmed his con- 
 viction that the United States could no longer live 
 isolated from the great interests and policies of the 
 world, but must take their place among the ruling 
 Powers. Having reached national maturity we must 
 accept Expansion as the logical and normal ideal 
 for our matured nation. Cleveland had laid down 
 that the Monroe Doctrine. was inviolable; Roosevelt 
 insisted that we must not only bow to it in theory, 
 but be prepared to defend it if necessary by force of 
 arms. 
 
 Very naturally, therefore, Roosevelt encouraged 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 173 
 
 the passing of legislation needed to complete the 
 settlement of our relations with our new possessions. 
 He paid especial attention to the men he sent to 
 administer the Philippines, and later he was able 
 to secure the services of W. Cameron Forbes as Gov- 
 ernor-General. Mr. Forbes proved to be a Viceroy 
 after the best British model and he looked after the 
 interest of his wards so honestly and competently 
 that conditions in the Philippines improved rapidly, 
 and the American public in general felt no qualms 
 over possessing them. But the Anti-Imperialists, to 
 whom a moral issue does not cease to be moral sim- 
 ply because it has a material sugar-coating, kept up 
 their protest. 
 
 There were, however, matters of internal policy; 
 along with them Roosevelt inherited several foreign 
 complications which he at once grappled with. In the 
 Secretary of State, John Hay, he had a remarkable 
 helper. Henry Adams told me that Hay was the first 
 "man of the world" who had ever been Secretary of 
 State. While this may be disputed, nobody can fail 
 to see some truth in Adams's assertion. Hay had not 
 only the manners of a gentleman, but also the special 
 carriage of a diplomat. He was polite, affable, and 
 usually accessible, without ever losing his innate dig- 
 nity. An indefinable reserve warded off those who 
 would either presume or indulge in undue familiarity. 
 
174 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 His quick wits kept him always on his guard. His 
 main defect was his unwilHngness to regard the Sen- 
 ate as having a right to pass judgment on his treaties. 
 And instead of being compHant and compromising, 
 he injured his cause with the Senators by letting 
 them see too plainly that he regarded them as inter- 
 lopers, and by peppering them with witty but not 
 agreeable sarcasm.' In dealing with foreign diplomats, 
 on the other hand, he was at his best. They found 
 him polished, straightforward, and urbane. He not 
 only produced on them the impression of honesty, 
 but he was honest. In all his diplomatic correspon- 
 dence, whether he was writing confidentially to Amer- 
 ican representatives or was addressing official notes 
 to foreign governments, I do not recall a single hint 
 of double-dealing. Hay was the velvet glove, Roose- 
 velt the hand of steel. 
 
 For many years Canada and the United States had 
 enjoyed grievances towards each other, grievances 
 over fisheries, over lumber, and other things, no one 
 of which was worth going to war for. The discovery 
 of gold in the Klondike, and the rush thither of thou- 
 sands of fortune-seekers, revived the old question of 
 the Alaskan Boundary; for it mattered a great deal 
 whether some of the gold-fields were Alaskan — that 
 is, American — or Canadian. Accordingly, a joint 
 High Commission was appointed towards the end 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 175 
 
 of McKinley's first administration to consider the 
 claims and complaints of the two countries. The Ca- 
 nadians, however, instead of settling each point on its 
 own merits, persisted in bringing in a list of twelve 
 grievances which varied greatly in importance, and 
 this method favored trading one claim against an- 
 other. The result was that the Commission, failing 
 to agree, disbanded. Nevertheless, the irritation 
 continued, and Roosevelt, having become President, 
 and being a person who was constitutionally op- 
 posed to shilly-shally, suggested to the State De- 
 partment that a new Commission be appointed 
 under conditions which would make a decision cer- 
 tain. He even went farther, he took precautions to 
 assure a verdict in favor of the United States. He 
 appointed three Commissioners — Senators Lodge, 
 Root, and Turner; the Canadians appointed two. 
 Sir A. L. Jette and A. B. Aylesworth; the Eng- 
 lish representative was Alverstone, the Lord Chief 
 Justice. 
 
 The President gave to Justice Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, of the Supreme Court, who was going 
 abroad for the summer, a letter which he was "in- 
 discreetly" to show Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour, 
 and two or three other prominent Englishmen. In 
 this letter he wrote: 
 
176 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 The claims of the Canadians for access to deep water along 
 any part of the Alaskan Coast is just exactly as indefensible 
 as if they should now suddenly claim the Island of Nan- 
 tucket. . . . 
 
 I believe that no three men [the President said] in the 
 United States could be found who would be more anxious 
 than our own delegates to do justice to the British claim on 
 all points where there is even a color of right on the British 
 side. But the objection raised by certain Canadian authorities 
 to Lodge, Root, and Turner, and especially to Lodge and 
 Root, was that they had committed themselves on the gen- 
 eral proposition. No man in public life in any position of prom- 
 inence could have possibly avoided committing himself on 
 the proposition, any more than Mr. Chamberlain could avoid 
 committing himself on the question of the ownership of the 
 Orkneys if some Scandinavian country suddenly claimed 
 them. If this claim embodied other points as to which there 
 was legitimate doubt, I believe Mr. Chamberlain would act 
 fairly and squarely in deciding the matter ; but if he appointed 
 a commission to settle up all these questions, I certainly 
 should not expect him to appoint three men, if he could find 
 them, who believed that as to the Orkneys the question was 
 an open one. 
 
 I wish to make one last effort to bring about an agreement 
 through the Commission [he said in closing] which will enable 
 the people of both countries to say that the result represents 
 the feeling of the representatives of both countries. But if 
 there is a disagreement, I wish it distinctly understood, not 
 only that there will be no arbitration of the matter, but that 
 in my message to Congress I shall take a position which will 
 preventany possibility of arbitration hereafter; a position . . . 
 which will render it necessary for Congress to give me the 
 authority to run the line as we claim it, by our own people, 
 without any further regard to the attitude of England and 
 Canada. If I paid attention to mere abstract rights, that is 
 the position I ought to take anyhow. I have not taken it be- 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 177 
 
 cause I wish to exhaust every effort to have the affair settled 
 peacefully and with due regard to England's honor. ^ 
 
 In due time the Commission gave a decision in 
 favor of the American contention. Lord Alverstone, 
 who voted with the Americans, was suspected of hav- 
 ing been chosen by the British Government because 
 they knew his opinion, but I do not believe that this 
 was true. A man of his honor, sitting in such a tribu- 
 nal, would not have voted according to instructions 
 from anybody. 
 
 Roosevelt's brusque way of bringing the Alaska 
 Boundary Question to a quick decision, may be crit- 
 icised as not being judicial. He took the short cut, 
 just as he did years before in securing a witness 
 against the New York saloon-keepers who destroyed 
 the lives of thousands of boys and girls by making 
 them drunkards. Strictly, of course, if the boundary 
 dispute was to be submitted to a commission, he 
 ought to have allowed the other party to appoint its 
 own commissioners without any suggestion from 
 him. But as the case had dragged on interminably, 
 and he believed, and the world believed, and the 
 Canadians themselves knew, that they intended to 
 filibuster and postpone as long as possible, he took 
 the common-sense way to a settlement. If he had re- 
 solved, as he had, to draw the boundary Hne "on 
 1 W. R. Thayer: John Hay, 11, 209, 210. 
 
178 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 his own hook," in case there was further pettifogging 
 he committed no impropriety in warning the British 
 statesmen of his purpose. In judging these Roose- 
 veltian short cuts, the reader must decide whether 
 they were justified by the good which they achieved. 
 Of even greater importance was the understand- 
 ing reached, under Roosevelt's direction, with the 
 British Government in regard to the construction of 
 a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. By the Clay- 
 ton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, the United States and 
 Great Britain agreed to maintain free and uninter- 
 rupted passage across the Isthmus, and, further, that 
 neither country should "obtain or maintain to itself 
 any control over the said ship-canal," or "assume 
 or exercise any dominion . . . over any part of Cen- 
 tral America." The ship-canal talked about as a prob- 
 ability in 1850 had become a necessity by 1900. 
 During the Spanish-American War, the American 
 battleship Oregon had been obliged to make the voy- 
 age round Cape Horn, from San Francisco to Cuba, 
 and this served to impress on the people of the United 
 States the really acute need of a canal across the 
 Isthmus, so that in time of war with a powerful 
 enemy, our Atlantic fleet and our Pacific fleet might 
 quickly pass from one coast to another. It would 
 obviously be impossible for us to play the role of a 
 World Power unless we had this short line of com- 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 179 
 
 munication. But the conditions of peace, not less 
 than the emergencies of war, called for a canal. In- 
 ternational commerce, as well as our own, required 
 the saving of thousands of miles of distance. 
 
 About 1880, the French under Count De Lesseps 
 undertook to construct a canal from Panama to As- 
 pinwall, but after half a dozen years the French com- 
 pany suspended work, partly for financial reasons, 
 and partly on account of the enormous loss of life 
 among the diggers from the pestilent nature of the 
 climate and the country. Then followed a period of 
 waiting, until it seemed certain that the French would 
 never resume operations. American promoters pressed 
 the claims of a route through Nicaragua where they 
 could secure concessions. But it became clear that an 
 enterprise of such far-reaching political importance as 
 a trans-Isthmian canal, should be under governmen- 
 tal control. John Hay had been less than a year in the 
 Department of State when he set about negotiating 
 with England a treaty which should embody his 
 ideas. In Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambas- 
 sador at Washington, he had a most congenial man 
 to deal with. Both were gentlemen, both were firmly 
 convinced that a canal must be constructed for the 
 good of civilization, both held that to assure the 
 friendship of the two great branches of the English- 
 speaking race should be the transcendent aim of each. 
 
i8o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 They soon made a draft of a treaty which was sub- 
 mitted to the Senate, but the Senators so amended 
 it that the British Government refused to accept 
 their amendments, and the project failed. Hay was 
 so terribly chagrined at the Senate's interference 
 that he wished to resign. There could be no doubt 
 now, however, that if the canal had been undertaken 
 on the terms of his first treaty, it would never have 
 satisfied the United States and it would probably 
 have been a continual source of international irrita- 
 tion. Roosevelt was at that time Governor of New 
 York, and I quote the following letter from him to 
 Hay because it shows how clearly he saw the ob- 
 jections to the treaty, and the fundamental princi- 
 ples for the control of an Isthmian canal: 
 
 Albany, Feb. i8, 1900 
 
 I hesitated long before I said anything about the treaty 
 through sheer dread of two moments • — that in which I should 
 receive your note, and that in which I should receive Cabot's.' 
 But I made up my mind that at least I wished to be on 
 record; for to my mind this step is one backward, and it may 
 be fraught with very great mischief. You have been the 
 greatest Secretary of State I have seen in my time — Olney 
 comes second — but at this moment I can not, try as I may, 
 see that you are right. Understand me. When the treaty is 
 adopted, as I suppose it will be, I shall put the best face pos- 
 sible on it, and shall back the Administration as heartily as 
 ever, but oh, how I wish you and the President would drop 
 the treaty and push through a bill to build and fortify our own 
 canal. 
 
 ^ Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who also opposed the first treaty. 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY i8i 
 
 My objections are twofold. First, as to naval policy. If the 
 proposed canal had been in existence in '98, the Oregon could 
 have come more quickly through to the Atlantic; but this 
 fact would have been far outweighed by the fact that Cer- 
 vera's fleet would have had open to it the chance of itself 
 going through the canal, and thence sailing to attack Dewey 
 or to menace our stripped Pacific Coast. If that canal is open 
 to the warships of an enemy, it is a menace to us in time of 
 war; it is an added burden, an additional strategic point to be 
 guarded by our fleet. If fortified by us, it becomes one of the 
 most potent sources of our possible sea strength. Unless so 
 fortified it strengthens against us every nation whose fleet is 
 larger than our own. One prime reason for fortifying our 
 great seaports, is to unfetter our fleet, to release it for offen- 
 sive purposes; and the proposed canal would fetter it again, 
 for our fleet would have to watch it, and therefore do the work 
 which a fort should do; and what it could do much better. 
 
 Secondly, as to the Monroe Doctrine. If we invite foreign 
 powers to a joint ownership, a joint guarantee, of what so 
 vitally concerns us but a little way from our borders, how can 
 we possibly object to similar joint action, say in Southern 
 Brazil or Argentina, where our interests are so much less 
 evident? If Germany has the same right that we have in the 
 canal across Central America, why not in the partition of 
 any part of Southern America? To my mind, we should con- 
 sistently refuse to all European powers the right to control in 
 any shape, any territory in the Western Hemisphere which 
 they do not already hold. 
 
 As for existing treaties — I do not admit the "dead hand" 
 of the treaty-making power in the past. A treaty can always 
 be honorably abrogated — though it must never be abrogated 
 in dishonest fashion.^ 
 
 Fortunately, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime 
 
 Minister, remained benevolently disposed towards 
 
 ^ W. R. Thayer: John Hay, 11, 339-41. 
 
1 82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the Isthmian Canal, and in the following year he 
 consented to take up the subject again. A new treaty 
 embodying the American amendments and the Brit- 
 ish objections was drafted, and passed the Senate a 
 few months after Roosevelt became President. Its 
 vital provisions were, that it abrogated the Clayton- 
 Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States full 
 ownership and control of the proposed canal. 
 
 This was the second illustration of Roosevelt's 
 masterfulness in cutting through a diplomatic knot. 
 Arrangements for constructing the Canal itself forced 
 on him a third display of his dynamic quality which 
 resulted in the most hotly discussed act of his career. 
 
 The French Canal Company was glad to sell to 
 the American Government its concessions on the 
 Isthmus, and as much of the Canal as it had dug, for 
 $40,000,000. It had originally bought its concession 
 from the Government of Colombia, which owned the 
 State of Panama. At first the Colombian rulers 
 seemed glad, and they sent an accredited agent, Dr. 
 Herran, to Washington, who framed with Secretary 
 Hay a treaty satisfactory to both, and believed, by 
 Mr. Hay, to represent the sincere intentions of the 
 Colombian Government at Bogota. The Colombian 
 politicians, however, who were banditti of the Tam- 
 many stripe, but as much cruder as Bogota was than 
 New York City, suddenly discovered that the trans- 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 183 
 
 action might be much more profitable for themselves 
 than they had at first suspected. They put off rati- 
 fying the treaty, therefore, and warned the French 
 Company that they should charge it an additional 
 $10,000,000 for the privilege of transferring its con- 
 cession to the Americans. The French demurred ; the 
 Americans waited. Secretary Hay reminded Dr. 
 Herran that the treaty must be signed within a rea- 
 sonable time, and intimated that the reasonable 
 time would soon be up. 
 
 The Bogotan blackmailers indulged in still wilder 
 dreams of avarice; like the hasheesh-eater, they com- 
 pletely lost contact with reality and truth. In one of 
 their earlier compacts with the French Company 
 they stipulated that, if the Canal were not completed 
 by a certain day in 1904, the entire concession and 
 undertaking should revert to the Colombian Gov- 
 ernment. As it was now September, 1903, it did not 
 require the wits of a political bandit to see that, by 
 staving off an agreement with the United States for 
 a few months, Colombia could get possession of prop- 
 erty and privileges which the French were selling to 
 the Americans for $40,000,000. So the Colombian 
 Parliament adjourned in October, 1903, without 
 even taking up the Hay-Herran Treaty. 
 
 Meanwhile the managers of the French Company 
 became greatly alarmed at the prospect of losing the 
 
i84 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 sum which the United States had agreed to pay for 
 its rights and diggings, and it took steps to avert this 
 total loss. The most natural means which occurred 
 to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a 
 revolution in the State of Panama. To understand 
 the affair truly, the reader must remember that 
 Panama had long been the chief source of wealth to 
 the Republic of Colombia. The mountain gentry 
 who conducted the Colombian Government at 
 Bogota treated Panama like a conquered province, 
 to be squeezed to the utmost for the benefit of the 
 politicians. There was neither community of interest 
 nor racial sympathy between the Panamanians and 
 the Colombians, and, as it required a journey of fif- 
 teen days to go from Panama to the Capital, geo- 
 graphy, also, added its sundering influence. Quite 
 naturally the Panamanians, in the course of less than 
 half a century, had made more than fifty attempts 
 to revolt from Colombia and establish their own 
 independence. The most illiterate of them could 
 understand that, if they were independent, the 
 money which they received and passed on to Bogota, 
 for the bandits there to spend, would remain in their 
 own hands. An appeal to their love of liberty, being 
 coupled with so obvious an appeal to their pockets, 
 was irresistible. 
 
 Just what devices the French Company employed 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 185 
 
 to instigate revolution, can be read in the interesting 
 work of M. Bunau-Varilla, one of the most zealous 
 officers of the French Company, who had devoted his 
 life to achieving the construction of the Trans- 
 Isthmian Canal. He was indefatigable, breezy, and 
 deliberately indiscreet. He tells much, and what he 
 does not tell he leaves you to infer, without risk of 
 going astray. Mr, William Nelson Cromwell, of 
 New York, the general counsel of the Company, off- 
 set Varilla's loquacity by a proper amount of reti- 
 cence. Bunau-Varilla hurried over from Paris, and 
 had interviews with President Roosevelt and Secre- 
 tary Hay, but could not draw them into his conspir- 
 acy. The President told him that, at the utmost, he 
 would only order American warships, which were on 
 the Panama coast, to prevent any attack from out- 
 side which might cause bloodshed and interfere with 
 the undisturbed passage across the Isthmus, a duty 
 which the United States was pledged to perform. 
 
 The French zealot-conspirator freely announced 
 that the revolution at Panama would take place at 
 noon on November 3d. It did take place as scheduled 
 without violence, and with only the accidental killing 
 of a Chinaman and a dog. The next day the Revolu- 
 tionists proclaimed the Republic of Panama, and on 
 November 6th the United States formally recognized 
 its existence and prepared to open diplomatic rela- 
 
1 86 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 tions with it. The Colombian Government had tried 
 to send troops to put down the rebeUion, but the 
 American warships, obeying their orders to prevent 
 bloodshed or fighting, would not allow the troops to 
 land. 
 
 As soon as the news of these events reached 
 Bogota, the halls of Parliament there resounded with 
 wailing and gnashing of teeth and protests, and 
 curses on the perfidious Americans who had connived 
 to free the Panamanians in their struggle for liberty. 
 The mountain bandits perceived that they had over- 
 reached themselves. Instead of the $10,000,000 
 which their envoy Herran had deemed sufBcient; 
 instead of the $40,000,000 and more, which their 
 greed had counted on in 1904, they would receive 
 nothing. The Roosevelt Government immediately 
 signed a contract with the Republic of Panama, by 
 which the United States leased a zone across the 
 Isthmus for building, controlling, and operating, the 
 Canal. Then the Colombians, in a panic, sent their 
 most respectable public man, and formerly their 
 President, General Rafael Reyes, to Washington, 
 to endeavor to persuade the Government to reverse 
 its compact with the Panama Republic. The black- 
 mailers were now very humble. Mr. Wayne Mac- 
 Veagh, who was counsel for Colombia, told me that 
 General Reyes was authorized to accept $8,000,000 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 187 
 
 for all the desired concessions, "and," Mr. MacVeagh 
 added, "he would have taken five millions, but Hay 
 and Roosevelt were so foolish that they would n't 
 accept." 
 
 The quick decisions of the Administration in 
 Washington, which accompanied the revolution in 
 Panama and the recognition of the new Republic, 
 were made by Roosevelt. I have seen no evidence 
 that Mr. Hay was consulted at the last moment. 
 When the stroke was accomplished, many good per- 
 sons in the United States denounced it. They felt 
 that it was high-handed and brutal, and that it 
 fixed an indelible blot on the national conscience. 
 Many of them did not know of the long-drawn-out 
 negotiations and of the Colombian premeditated de- 
 ceit; others knew, but overlooked or condoned. They 
 upheld strictly the letter of the law. They could not 
 deny that the purpose of the Colombians was to 
 exact blackmail. It meant nothing to them that 
 Herran, the official envoy, had drawn up and signed 
 a treaty under instructions from Marroquin, the 
 President of Colombia, and its virtual dictator, who, 
 having approved of the orders under which Herran 
 acted, could easily have required the Colombian 
 Parliament to ratify the treaty. Perfervidly pious 
 critics of Roosevelt pictured him as a bully without 
 conscience, and they blackened his aid in freeing the 
 
i88 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Panamanians by calling it "the Rape of Panama." 
 Some of these persons even boldly asserted that 
 John Hay died of remorse over his part in this wicked 
 deed. The fact is that John Hay died of a disease 
 which was not caused by remorse, and that, as long 
 as he lived, he publicly referred to the Panama affair 
 as that in which he took the greatest pride. It is only 
 in the old Sunday-School stories that Providence 
 punishes wTongdoing with such commendable swift- 
 ness, and causes the naughty boy who goes skating 
 on Sunday to drown forthwith; in real life the "mills 
 of God grind slowly." Roosevelt always regarded 
 with equal satisfaction the decision by which the 
 Panama Canal was achieved and the high needs of 
 civilization and the protection of the United States 
 were attended to. He lived long enough to condemn 
 the proposal of some of our morbidly conscientious 
 people, hypnotized by the same old crafty Colom- 
 bians, to pay Colombia a gratuity five times greater 
 than that which General Reyes would have thank- 
 fully received in December, 1903. 
 
 Persons of different temperaments, but of equal 
 patriotism and sincerity, will probably pass different 
 verdicts on this incident for a long time to come. 
 Mr. Leupp quotes a member of Roosevelt's Admin- 
 istration as stating four alternative courses the 
 President might have followed. First, he might have 
 
ROOSEVELT'S FOREIGN POLICY 189 
 
 let matters drift until Congress met, and then sent 
 a message on the subject, shifting the responsibility 
 from his own shoulders to those of the Congressmen. 
 Secondly, he might have put down the rebellion and 
 restored Panama to Colombia; but this would have 
 been to subject them against their will to a foreign 
 enemy — an enormity the Anti- Imperialists were 
 still decrying in our holding the Philippines against 
 the will of their inhabitants. Thirdly, he might have 
 withdrawn American warships and left Colombia to 
 fight it out with the Panamanians — but this would 
 have involved bloodshed, tumult, and interruption 
 of transit across the Isthmus, which the United 
 States, by the agreement of 1846, were bound to 
 prevent. Finally, he might recognize any de facto 
 government ready and willing to transact business 
 — and this he did.^ 
 
 That the Colombian politicians, who repudiated 
 the treaty Herran had framed, were blackmailers of 
 the lowest sort, is as indisputable as is the fact that 
 whoever begins to compromise with a blackmailer is 
 lured farther and farther into a bog until he is finally 
 swallowed up. Americans should know also that dur- 
 ing the summer and autumn of 1903, German agents 
 were^usy in Bogota, and that, since German capital- 
 ists had openly announced their desire to buy up 
 
 ^ Leupp, lo-n. 
 
I90 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the French Company's concession, we may guess 
 that they did not urge Colombia to fulfill her obliga- 
 tion to the United States. 
 
 Many years later I discussed the transaction with 
 Mr. Roosevelt, chaffing him with being a wicked 
 conspirator. He laughed, and replied : "What was the 
 use? The other fellows in Paris and New York had 
 taken all the risk and were doing all the work. In- 
 stead of trying to run a parallel conspiracy, I had 
 only to sit still and profit by their plot — if it suc- 
 ceeded." He said also that he had intended issuing a 
 public announcement that, if Colombia by a given 
 date refused to come to terms, he would seize the 
 Canal Zone in behalf of civilization. I told him I 
 rather wished that he had accomplished his purpose 
 in that way; but he answered that events matured 
 too quickly, and that, in any case, where swift action 
 was required, the Executive and not Congress must 
 decide. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME 
 
 THESE early diplomatic settlements in Roose- 
 velt's Administration showed the world that 
 the United States now had a President who did not 
 seek quarrels, but who was not afraid of them, who 
 never bluffed, because — unlike President Cleveland 
 and Secretary Olney with their Venezuela Message 
 in 1895 — he never made a threat which he could 
 not back up at the moment. There was no longer a 
 bed of roses to stifle opposition; whosoever hit at 
 the United States would encounter a barrier of long, 
 sharp, and unbending thorns. 
 
 These particular achievements in foreign affairs, 
 and others which I shall mention later, gave Roose- 
 velt and his country great prestige abroad and the 
 admiration of a large part of his countrymen. But 
 his truly significant work related to home affairs. 
 Now at last, he, the young David of the New Ideals, 
 was to go forth, if he dared, and do battle with the 
 Goliath of Conservatism. With him there was no 
 question of daring. He had been waiting for twenty 
 years for this opportunity. Such a conflict or duel has 
 rarely been witnessed, because it rarely happens that 
 
192 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 an individual who consciously embodies the aims of 
 an epoch is accepted by that epoch as its champion. 
 Looking backward, we see that Abraham Lincoln 
 typified the ideals of Freedom and Union which were 
 the supreme issues of his time; but this recognition 
 has come chiefly since his death. In like fashion I 
 believe that Roosevelt's significance as a champion 
 of Liberty, little suspected by his contemporaries 
 and hardly surmised even now, will require the lapse 
 of another generation before it is universally under- 
 stood. 
 
 Many obvious reasons account for this. Most of 
 the internal reforms which Roosevelt struggled for 
 lacked the dramatic quality or the picturesqueness 
 which appeals to average, dull, unimaginative men 
 and women. The heroism of the medical experi- 
 menter who voluntarily contracts yellow fever and 
 dies ■ — and thereby saves myriads of lives — makes 
 little impression on the ordinary person, who can be 
 roused only by stories of battle heroism, of soldiers 
 and torpedoes. And yet the attacks which Roosevelt 
 made, while they did not involve death, called for 
 the highest kind of civic courage ^nd fortitude. 
 
 Then again a political combat with tongues and 
 arguments seldom conveys the impression that 
 through it irrevocable Fate gives its decision to the 
 same extent that a contest by swords and volleys 
 
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. 
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 
 
THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME 193 
 
 does. Political campaigns are a competition of 
 parties and only the immediate partisans who direct 
 and carry on the fight, grow very hot. The great 
 majority of a party is not fanatical, and a citizen who 
 has witnessed many elections, some for and some 
 against him, comes instinctively to feel that whoever 
 wins the country is safe. He discounts the cries of 
 alarm and the abuse by opponents. And only in his 
 most expansive moments does he flatter himself that 
 his party really represents the State. The Republican 
 Party, through which President Roosevelt had to 
 work, was by no means an ideal instrument. He be- 
 lieved in Republicanism, with a faith only less de- 
 voted than that with which he embraced the fun- 
 damental duties and spiritual facts of life. But the 
 Republicanism which he revered must be interpreted 
 by himself; and the party which bore the name 
 Republican was split into several sections, mutually 
 discordant if not actually hostile. It seems no exag- 
 geration to say that the underlying motive of the 
 majority of the Republican Party during Roosevelt's 
 Presidency was to uphold Privilege, just as much as 
 the underlying purpose of the great Whig Party in 
 England in the eighteenth century was to uphold 
 Aristocracy. Roosevelt's purpose, on the contrary, 
 was to clip the arrogance of Privilege based on Pluto- 
 cracy. To achieve this he must, in some measure, 
 
194 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 compel the party of Plutocracy to help him. I speak, 
 so far as possible, as a historian, — and not as a par- 
 tisan, — who recognizes that the rise of a Plutocracy 
 was the inevitable result of the amassing, during a 
 generation, of unprecedented wealth, and that, in 
 a Republic governed by parties, the all-dominant 
 Plutocracy would naturally see to it that the all- 
 dominant party which governed the country and 
 made its laws should be plutocratic. If the spheres 
 in which Plutocracy made most of its money had 
 been Democratic, then the Democratic Party would 
 have served the Plutocracy. As it was, in the prac- 
 tical relation between the parties, the Democrats got 
 their share of the spoils, and the methods of a Demo- 
 cratic Boss, like Senator Gorman, did not differ from 
 those of a Republican Boss, like Senator Aldrich. 
 
 Roosevelt relied implicitly on justice and common 
 sense. He held, as firmly as Lincoln had held, to the 
 inherent rightmindedness of the "plain people." And 
 however fierce and formidable the opposition to his 
 policies might be in Congress, he trusted that, if he 
 could make clear to the average voters of the coun- 
 try what he was aiming at, they would support him. 
 And they did support him. Time after time, when the 
 Interests appeared to be on the point of crushing 
 his reform, the people rose and coerced Congress 
 into adopting it. I would not imply that Roosevelt 
 
THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME 195 
 
 assumed an autocratic manner in this warfare. He 
 left no doubt of his intention, still less could he dis- 
 guise the fact of his tremendous personal vigor; but 
 rather than threaten he tried to persuade; he was 
 good-natured to everybody, he explained the reason- 
 ableness of his measures; and only when the satraps 
 of Plutocracy so far lost their discretion as to threaten 
 him, did he bluntly challenge them to do their 
 worst. 
 
 The Interests had undeniably reached such pro- 
 portions that unless they were chastened and con- 
 trolled, the freedom of the Republic could not sur- 
 vive. And yet, in justice, we must recall that when 
 they grew up in the day of small things, they were 
 beneficial ; their founders had no idea of their becom- 
 ing a menace to the Nation. The man who built the 
 first cotton-mill in his section, or started the first 
 iron-furnace, or laid the first stretch of railroad, was 
 rightly hailed as a benefactor; and he could not fore- 
 see that the time would come when his mill, entering 
 into a business combination with a hundred other 
 mills in different parts of the country, would be 
 merged in a monopoly to strangle competition in 
 cotton manufacture. Likewise, the first stretch of 
 railroad joined another, and this a third, and so on, 
 until there had arisen a vast railway system under 
 a single management from New York to San Fran- 
 
196 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Cisco. Now, while these colossal monopolies had 
 grown up so naturally, responding to the wonderful 
 expansion of the population they served, the laws 
 and regulations which applied to them, having been 
 framed in the days when they were young and small 
 and harmless, still obtained. The clothes made for the 
 little boy would not do for the giant man. I have 
 heard a lawyer complain that statutes, which barely 
 sufficed when travel and transportation went by 
 stage-coach, were stretched to fit the needs of the 
 public in its relation with transcontinental railroads. 
 This is an exaggeration, no doubt, but it points 
 towards truth. The Big Interests were so swollen 
 that they went ahead on their own affairs and paid 
 little attention to the community on which they were 
 battening. They saw to it that if any laws concerning 
 them had to be made by the State Legislatures or by 
 Congress, their agents in those bodies should make 
 them. A certain Mr. Vanderbilt, the president of one 
 of the largest railroad systems in America, a person 
 whose other gems of wit and wisdom have not been 
 recorded, achieved such immortality, as it is, by re- 
 marking, "The public be damned." Probably the 
 president and directors of a score of other monopo- 
 lies would have heartily echoed that impolitic and 
 petulant display of arrogance. Impolitic the exclama- 
 tion was, because the American public had already 
 
THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME 197 
 
 begun to feel that the Big Interests were putting 
 its freedom in jeopardy, and it was beginning to call 
 for laws which should reduce the power of those in- 
 terests. 
 
 As early as 1887 the Interstate Commerce Act was 
 passed, the earliest considerable attempt to regulate 
 rates and traffic. Then followed anti-trust laws which 
 aiilied at the suppression of "pools," in which many 
 large producers or manufacturers combined to sell 
 their staples at a uniform price, a practice which in- 
 evitably set up monopolies. The "Trusts" were to 
 these what the elephant is to a colt. When the United 
 States Steel Corporation was formed by uniting 
 eleven large steel plants, with an aggregate capital of 
 $1,100,000,000, the American people had an inkling 
 of the magnitude to which Trusts might swell. In 
 like fashion when the Northern Pacific and the Great 
 Northern Railroads found a legal impediment to 
 their being run by one management, they got round 
 the law by organizing the Northern Securities Com- 
 pany, which was to hold the stocks and bonds of 
 both railroads. And so of many other important 
 industrial and transportation mergers. The most 
 powerful financial promoters of the country, led by 
 Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, were busy setting up these 
 combinations on a large scale and the keenest cor- 
 poration lawyers spent their energy and wits in 
 
198 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 framing charters which obeyed the letter of the laws, 
 but wholly denied their spirit. 
 
 President Roosevelt worked openly, with a defi- 
 nite purpose. First, he would enforce every law on 
 the statute book, without exception in favor of any 
 individual or company; next, he suggested to Con- 
 gress the need of new legislation to resist further 
 encroachments by capitalists in the fields where they 
 had already been checked; finally, he pointed out 
 that Congress must begin at once to protect the 
 national resources which had been allowed to go to 
 waste, or to be seized and exploited by private con- 
 cerns. 
 
 I do not intend to take up in chronological se- 
 quence, or in detail, Roosevelt's battles to secure 
 proper legislation. To do so would require the dis- 
 cussion of legal and constitutional questions, which 
 would scarcely fit a sketch like the present. The main 
 things to know are the general nature of his reforms 
 and his own attitude in conducting the fight. He 
 aimed directly at stopping abuses which gave a priv- 
 ileged few undue advantage in amassing and distrib- 
 uting wealth. The practical result of the laws was to 
 spread justice and equality throughout the coun- 
 try and to restore thereby the true spirit of De- 
 mocracy on which the Founders created the Re- 
 public. He fought fairly, but warily, never letting 
 
THE GREAT CRUSADE AT HOME 199 
 
 slip a point that would tell against his opponents, 
 who, it must be said, did not always attack him 
 honorably. 
 
 At first, they regarded the President as a head- 
 strong young man — he was the youngest who had 
 ever sat in the Presidential chair — who wished to 
 have his own way in order to show the country that 
 he was its leader. They did not see that ideals which 
 dated back to his childhood were really shaping his 
 acts. He had seen law in the making out West; he 
 had seen law, and especially corporation law, in the 
 making when he was in the New York Assembly 
 and Governor of New York; he knew the devices 
 by which the Interests caused laws to be made and 
 passed for their special benefit, or evaded inconven- 
 ient laws. But he suffered no disillusion as to the 
 ideal of Law, the embodiment and organ of Jus- 
 tice. Legal quibbles, behind which designing and 
 wicked men dodged, nauseated him, and he made 
 no pretense of wishing to uphold them. 
 
 The champions of the Interests found out before 
 long that the young President was neither head- 
 strong nor a mere creature of impulse, but that he 
 followed a thoroughly rational system of principles ; 
 and so they had to abandon the notion that the next 
 gust of impulse might blow him over to their side. 
 They must take him as he was, and make the best 
 
200 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 of it. Now, I must repeat, that, for these gentlemen, 
 the very idea that anybody could propose to run 
 the American Government, or to organize American 
 Society, on any other standard than theirs, seemed 
 to them preposterous. The Bourbon nobles in France 
 and in Italy were not more amazed when the Revo- 
 lutionists proposed to sweep them away than were 
 the American Plutocrats of the Rooseveltian era 
 when he promoted laws to regulate them. The Bour- 
 bon thinks the earth will perish unless Bourbon- 
 ism governs it; the American Plutocrat thought 
 that America existed simply to enrich him. He 
 clung to his rights and privileges with the tenacity 
 of a drowning man clinging to a plank, and he de- 
 ceived himself into thinking that, in desperately 
 trying to save himself and his order, he was saving 
 Society. 
 
 Most tragic of all, to one who regards history as 
 the revelation of the unfolding of the moral nature 
 of mankind, was the fact that these men had not 
 the slightest idea that they were living in a moral 
 Avorld, or that a new influx of moral inspiration had 
 begun to permeate Society in its politics, its busi- 
 ness, and its daily conduct. The great ship Privilege, 
 on which they had voyaged with pomp and satis- 
 faction, was going down and they knew it not. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 
 
 I DO not wish to paint Roosevelt in one light 
 only, and that the most favorable. Had no 
 other been shed upon him, his Administration would 
 have been too bland for human belief, and life for 
 him would have palled. For his inexhaustible en- 
 ergy hungered for action. As soon as his judgment 
 convinced him that a thing ought to be done he 
 set about doing it. Recently, I asked one of the 
 most perspicacious members of his Cabinet, "What 
 do you consider Theodore's dominant trait?" He 
 thought for a while, and then replied, "Combative- 
 ness." No doubt the public also, at least while 
 Roosevelt was in office, thought of him first as a 
 fighter. The idea that he was truculent or pugna- 
 cious, that he went about with a chip on his shoul- 
 der, that he loved fighting for the sake of fighting, 
 was, however, a mistake. During the eight years he 
 was President he kept the United States out of war ; 
 not only that, he settled long-standing causes of 
 irritation, such as the dispute over the Alaskan 
 Boundary, which might, under provocation, have 
 led to war. Even more than this, without striking 
 
202 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 a blow, he repelled the persistent attempts of the 
 German Emperor to gain a foothold on this conti- 
 nent ; he repelled those snakelike attacks and forced 
 the Imperial Bully, not merely to retreat ignomin- 
 iously but to arbitrate. And in foreign affairs, 
 Roosevelt shone as a peacemaker. He succeeded in 
 persuading the Russian Czar to come to terms 
 with the Mikado of Japan. And soon after, when 
 the German Emperor threatened to make war on 
 France, a letter from Roosevelt to him caused Wil- 
 liam to reconsider his brutal plan, and to submit the 
 Moroccan dispute to a conference of the Powers at 
 Algeciras. 
 
 Instead of the braggart and brawler that his ene- 
 mies mispainted him, I saw in Roosevelt, rather, a 
 strong man who had taken early to heart Hamlet 's 
 maxim and had steadfastly practiced it: 
 
 "Rightly to be great 
 Is not to stir without great argument, 
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 
 When honour 's at the stake." 
 
 He himself summed up this part of his philosophy 
 in a phrase which has become a proverb: "Speak 
 softly, but carry a big stick." More than once in his 
 later years he quoted this to me, adding, that it was 
 precisely because this or that Power knew that he 
 carried a big stick, that he was enabled to speak 
 softly with effect. 
 
THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 203 
 
 No man of our time better deserved the Nobel 
 Peace Prize than did he. The fallacy that Roosevelt, 
 like the proverbial Irishman at Donnybrook Fair, 
 had rather fight than eat, spread through the coun- 
 try, and indeed throughout the world, and had its 
 influence in determining whether men voted for him 
 or not. His enemies used it as proof that he was not 
 a safe President, but they took means much more 
 malignant than this to discredit and destroy him. 
 When the Big Interests discovered that they could 
 not silence him, they circulated stories of all kinds 
 that would have rendered even the archangel Ga- 
 briel suspect to some worthy dupes. 
 
 They threw doubts, for instance, on his sanity, 
 and one heard that the "Wall Street magnates" em- 
 ployed the best alienists in the country to analyze 
 everything the President did and said, in the hope 
 of accumulating evidence to show that he was too 
 unbalanced to be President. Not content with steal- 
 ing away his reputation for mental competence, they 
 shot into the dark the gravest charges against his 
 honor. A single story, still believed, as I know, by 
 persons of eminence in their professions, will illus- 
 trate this. When one of the great contests between 
 the President and the Interests was on, he remem- 
 bered that one of their representatives in New York 
 had damaging, confidential letters from him. Hear- 
 
204 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ing that these might be produced, Roosevelt tele- 
 phoned one of his trusty agents to break open the 
 desk of the Captain of Industry where they were 
 kept, and to bring them to the White House, before 
 ten o'clock the following morning. This was done. 
 To believe that the President of the United States 
 would engage in a vulgar robbery of the jimmy and 
 black-mask sort indicates a degree of credulity which 
 even the alienists could hardly have expected to en- 
 counter outside of their asylums. It suggests also, 
 that Baron Munchausen, like the Wandering Jew 
 Ahasuerus, has never died. Does any one suppose 
 that the person whose desk was rifled would have 
 kept quiet? Or that, if the Interests had had even 
 reasonably sure evidence of the President's guilt, 
 they would not have published it? To set spies and 
 detectives upon him with orders to trail him night 
 and day was, according to rumor, an obvious expe- 
 dient for his enemies to employ. 
 
 I repeat these stories, not because I believe them, 
 but because many persons did, and such gossip, like 
 the cruel slanders whispered against President Cleve- 
 land years before, gained some credence. Roosevelt 
 was so natural, so unguarded, in his speech and ways, 
 that he laid himself open to calumny. The delight he 
 took in establishing the Ananias Club, and the rapid- 
 ity with which he found new members for it, seemed 
 
THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 205 
 
 to justify strong doubts as to his temper and taste, 
 if not as to his judgment. The vehemence of his pub- 
 lic speaking, which was caused in part by a physi- 
 cal difficulty of utterance — the sequel of his early 
 asthmatic trouble — and in part by his extraordi- 
 nary vigor, created among some of the hearers who 
 did not know him the impression that he must be a 
 hard drinker, or that he drank to stimulate his elo- 
 quence. After he retired from office, his enemies, in 
 order to undermine his further political influence, 
 sowed the falsehood that he was a drunkard. I do 
 not recall that they ever suggested that he used his 
 office for his private profit — there are some things 
 too absurd for even malice to suggest — but he 
 had reason enough many times to calm himself by 
 reflecting that his Uncle Jimmy Bulloch, the best 
 of men, believed just such lies, and the most atro- 
 cious insinuations, against Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Of course, nearly all public men have to undergo 
 similar virulent defamation. I have heard a well- 
 known publicist, a lawyer of ability, argue that both 
 George Washington and Abraham Lincoln did not 
 escape from what seems now incredible abuse, and 
 that they were, nevertheless, the noblest of men and 
 peerless patriots ; and then he went on to argue that 
 President Woodrow Wilson has been the target of 
 similar malignity, and to leave you to conclude that 
 
2o6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 consequently Wilson is in the same class with Wash- 
 ington and Lincoln. If he had put his thesis in a dif- 
 ferent form, the publicist might have seen himself, 
 as his hearers did, the absurdity of it. Suppose he 
 had said, for instance: "In spite of the fact that 
 Washington and Lincoln each kept a cow, they were 
 both peerless patriots, therefore, as President Wilson 
 keeps a cow, he must be a peerless patriot." One 
 fears that logic is somewhat neglected even in the 
 training of lawyers in our day. 
 
 The commonest charge against Roosevelt, and 
 the one which seemed, on the surface at least, to be 
 most plausible, was that he was devoured by insatia- 
 ble ambition. The critical remarked that wherever 
 he went he was always the central figure. The truth 
 is, that he could no more help being the central figure 
 than a lion could in any gathering of lesser crea- 
 tures ; the fact that he was Roosevelt decided that. 
 He did use the personal pronoun ''I," and the pos- 
 sessive pronoun "My," with such frequency as to 
 irritate good persons who were quite as egotistical 
 as he — if that be egotism — but who used such 
 modest circumlocutions as "the present writer," or 
 "one," to camouflage their self-conceit. Roosevelt 
 enjoyed almost all his experiences with equal zest, 
 and he expressed his enjoyment without reserve. 
 He was quite as well aware of his foibles as his crit- 
 
THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 207 
 
 ics were, and he made merry over them. Probably 
 nobody laughed more heartily than he at the pleas- 
 antly humorous remark of one of his boys: "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." 
 
 Ambition he had, the ambition which every 
 healthy-minded man ought to have to deserve the 
 good-will and approbation of his fellows. This he 
 admitted over and over again, and he made no pre- 
 tense of not taking satisfaction from the popularity 
 his countrymen showered upon him. In writing to 
 a friend that he wished to be a candidate in 1904, 
 he distinguished between the case of Lincoln in 1 864 
 and that of himself and other Presidential candi- 
 dates for renomination. In 1864, the crisis was so 
 tremendous that Lincoln must have considered that 
 chiefly, irrespective of his own hopes : whereas Roose- 
 velt in 1904, like Jackson, Grant, Cleveland, and the 
 other two-term Presidents, might, without impro- 
 priety, look upon reelection as, in a measure, a per- 
 sonal tribute. 
 
 One of my purposes In writing this sketch will 
 have failed, if I have not made clear the character of 
 Roosevelt's ambition. He could not be happy unless 
 he were busily at work. If that work were in a public 
 office he was all the happier. But the way in which 
 
2o8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he accepted one office after another, each unrelated 
 to the preceding, was so desultory as to prove that 
 he did not begin life with a deep-laid design on the 
 Presidency. He got valuable political notoriety as 
 an Assemblyman, but that was, as I have so often 
 said, because he could not be inconspicuous any- 
 where. He took the office of Civil Service Commis- 
 sioner, although everybody regarded that as a com- 
 monplace field bounded on three sides by political 
 oblivion ; and only a dreamer could have supposed 
 that his service as Chief Police Commissioner of New 
 York City could lead to the White House. Only when 
 he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy can he 
 be said to have come within striking distance of the 
 great target. In enlisting in the Spanish War and 
 organizing the Rough Riders, he may well have re- 
 flected that military prowess has often favored a Pres- 
 idential candidacy; but even here, his sense of patri- 
 otic duty and his desire to experience the soldier's life 
 were almost indisputably his chief motives. As Gov- 
 ernor of New York, however, he could not disguise 
 from himself the fact that that position might prove 
 again, as it had proved in the case of Cleveland, the 
 stepping-stone to the Presidency. On finding, how- 
 ever, that Piatt and the Bosses, exasperated by him 
 as Governor, wished to get rid of him by making 
 him Vice-President, and knowing that in the normal 
 
THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 209 
 
 course of events a Vice-President never became 
 President, he tried to refuse nomination to the lower 
 office. And only when he perceived that the masses 
 of the people, the country over, and not merely the 
 Bosses, insisted on nominating him, did he accept. 
 This brief summary of his political progress assuredly 
 does not bear out the charge that he was the victim 
 of uncontrollable ambition. 
 
 Roosevelt's Ananias Club caught the imagination 
 of the country, but not always favorably. Those 
 whom he elected into it, for instance, did not relish 
 the notoriety. Others thought that it betokened ir- 
 ritation in him, and that a man in his high position 
 ought not to punish persons who were presumably 
 trustworthy by branding them so conspicuously. In 
 fact, I suppose, he sometimes applied the brand too 
 hastily, under the spur of sudden resentment. The 
 most open of men himself, he had no hesitation in 
 commenting on anybody or any topic with the 
 greatest indiscretion. For he took it for granted that 
 even the strangers who heard him would hold his 
 remarks as confidential. When, therefore, one of his 
 hearers went outside and reported in public what 
 the President had said, Roosevelt disavowed it, 
 and put the babbler in the Ananias class. What a 
 President wishes the public to know, he tells it 
 himself. What he utters in private should, in honor, 
 be held as confidential. 
 
210 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 When I say that Roosevelt was astonishingly 
 open, I do not mean that he blurted out everything, 
 for he always knew the company with whom he 
 talked, and if there were any among them with 
 whom it would be imprudent to risk an indiscre- 
 tion, he took care to talk "for safety." With him, a 
 secret was a secret, and he could be as silent as an 
 unopened Egyptian tomb. Certain diplomatic affairs 
 he did not lisp, even to his Secretary of State. So far 
 as appears, John Hay knew nothing about the Presi- 
 dent's interviews with the German Ambassador 
 HoUeben, which forced William II to arbitrate. 
 And he sometimes prepared a bill for Congress with- 
 out consulting his Cabinet, for fear that the stock- 
 jobbers might get wind of it and bull or bear the 
 market with the news. 
 
 Before passing on, I must remark that some cases 
 of apparent mendacity or inaccuracy on the part 
 of a President — especially if he were as voluble 
 and busy as Roosevelt — must be attributed to 
 forgetfulness or misunderstanding and not to wil- 
 ful lying. A person coming from an interview with 
 him might construe as a promise the kindly remarks 
 with which the President wished to soften a refusal. 
 The promise, which was no promise, not being kept, 
 the suppliant accused the President of faithlessness 
 or falsehood. McKinley, it was said, could say no 
 
THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 211 
 
 to three different seekers for the same office so 
 balmily that each of them went away convinced 
 that he was the successful applicant. Yet McKinley 
 escaped the charge of mendacity and Roosevelt, who 
 deserved it far less, did not. 
 
 In his writings and speeches, Roosevelt uttered 
 his opinions so candidly that we need not fall back 
 on breaches of confidence to explain why his oppo- 
 nents were maddened by them. Plutocrats and mo- 
 nopolists might well wince at being called "malefac- 
 tors of great wealth," "the wealthy criminal class." 
 Such expressions had the virtue, from the point of 
 view of rhetoric, of being so descriptive that any- 
 body could visualize them. They stung; they shed 
 indefinable odium on a whole class; and, no doubt, 
 this was just what Roosevelt intended. To many 
 critics they seemed cruel, because, instead of al- 
 lowing for exceptions, they huddled all plutocrats 
 together, the virtuous and the vicious alike. And 
 so with the victims of his phrase, "undesirable citi- 
 zens." I marvel rather, however, that Roosevelt, 
 given his extraordinary talent of flashing epithets 
 and the rush of his indignation when he was doing 
 battle for a good cause, displayed as much modera- 
 tion as he did. Had he been a demagogue, he would 
 have roused the masses against the capitalists and 
 have goaded them to such a pitch of hatred that 
 
212 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 they would have looked to violence, bloodshed, and 
 injustice, as the remedy they must apply. 
 
 But Roosevelt was farthest removed from the 
 Revolutionists of the vulgar, red-handed class. He 
 consecrated his life to prevent Revolution. All his 
 action in the conflict between Labor and Capital 
 aimed at conciliation. He told the plutocrats their 
 defects with brutal frankness, and if he promoted 
 laws to curb them, it was because he realized, as 
 they did not, that, unless they mended their ways, 
 they would bring down upon themselves a Socialist 
 avalanche which they could not withstand. What 
 set the seal of consecration on his work was his treat- 
 ment of Labor with equal justice. Unlike the dema- 
 gogue, he did not flatter the "horny-handed sons 
 of toil " or obsequiously do the bidding of railroad 
 brotherhoods, or pretend that the capitalist had no 
 rights, and that all workingmen were good merely 
 because they worked. On the contrary, he told them 
 that no class was above the law; he warned them 
 that if Labor attempted to get its demands by vio- 
 lence, he would put it down. He ridiculed the idea 
 that honest citizenship depends on the more or 
 less money a man has in his pocket. "A man who 
 is good enough to shed his blood for his country," 
 Roosevelt said in a Fourth-of-July speech at Spring- 
 field, Illinois, in 1903, "is good enough to be given 
 
THE TWO ROOSEVELTS 213 
 
 a square deal afterward. More than that no man is 
 entitled to, and less than that no man shall have." 
 
 That phrase, "a square deal," stuck in the hearts 
 of the American people. It summed up what they 
 regarded as Roosevelt's most characteristic trait. 
 He was the man of the square deal, who instinctively 
 resented injustice done to those who could not pro- 
 tect themselves; the friend of the under dog, the 
 companion of the self-reliant and the self-respecting. 
 It is under this aspect that Roosevelt seems most 
 likely to live in popular history. 
 
 So, from the time he became President, the public 
 was divided into believing that there were two Roose- 
 velts. His enemies made almost a monster of him, 
 denouncing and fearing him as violent, rash, pugna- 
 cious, egotistical, ogreish in his mad hatred of Capi- 
 tal, and Capitalists condemned him as hypocritical, 
 cruel, lying, and vindictive. The other side, how- 
 ever, insisted on his courage; he was a fighter, but 
 he always fought to defend the weak and to uphold 
 the right; he was equally unmoved by Bosses and 
 by demagogues; in his human relations he regarded 
 only what a man was, not his class or condition; he 
 had a great-hearted, jovial simplicity; a far-seeing 
 and steadfast patriotism; he preached the Square 
 Deal and he practiced it; even more than Lincoln 
 he was accessible to every one. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 
 
 DURING the first years of Roosevelt's Admin- 
 istration he had to encounter many condi- 
 tions which existed rather from the momentum they 
 had from the past than from any living vigor of their 
 own. It was a time of transition. The group of poli- 
 ticians dating from the Civil War was nearly ex- 
 tinct, and the leaders who had come to the front 
 after 1870 were also much thinned in number, and 
 fast dropping off. Washington itself was becoming 
 one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with 
 its broad avenues, seldom thronged, its circles and 
 squares, whose frequenters seemed never busy, its 
 spirit of leisure, its suggestion of opulence and ampli- 
 tude, and of a not too zealous or disturbing hold 
 on reality. You still saw occasionally a tiny cottage 
 inhabited by a colored family cuddled up against a 
 new and imposing palace, just as you might pass a 
 colored mammy on the same sidewalk with a million- 
 aire Senator, for the residential section had not yet 
 been socially standardized. 
 
 Only a few years before, under President Cleve- 
 land, a single telephone sufficed for the White House, 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 215 
 
 and as the telephone operator stopped work at six 
 o'clock, the President himself or some member of 
 his family had to answer calls during the evening. 
 A single secretary wrote in long hand most of the 
 Presidential correspondence. Examples of similar 
 primitiveness might be found almost everywhere, 
 and the older generation seemed to imagine that a 
 certain slipshod and dozing quality belonged to the 
 very idea of Democracy. If you were neatly dressed 
 and wdde awake, you would inevitably be remarked 
 among 3^our fellows; such remark would imply su- 
 periority; and to be superior was supposedly to be 
 undemocratic. 
 
 Nevertheless this was a time of transition, and the 
 vigor which emanated from the young President 
 passed like electricity through all lines and has- 
 tened the change. He caused the White House to be 
 remodeled and fitted on the one hand for social pur- 
 poses which required much more spacious accom- 
 modation, and on the other for offices in which he 
 could conduct the largely increased Presidential 
 business. Instead of one telephone there were many 
 working night and day, and instead of a single long- 
 hand secretary, there w^ere a score of stenographers 
 and typists. Before he left Washington he saw a 
 vast Union Station erected instead of the over- 
 grown shanties at Sixth Street, and he had encour- 
 
2i6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 aged the laying-out of the waste places beyond the 
 Capitol, thus adding to the city another and impos- 
 ing section. His interest did not stop at politics, nor 
 at carrying through the reforms he had at heart. He 
 attended with equal keenness and solicitude to ex- 
 ternal improvements. 
 
 Now at first, as I have suggested, his chief duty 
 was to continue President McKinley's policies, 
 which concerned mostly the establishment of our 
 insular dependencies, and the readjustment of our 
 diplomatic relations. I have described how he closed 
 the dispute over the Alaskan Boundary, over our 
 joint control with England over the Isthmus of Pan- 
 ama, and how he circumvented the attempt of the 
 Colombian blackmailers to block our construction 
 of the Canal. 
 
 We must now glance at a matter of almost equal 
 importance — our relations with Germany. The 
 German attack on civilization, which was openly de- 
 livered in 1 91 4, revealed to the world that for twenty 
 years before the German Emperor had been secretly 
 preparing his mad project of Universal Conquest. 
 We see now that he used all sorts of base tools — 
 German exchange professors, spies, bribers, conven- 
 tional insinuators and corrupters, organizers of pro- 
 German sentiment, and of societies of German- 
 Americans. So little did he and his lackeys under- 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 217 
 
 stand the American spirit that they assumed that 
 at the given signal the people of the United States 
 would gladly go over to them. He counted on se- 
 curing North and South America by commerce and 
 corruption, and not by armed force. The reaffirm- 
 ation of the Monroe Doctrine by President Cleve- 
 land in 1895 seriously troubled him; for he contem- 
 plated planting German colonies in Central and 
 South America without resistance, but the Monroe 
 Doctrine in its latest interpretation forbade him or 
 any foreign government from establishing domin- 
 ion in either American continent. Still, two things 
 comforted him: the Americans were, he thought, a 
 loose, happy-go-lucky people, without any consecu- 
 tive or deep-laid policy, as foolish republicans must 
 be; and next, he knew that he had the most pow- 
 erful army in the world, which, if put to the test, 
 would crush the undisciplined American militia at 
 the first onset. He adopted, therefore, a double 
 policy: he pretended openly to be most friendly to 
 the Americans; he flattered all of them whom he 
 could reach in Berlin, and he directed an effusive 
 propaganda in the United States. In secret, how- 
 ever, he lost no occasion to harm this countr>^ 
 When the Spanish War came in 1898, he tried to 
 form a naval coalition of his fleet with those of 
 France and England, and it was only the refusal of 
 
2i8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 England to join in it which saved this country from 
 disaster. The United States owe Mr. Balfour, who 
 at that time controlled the British Foreign Ofhce, 
 an eternal debt of gratitude, because it was he who 
 replied to the Kaiser's secret temptation: "No: if 
 the British fleet takes any part in this war, it will be 
 to put itself between the American fleet and those 
 of your coalition." 
 
 The Kaiser expressed his real sentiment towards 
 the United States in a remark which he made later, 
 not expecting that it would reach American ears. 
 " If I had had ships enough," he said, " I would have 
 taken the Americans by the scruff of the neck." As 
 it was, he showed his purpose to those who had eyes 
 to see it, by ordering the German Squadron under 
 Diederichs to go to Manila and take what he could 
 there. Fortunately before he could take Manila or 
 the Philippines he had to take the American Com- 
 modore, George Dewey, and when he discovered 
 what sort of a sea-fighter the mountains of Vermont 
 had produced in Dewey, he decided not to attack 
 him. Perhaps also the fact that the English com- 
 mander at Manila, Captain Chichester, stood ready 
 to back up Dewey caused Diederichs to back down. 
 The true Prussian truculence always oozes out when 
 it has not a safe margin of superiority in strength 
 on its side. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 219 
 
 The Kaiser was not to be foiled, however, in his 
 determination to get a foothold in America. As the 
 likelihood that the Panama Canal would be con- 
 structed became a certainty, he redoubled his efforts. 
 He tried to buy from a Mexican Land Company two 
 large ports in Lower California for "his personal 
 use." These would have given him, of course, con- 
 trol over the approach to the Canal from the Pacific. 
 Simultaneously he sent a surveying expedition to 
 the Caribbean Sea, which found a spacious harbor, 
 that might serve as a naval base, on an unoccupied 
 island near the main line of vessels approaching the 
 Canal from the east, but before he could plant a 
 force there, the presence of his surveyors was dis- 
 covered, and they sailed away. 
 
 He now resorted to a more cunning ruse. The peo- 
 ple of Venezuela owed considerable sums to mer- 
 chants and bankers in Germany, England, and Italy, 
 and the creditors could recover neither their capital 
 nor the interest on it. The Kaiser bethought him- 
 self of the simple plan of making a naval demonstra- 
 tion against the Venezuelans if they did not pay up; 
 he would send his troops ashore, occupy the chief 
 harbors, and take in the customs. To disguise his 
 ulterior motive, he persuaded England and Italy to 
 join him in collecting their bill against Venezuela. 
 So warships of the three nations appeared off the 
 
220 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Venezuelan coast, and for some time they main- 
 tained what they called "A peaceful blockade." 
 After a while Secretary Hay pointed out that there 
 could be no such thing as a peaceful blockade; that 
 a blockade was, by its very nature, an act of war; 
 accordingly the blockaders declared a state of bel- 
 ligerency between themselves and V^enezuela, and 
 Germany threatened to bombard the seacoast towns 
 unless the debt was settled without further delay. 
 President Roosevelt had no illusions as to what 
 bombardment and occupation by German troops 
 would mean. If a regiment or two of Germans 
 once w^ent into garrison at Caracas or Porto Cabello, 
 the Kaiser would secure the foothold he craved on 
 the American Coast within striking distance of 
 the projected Canal, and Venezuela, unable to ward 
 off his aggression, would certainly be helpless to 
 drive him out. Mr. Roosevelt allowed Mr. Herbert 
 W. Bowen, the American Minister to Venezuela, 
 to serve as Special Commissioner for Venezuela in 
 conducting her negotiations with Germany. He, 
 himself, however, took the matter into his own 
 hands at Washington. Having sounded England 
 and Italy, and learned that they were willing to 
 arbitrate, and knowing also that neither of them 
 schemed to take territorial payment for their bills, 
 he directed his diplomatic attack straight at the 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 221 
 
 Kaiser. When the German Ambassador, Dr. von 
 Holleben, one of the pompous and ponderous pro- 
 fessorial sort of German officials, was calling on him 
 at the White House, the President told him to warn 
 the Kaiser that unless he consented, within a given 
 time — about ten days — to arbitrate the Venezue- 
 lan dispute, the American fleet under Admiral Dewey 
 would appear off the Venezuelan coast and defend it 
 from any attack which the German Squadron might 
 attempt to make. Holleben displayed consterna- 
 tion; he protested that since his Imperial Master had 
 refused to arbitrate, there could be no arbitration. 
 His Imperial Master could not change his Imperial 
 Mind, and the dutiful servant asked the President 
 whether he realized what such a demand meant. The 
 President replied calmly that he knew it meant war. 
 A week passed, but brought no reply from Berlin; 
 then Holleben called again at the White House on 
 some unimportant matters; as he turned to go the 
 President inquired, "Have you heard from Berlin?" 
 "No," said Holleben. "Of course His Imperial Maj- 
 esty cannot arbitrate." "Very well, " said Roosevelt, 
 "you may think it worth while to cable to Berlin 
 that I have changed my mind. I am sending instruc- 
 tions to Admiral Dewey to take our fleet to Vene- 
 zuela next Monday instead of Tuesday." Holleben 
 brought the interview to a close at once and departed 
 
222 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 with evident signs of alarm. He returned in less than 
 thirty-six hours with relief and satisfaction written 
 on his face, as he informed the President, "His Im- 
 perial Majesty consents to arbitrate." 
 
 In order to screen the Kaiser's mortification from 
 the world, Roosevelt declared that his transaction — 
 which only he, the Kaiser, and Holleben knew about 
 — should not be made public at the time; and he 
 even went so far, a little later, in speaking on the 
 matter as to refer to the German Emperor as a good 
 friend and practicer of arbitration. 
 
 Many years later, when Roosevelt and I discussed 
 this episode we cast about for reasons to account 
 for the Kaiser's sudden back-down. We concluded 
 that after the first interview Holleben either did not 
 cable to Berlin at all, or he gave the message with 
 his own comment that it was all a bluff. After the 
 second interview, he consulted Buenz, tlic German 
 Consul-General at New York, who knew Roosevelt 
 well and knew also the powerfulness of Dewey's 
 fleet. He assured Holleben that the President was not 
 bluffing, and that Dewey could blow all the German 
 Navy, then in existence, out of the water in half an 
 hour. So Holleben sent a hot cablegram to Berlin, and 
 Berlin understood that only an immediate answer 
 would do. 
 
 Poor, servile, old bureaucrat Holleben! The Kaiser 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 223 
 
 soon treated him as he was in the habit of treating 
 any of his servile creatures, high or low, who made a 
 fiasco. Deceived by the glowing reports which his 
 agents in the United States sent to him, the Kaiser 
 believed that the time was ripe for a visit by a Hohen- 
 zollern, to let off the pent-up enthusiasm of the Ger- 
 man-Americans and to stimulate the pro-German 
 conspiracy here. Accordingly Prince Henry of Prus- 
 sia came over and made a whirlwind trip, as far as 
 Chicago; but it was in no sense a royal progress. 
 Multitudes flocked to see him out of curiosity, but 
 Prince Henry realized, and so did the German kin 
 here, that his mission had failed. A scapegoat must 
 be found, and apparently Holleben was the chosen 
 victim. 
 
 The Kaiser cabled him to resign and take the next 
 day's steamer home, alleging "chronic illness" as an 
 excuse. He sailed from Hoboken obediently, and 
 there were none so poor as to do him reverence. The 
 sycophants who had fawned upon him while he was 
 enjoying the Imperial favor as Ambassador took 
 care not to be seen waving a farewell to him from the 
 pier. Instead of that, they were busy telling over his 
 blunders. He had served French instead of German 
 champagne at a banquet for Prince Henry, and he had 
 allowed the Kaiser's yacht to be christened in French 
 champagne. How could such a blunderer satisfy the 
 
224 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 diplomatic requirements of the vain and petty Kai- 
 ser? And yet! HoUeben was utterly devoted and 
 willing to grovel in the mud. He even suggested to 
 President Roosevelt that at the State Banquet at the 
 White House, Prince Henry, as a Hohenzollcrn, and 
 the representative of the Almightiest Kaiser, should 
 walk out to dinner first ; but there was no discussion, 
 for the President replied curtly, "No person living 
 precedes the President of the United States in the 
 White House." )C 
 
 Henceforth the Kaiser understood that the United 
 States Government, at least as long as Roosevelt 
 was President, would repel any attempt by foreign- 
 ers to violate the Monroe Doctrine, and set up a nu- 
 cleus of foreign power in either North or South Amer- 
 ica. He devoted himself all the more earnestly to 
 pushing the sly work of peaceful penetration, that 
 work of spying and lying in which the German peo- 
 ple proved itself easily first. The diabolical propa- 
 ganda, aimed not only at undermining the United 
 States, at seducing the Irish and other hyphenate 
 groups of Americans, but at polluting the Mexicans 
 and several of the South American States; and later 
 there was a thoroughly organized conspiracy to stir 
 up animosity between this country and Japan by 
 making the Japanese hate and suspect the Americans, 
 and by making the Americans hate and suspect the 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 225 
 
 Japanese. I alluded just now to the fact that German 
 intrigue was working in Bogota, and influenced the 
 Colombian blackmailers in refusing to sign the Hay- 
 Herran Canal Treaty with the United States, and 
 peered about in the hope of snapping up the Canal 
 rights for Germany. 
 
 Outwardly, during the first decade of the twen- 
 tieth century, the Kaiser seemed to be most active 
 in interfering in European politics, including those 
 of Morocco, in which the French were entangled. In 
 1904 the war between Russia and Japan broke out. 
 Roosevelt remained strictly neutral towards both 
 belligerents, making it evident, however, that either 
 or both of them could count on his friendly offices if 
 they sought mediation. At the beginning of the war, 
 it was generally assumed that the German Kaiser 
 shed no tears over the Russian reverses, for the 
 weaker Russia became, the less Germany needed to 
 fear her as a neighbor. At length, however, when it 
 looked as if the Japanese might actually shatter the 
 Russian Empire, Germany and the other European 
 Powers seemed to have had a common feeling that 
 a decided victory by an Asiatic nation like Japan 
 would certainly require a readjustment of world poli- 
 tics, and might not only put in jeopard}' European 
 interests and control in Asia, but also raise up against 
 Europe what the Kaiser had already advertised as 
 
226 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the Yellow Peril. I have no evidence that President 
 Roosevelt shared this anxiety; on the contrar>% I 
 think that he was not unwilling that a strong Japan 
 should exist to prevent the dismemberment of East- 
 ern Asia by European land-grabbers. 
 
 By the spring of 1905, both Russia and Japan had 
 fought almost to exhaustion. The probability was 
 that Russia with her vast population could con- 
 tinue to replenish her army. Japan, with great pluck, 
 after winning amazing victories, which left her 
 weaker and w^eaker, made no sign of wishing for an 
 armistice. Roosevelt, however, on his ow^n motion 
 wrote a private letter to the Czar, Nicholas II, and 
 sent George Meyer, Ambassador to Italy, with it on 
 a special mission to Petrograd. The President urged 
 the Czar to consider making peace, since both the 
 Russians and the Japanese had nearly fought them- 
 selves out, and further warfare would add to the 
 losses and burdens, already tremendous, of both peo- 
 ple. Probably he hinted also that another disaster in 
 the field might cause an outbreak by the Russian 
 Revolutionists. I have not seen his letter — perhaps 
 a copy of it has escaped, in the Czar's secret archives, 
 the violence of the Bolshevists — but I have heard 
 him speak about it. I have reason to suppose also 
 that he wrote privately to the Kaiser to use his in- 
 fluence w^ith the Czar. At any rate, the Czar listened 
 
Copyright by I'lulerwood & I'nderwood, N.Y. 
 
 WITH THE RUSSO-JAPANESE PEACE DELEGATES ON BOARD THE 
 PRESIDENTIAL YACHT MAYFLOWER, AUGUST 5. 1905 
 
 Left to right: M. Witte, Baron Rosen, President Roosevelt, Baron Komura, 
 
 Minister Takahira 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 227 
 
 to the President's advice, and by one of those diplo- 
 matic devices by which both parties saved their dig- 
 nity, an armistice was arranged and, in the summer 
 of 1905, the Peace was signed. The following year, 
 the Trustees of the Nobel Peace Prize recognized 
 Roosevelt's large part in stopping the war, by giving 
 the Prize to him. 
 
 Meanwhile, the irritation between France and 
 Germany had increased to the point where open rup- 
 ture was feared. For years Germany had been wait- 
 ing for a propitious moment to swoop down on France 
 and overwhelm her. The French intrigues in Mo- 
 rocco, which were leading visibly to a French Pro- 
 tectorate over that country, aroused German resent- 
 ment, for the Germans coveted Morocco themselves. 
 The Kaiser went so far as to invite Roosevelt to in- 
 terfere with him in Morocco, but this, the President 
 replied, was impossible. Probably he was not un- 
 willing to have the German Emperor understand 
 that, while the United States would interfere with 
 all their might to prevent a foreign attack on the 
 Monroe Doctrine, they meant to keep their hands 
 off in European quarrels. That he also had a clear 
 idea of William IPs temperament appears from the 
 following opinion which I find in a private letter 
 of his at this time: "The Kaiser had weekly pipe 
 dreams." 
 
228 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 The situation grew very angry, and von Biilow, 
 the German Chancellor, did not hide his purpose of 
 upholding the German pretensions, even at the cost 
 of war. President Roosevelt then wrote — privately 
 — to the Kaiser impressing it upon him that for 
 Germany to make war on France would be a crime 
 against civilization, and he suggested that a Confer- 
 ence of Powers be held to discuss the Moroccan diffi- 
 culty, and to agree upon terms for a peaceful ad- 
 justment. The Kaiser finally accepted Roosevelt's 
 advice, and after a long debate over the prelimina- 
 ries, the Conference was held at Algeciras, Spain. 
 
 That Roosevelt understood, or even suspected, the 
 great German conspiracy which the Kaiser's hire- 
 lings were weaving over the United States is wholly 
 improbable. Had he known of any plot he would 
 have been the first to hunt it down and crush it. He 
 knew in general of the extravagant vaporings of the 
 Pan-Germans; but, like most of us, he supposed that 
 there was still enough sanity, not to say common 
 sense, left in Germany to laugh such follies away. 
 Through his intimate friend, Spring-Rice, subse- 
 quently the British Ambassador, he had early and 
 sound information of the conditions of Germany. He 
 watched with curiosity the abnormal expansion of 
 the German Fleet. All these things simply confirmed 
 his belief that the United States must attend seri- 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE KAISER 229 
 
 ously to the business of making militaty and naval 
 preparations. 
 
 Secretary Hay had already secured the recogni- 
 tion by the European Powers of the policy of the 
 Open Door in China, the year before Roosevelt be- 
 came President, but the struggle to maintain that 
 policy had to be kept up for several years. On Novem- 
 ber 21, 1900, John Hay wrote to Henry Adams: "At 
 least we are spared the infamy of an alliance with 
 Germany. I w^ould rather, I think, be the dupe of 
 China, than chum of the Kaiser. Have you noticed 
 how the world will take anything nowadays from 
 a German? Biilow said yesterday in substance — 
 'We have demanded of China everything we can 
 think of. If we think of anything else we will demand 
 
 that, and be d d to you ' — and not a man in the 
 
 world kicks." ^ 
 
 By an adroit move similar to that by which Hay 
 had secured the unwilling adherence of the Powers 
 to his original proposal of the Open Door, he, with 
 Roosevelt's sanction, prevented the German Em- 
 peror from carr>^ing out a plan to cut up China and 
 divide the slices among the Europeans. 
 
 Equally adroit was Roosevelt's method of dealing 
 with the Czar in 1903. Russian mobs ran amuck and 
 massacred many Jews in the city of Kishineff. The 
 
 1 VV. R. Thayer: John Hay, ii, 248. 
 
230 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 news of this atrocity reached the outside world 
 slowly: when it came, the Jews of western Europe, 
 and especially those of the United States, cried out 
 in horror, held meetings, drew up protests, and framed 
 petitions, asking the Czar to punish the criminals. 
 Leading American Jews besought Roosevelt to plead 
 their cause before the Czar. As it was well known 
 that the Czar would refuse to receive such petitions, 
 and would regard himself as insulted by whatever 
 nation should lay them before him by official dip- 
 lomatic means, the world wondered what Roose- 
 velt would do. He took one of his short cuts, and 
 chose a way which everybody saw was most obvious 
 and most simple, as soon as he had chosen it. He 
 sent the petitions to our Ambassador at Petrograd, 
 accompanying them with a letter which recited the 
 atrocities and grievances. In this letter, which was 
 handed to the Russian Secretary of State, our Gov- 
 ernment asked whether His Majesty the Czar would 
 condescend to receive the petitions. Of course the 
 reply was no, but the letter was published in all 
 countries, so that the Czar also knew of the peti- 
 tions, and of the horrors which called them out. In 
 this fashion the former Ranchman and Rough Rider 
 outwitted, by what I may call his straightforward 
 guile, the crafty diplomats of the Romanoffs. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 
 
 IN a previous chapter I glanced at three or four 
 of the principal measures in internal policy which 
 Roosevelt took up and fought through, until he 
 finally saw them passed by Congress. No other Pres- 
 ident, as has been often remarked, kept Congress so 
 busy; and, we may add, none of his predecessors (un- 
 less it were Lincoln with the legislation required by 
 the Civil War) put so many new laws on the national 
 statute book. Mr. Charles G. Washburn enumerates 
 these acts credited to Roosevelt's seven and a half 
 years' administration : "The Elkins Anti-Rebate Law 
 applying to railroads; the creation of the Depart- 
 ment of Commerce and Labor and the Bureau of 
 Corporations; the law authorizing the building of 
 the Panama Canal; the Hepburn Bill amending and 
 vitalizing the Interstate Commerce Act; the Pure 
 Food and Meat Inspection laws; the law creating the 
 Bureau of Immigration; the Employers' Liability 
 and Safety Appliance Laws, that limited the working 
 hours of employees; the law making the Government 
 liable for injuries to its employees; the law forbidding 
 child labor in the District of Columbia; thereforma- 
 
232 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 tion of the Consular Service; prohibition of cam- 
 paign contributions from corporations; the Emer- 
 gency Currency Law, which also provided for the 
 creation of the Monetary Commission." ^ 
 
 Although the list is by no means complete, it 
 shows that Roosevelt's receptive and sleepless mind 
 fastened on the full circle of questions which inter- 
 ested American life, so far as that is controlled or 
 directed by national legislation. Some of the laws 
 passed were simply readjustments — new statutes 
 on old matters. Other laws were new, embodying the 
 first attempt to define the attitude which the courts 
 should hold towards new questions which had grown 
 suddenly into great importance. The decade w^hich 
 had favored the springing-up and amazing expan- 
 sion of the Big Interests, had to be followed b^' the 
 decade which framed legislation for regulating and 
 curbing these interests. Quite naturally, the monop- 
 olists affected did not like to be harnessed or con- 
 trolled, and, to put it mildly, they resented the inter- 
 ference of the formidable young President whom 
 they could neither frighten, inveigle, nor cajole. 
 
 And yet it is as evident to all Americans now, as it 
 was to some Americans at the time, that that legis- 
 lation had to be passed; because if the monopolists 
 had been allowed to go on unrestrained, they would 
 
 ^ C. G. Washburn, 128, 129. 
 
ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 233 
 
 either have perverted this Republic into an open Plu- 
 tocracy, in which individual liberty and equality be- 
 fore the law would have disappeared, or they would 
 have hurried on the Social Revolution, the Arma- 
 geddon of Labor and Capital, the merciless conflict 
 of class with class, which many persons already 
 vaguely dreaded, or thought they saw looming like an 
 ominous cloud on the horizon. It seems astounding 
 that any one should have questioned the necessity of 
 setting up regulations. And will not posterity won- 
 der, when it learns that only in the first decade of the 
 twentieth century did we provide laws against the 
 cruel and killing labor of little children, and against 
 impure foods and drugs? 
 
 Year after year, the railroads furnished unending 
 causes for legislative control. There were the old 
 laws which the railroad men tried to evade and which 
 the President, as was his duty, insisted on enforcing; 
 and still more insistent and spectacular were the new 
 problems. Just as three or four hundred years ago the 
 most active and vigorous Frenchmen and English- 
 men tried to get possession of large tracts of land, or 
 even of provinces, and became counts and dukes, 
 so the Americans of our generation, who aspired to 
 lead the pushing financier class, worked day and 
 night to own a railroad. Naturally one railroad did 
 not satisfy a man who was bitten by this ambition; 
 
234 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he reached out for several, or even for a transconti- 
 nental system. The war for railroad ownership or mo- 
 nopoly was waged intensely, and in 1901 it nearly 
 plunged the country into a disastrous financial panic. 
 Edward H. Harriman, who had only recentl}^ been 
 regarded as a great power in the struggle for railroad 
 supremacy, clashed with James J. Hill, of Minnesota, 
 and J. P. Morgan, a New York banker, over the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad. Their battle was nomi- 
 nally a draw, because Wall Street rushed in and, to 
 avert a nation-wide calamity, demanded a truce. 
 But Harriman remained, until his death in 1909, the 
 railroad czar of the United States, and when he died, 
 he was master of twenty-five thousand miles of road, 
 chief influencer of fifty thousand more miles, besides 
 steamboat companies, banks, and other financial in- 
 stitutions. He controlled more money than any other 
 American. I summarize these statistics, in order to 
 show the reader what sort of a Colossus the President 
 of the United States had to do battle with when he un- 
 dertook to secure new laws adequate to the control 
 of the enormously expanded railway problems. And 
 he did succeed, in large measure, in bringing the giant 
 corporations to recognize the authority of the Na- 
 tion. The decision of the Supreme Court in the North- 
 ern Securities case, by which the merger of two or 
 more competing roads was declared illegal, put a 
 
ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 235 
 
 stop to the practice of consolidation, which might 
 have resulted in the ownership of all the railroads in 
 the United States by a single person. Then followed 
 the process of "unscrambling the omelet," to use 
 J. P. Morgan's phrase, in order to bring the com- 
 panies already illegally merged within the letter of the 
 law. Probably a lynx-eyed investigator might dis- 
 cover that in some of the efforts to legalize opera- 
 tions in the future, "the voice was Jacob's, but the 
 hands were the hands of Esau." 
 
 The laws aimed at regulating transportation, 
 rates, and rebates, certainly made for justice, and 
 helped to enlighten great corporations as to their 
 place in the community and their duties towards 
 it. Roosevelt showed that his fearlessness had ap- 
 parently no bounds, when in 1907 he caused suit to 
 be brought against the Standard Oil Company in 
 Indiana — a branch of a monopoly which was popu- 
 larly supposed to be above the law — for receiving 
 a rebate from a railroad on the petroleum shipped 
 by the Company. The judge who tried the case gave 
 a verdict in favor of the Government, but another 
 judge, to whom appeal was made, reversed the deci- 
 sion, and finally at a re-trial, a third judge dismissed 
 the indictment. "Thus," says Mr. Ogg, "a good 
 case was lost through judicial blundering." ^ 
 
 ^ Ogg, 50. 
 
236 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 But the greatest of Roosevelt's works as a legis- 
 lator were those which he carried through in the 
 fields of conservation and reclamation. He did not 
 invent these issues; he was only one of many persons 
 who understood their vast importance. He gives full 
 credit to Mr. Gifford Pinchot and Mr. F. H. Newell, 
 who first laid these subjects before him as matters 
 which he as President ought to consider. He had 
 himself during his days in the West seen the need of 
 irrigating the waste tracts. He was a quick and will- 
 ing learner, and in his first message to Congress 
 (December i, 1901) he remarked: "The forest and 
 water problems are perhaps the most vital internal 
 problems of the United States." Years later, in re- 
 ferring to this part of his work, he said: 
 
 The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still 
 obtained, and there was as yet no real knowledge of their ex- 
 tent and condition. The relation of the conservation of na- 
 tional resources to the problems of national welfare and na- 
 tional efficiency had not yet dawned on the public mind. The 
 reclamation of arid public lands in the West was still a matter 
 for private enterprise alone; and our magnificent river system, 
 with its superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt 
 with by the National Government not as a unit, but as a dis- 
 connected series of pork-barrel problems, whose only real 
 interest was in their effect on the reelection or defeat of a 
 Congressman here and there — a theory which, I regret to 
 say, still obtains.^ 
 
 ^ Autobiography, p. 430. 
 
ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 237 
 
 The public lands saved mounted to millions of 
 acres. The long-standing practice of stealing these 
 lands was checked and put a stop to as rapidly as 
 possible. Individuals and private companies had 
 bought for a song great tracts of national property, 
 getting thereby, it might be, the title to mineral de- 
 posits worth fabulous sums; and these persons were 
 naturally angry at being deprived of the immense 
 fortunes which they had counted on for themselves. 
 A company would buy up an entire watershed, 
 and control, for its private profit, the 'water-sup- 
 ply of a region. Roosevelt insisted with indisput- 
 able logic that the States and Counties ought them- 
 selves to own such natural resources and derive an 
 income from them. So, too, were the areas restored 
 to man's habitation, and to agriculture, by irriga- 
 tion, and by reforesting. A company, having no 
 object but its own enrichment, would ruthlessly cut 
 down a thousand square miles of timber in order to 
 convert it into wood pulp for paper, or into lumber 
 for building; and the region thus devastated, as if a 
 German army had been over it, would be left with- 
 out regard to the effect on the climate and the water- 
 supply of the surrounding country. Surely this was 
 wrong. 
 
 It seems to me as needless now to argue in behalf 
 of Roosevelt's legislation for the conservation of 
 
238 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 national resources as to argue against cannibalism 
 as a practice fit for civilized men. That lawyers of 
 repute and Congressmen of reputation should have 
 done their utmost, as late as 1906, to obstruct and 
 defeat the passage of the Meat Inspection Bill must 
 seem incredible to persons of average sanity and con- 
 science. If any of those obstructionists still live, they 
 do not boast of their performance, nor is it likely 
 that their children will exult over this part of the 
 paternal record. 
 
 In order not to exaggerate Roosevelt's importance 
 in these fundamental reforms, I would repeat that 
 he did not originate the idea of many of them. He 
 gladly took his cue for conservation from Gifford Pin- 
 chot, and for reclamation from F. H. Newell, as I 
 have said; the need of inspecting the packing-houses 
 which exported meat, from Senator A. J. Beveridge, 
 and so on. The vital fact is that these projects got form 
 and vigor and publicity, and were pushed through 
 Congress, only after Roosevelt took them up. His 
 opponents, the packers, the land-robbers, the mine- 
 grabbers, the wood-pulp pirates, fought him at every 
 point. They appealed to the old law to discredit and 
 damn the new. They gave him no quarter, and he 
 asked for none because he was bent on securing jus- 
 tice, irrespective of persons or private interests. It 
 followed, of course, that they watched eagerly for 
 
ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 239 
 
 any slip which might wreck him, and they thought 
 they had found their chance in 1907. 
 
 That was a year of financial upheaval, almost of 
 panic, the blame for which the Big Interests tried to 
 fasten on the President. It resulted, they said, from 
 his attack on Capital and the Corporations. A special 
 incident gave plausibility to some of their bitter 
 criticism. Messrs. Gary and Frick, of the United 
 States Steel Corporation, called on the President, 
 and told him that the Tennessee Coal and Iron Com- 
 pany was on the verge of bankruptcy, and that, if it 
 went under, a general panic would probably ensue. 
 To prevent this financial disaster, their Corporation 
 was willing to buy up enough of the Tennessee Com- 
 pany to save it, but they wished to know whether 
 the President would allow the purchase. He told 
 them that he could not officially advise them to take 
 the action proposed, but that he did not regard it 
 as a public duty of his to raise any objection. They 
 made the purchase, and the total amount of their 
 holdings in the Tennessee Company did not equal 
 in value what they had originally held, for the stock 
 had greatly shrunk. The Attorney-General subse- 
 quently informed the President that he saw no reason 
 to prosecute the United States Steel Corporation. 
 But the President's enemies did not spare their criti- 
 cism. They circulated grave suspicions; they hinted 
 
240 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 that, if the whole truth were known, Roosevelt 
 would be embarrassed, to say the least. What had 
 become of his pretended impartiality when he al- 
 lowed one of the great Trusts to do, with impunity, 
 that which others were prosecuted for? The public, 
 which seldom has the knowledge, or the information, 
 necessary for understanding business or financial 
 complexities, usually remarks, with the archaic sa- 
 pience of a Greek chorus, "There must be some 
 fire where there is so much smoke." But the pub- 
 lic interest was never seriously roused over the 
 Tennessee Coal and Iron affair, and, six years 
 later, when a United States District Court handed 
 down a verdict in which this matter was referred 
 to, the public had almost forgotten what it was all 
 about. 
 
 The great result from Roosevelt's battle for con- 
 servation, which I believe will glorify him, in the 
 future, to heroic proportions as a statesman, is that 
 where he found wide stretches of desert he left fertile 
 States, that he saved from destruction, that he seized 
 from the hands of the spoilers rivers and valleys 
 which belonged to the people, and that he kept for 
 the people mineral lands of untold value. Nor did he 
 work for material and sanitary prosperity alone; 
 but he worked also for Beauty. He reserved as Na- 
 tional Parks for the use and delight of men and 
 
ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS 241 
 
 women forever some of the most beautiful regions 
 in the United States, and the support he gave to 
 these causes urged them forward after he ceased to 
 be President. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 
 
 HAVING seen briefly how President Roosevelt 
 dealt with Capital, let us look even more 
 briefly at his dealings with Labor. I think that he 
 took the deepest personal satisfaction in fighting the 
 criminal rich and the soulless corporations, because 
 he regarded them not only as lawbreakers, malefac- 
 tors of great wealth, but as despicably mean, in that 
 they used their power to oppress the poor and help- 
 less classes. The Labor groups when the}^ burst out 
 into violence merely responded to the passion which 
 men naturally feel at injustice and at sufi^ering; to 
 their violence they did not add slyness or legal de- 
 ceits. But Roosevelt had no toleration for the Labor 
 demagogue, for the walking delegate, and all similar 
 parasites, who preyed upon the working classes for 
 their own profit, and fomented the irritation of 
 Labor and Capital. 
 
 Stronger, however, than his sympathy for any 
 individual, and especially for those who suff^ered 
 without redress, was his love of justice. This he put 
 in a phrase which he invented and made current, a 
 
THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 243 
 
 phrase which everybody could understand: "the 
 labor unions shall have a square deal, and the cor- 
 porations shall have a square deal." At another time 
 he expressed the same idea, by saying that the rich 
 man should have justice, and that the poor man 
 should have justice, and that no man should have 
 more or less. 
 
 Time soon brought a test for his devotion to social 
 justice. In the summer of 1902 the coal-miners of 
 Pennsylvania stopped working. Early in September 
 the public awoke with a start to the realization that 
 a coal famine threatened the country. In the Eastern 
 States, in New York, and Pennsylvania, and in some 
 of the Middle Western States, a calamity threatened, 
 which would be quite as terrible as the invasion of 
 an enemy's army. For not only would lack of fuel 
 cause incalculable hardship and distress from cold, 
 but it would stop transportation, and all manufac- 
 turing by machinery run by coal. The mine operators 
 and the miners were at a deadlock. The President 
 invited the leaders on both sides to confer with him 
 at the White House. They came and found him 
 stretched out on an invalid's chair, with one of his 
 legs much bandaged, from an accident he had re- 
 ceived in a collision at Pittsfield a few weeks before, 
 but his mental vigor was unsubdued. John Mitchell 
 spoke for the miners. The President urged the quar- 
 
244 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 relers to come to terms. But the big coal operators 
 would not yield. They knew that the distress among 
 the mining population was great, and they believed 
 that if the authorities would only maintain peace, 
 the miners would soon be forced to give in. So the 
 meeting broke up and the "coal barons," as the 
 newspapers dubbed the operators, quitted with evi- 
 dent satisfaction. They felt that they had not only 
 repelled the miners again, but virtually put down 
 the President for interfering in a matter in which he 
 had no legal jurisdiction. 
 
 And, in truth, the laws gave the President of the 
 United States no authority to play the role of arbiter 
 in a strike. His plain duty was to keep the peace. If 
 a strike resulted in violent disorders he could send 
 United States troops to quell them, but only in case 
 the Governor of the State in which the riots occurred 
 declared himself unable, by the State force at his 
 command, to keep the peace, and requested assist- 
 ance from the President. In the coal strike the Gov- 
 ernor of Pennsylvania, for reasons which I need not 
 discuss here, refused to call for United States troops, 
 and so did the Pennsylvania Legislature. Roosevelt 
 acted as a patriotic citizen might act, but being the 
 President, his interference had immensely greater 
 weight than that of any private citizen could have. 
 He knew the law in the matter, but he believed that 
 
THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 245 
 
 the popular opinion of the American people would 
 back him up. 
 
 In spite of the first rebuff, therefore, he persuaded 
 the miners and the operators to agree to the appoint- 
 ment of an arbitration commission, and this sug- 
 gested a settlement which both contestants accepted. 
 It ended the great coal strike of 1902, but it left be- 
 hind it much indignation among the American peo- 
 ple, who realized for the first time that one of the 
 three or four great industries essential to the welfare 
 and even to the life itself of the Nation, was in the 
 hands of men who preferred their selfish interests to 
 those of the Nation. It taught several other lessons 
 also; it taught, for instance, that great combinations 
 of Labor may be as dangerous as those of Capital, 
 and as heedless of everything except their own selfish 
 control. It taught that the people of the States and 
 of the Nation could not go on forever without taking 
 steps to put an end to the already dangerous hos- 
 tility between Capital and Labor, and that that end 
 must be the establishment of justice for all. An apolo- 
 gist of the "coal barons" might have pleaded that 
 they held out not merely for their private gain on 
 that occasion, but in order to defeat the growing 
 menace of Labor. Their stubbornness might turn 
 back the rising flood of socialism. 
 
 Respecters of legal precedent, on the other hand. 
 
246 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 criticised the President. They acknowledged his good 
 intentions, but they pointed out that his extra-legal 
 interference set an ominously bad example. And 
 some of them would have preferred to go cold all 
 winter, and even to have had the quarrel sink into 
 civil war, rather than to have had the constitutional 
 ideals of the Nation distorted or obscured by the 
 President's good-natured endeavor. Roosevelt him- 
 self, however, never held this opinion. In 191 5, he 
 wrote to Mr. Washburn: " I think the settlement of 
 the coal strike was much the most important thing 
 I did about Labor, from every standpoint." 
 
 I find an intimate letter of his which dates from 
 the time of the conflict itself and gives frankly his 
 motives and apology, if we should call it that. He 
 admits that his action was not strictly legal, but he 
 asks that, if the President of the United States may 
 not interv^ene to prevent a widespread calamity, 
 what is his authority worth? If it had been a national 
 strike of iron-workers or miners, he would have held 
 himself aloof, but the coal strike affected a product 
 necessary to the life and health of the people. It was 
 easy enough for well-to-do gentlemen to say that 
 they had rather go cold and see the fight carried 
 through until the strikers submitted, than to have 
 legal precedence ignored; for these gentlemen had 
 money enough to buy fuel at even an exorbitant 
 
THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 247 
 
 price, and they would be warm anyway, while the 
 great mass of the population froze. I may add that 
 it seems more legal than sensible that any official 
 chosen to preserve the public welfare and health 
 should not be allowed to interpose against persons 
 who would destroy both, and may stir only after 
 the destroyers have caused the catastrophe they 
 aimed at. 
 
 Roosevelt's action in the great coal strike not only 
 averted the danger, but it also gave Labor means of 
 judging him fairly. Every demagogue, from the days 
 of Cleon down, has talked glibly in behalf of the 
 downtrodden or unjustly treated working-men, and 
 we might suppose that the demagogue has acquired 
 enlargement of the heart, owing to his overpowering 
 sympathy with Labor. But the questions we have to 
 ask about demagogues are two: Is he sincere? Is he 
 wise? 
 
 Sincerity alone has been rather too much exalted 
 as an excuse for the follies and crimes of fanatics and 
 zealots, blatherskites and cranks. Some of our "lu- 
 natic fringe" of reformers have been heard to palli- 
 ate the Huns' atrocities in Belgium, by the plea: "Ah, 
 but they were so perfectly sincere!" Sincerity alone, 
 therefore, is not enough; it must be wise or it may 
 be diabolical. Now Roosevelt was both sincere and 
 wise. He left no doubt in the strikers' minds that he 
 
248 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 sympathized with their sufferings and grievances 
 and with their attempts to better their condition, 
 so far as this could be achieved without violence, 
 and without leaving a permanent state of war be- 
 tween Labor and Capital. In a word, he did not aim 
 at merely patching up a temporary peace, but at 
 finding, and when found, applying, a remedy to the 
 deep-rooted causes of the quarrel. 
 
 In his first message to Congress, the new President 
 said: "The most vital problem with which this coun- 
 try, and, for that matter, the whole civilized world, 
 has to deal, is the problem which has for one side 
 the betterment of social conditions, moral and 
 physical, in large cities, and for another side the 
 effort to deal with that tangle of far-reaching ques- 
 tions which we group together when we speak of 
 'labor.'" 
 
 By his settlement of the coal strike, Roosevelt 
 showed the workers that he would practice towards 
 them the justice which he preached, but this did not 
 mean that he would be unjust towards the capital- 
 ists. They, too, should have justice, and they had it. 
 He never intended to coddle laborers or to make 
 them feel that, having a grievance, as they alleged, 
 they must be specially favored. Since Labor is, or 
 should be, common to all men, Roosevelt believed 
 that every laborer, whether farmer or mechanic, 
 
THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 249 
 
 employer or employee, merchant or financier, should 
 stand erect and look every other man straight in the 
 eyes, and neither look up nor down, but with level 
 gaze, fearless, uncringing, uncondescending. The 
 laws he proposed, the adjustments he arranged, had 
 the self-respect, the dignity, of the individual, for 
 their aim. He knew that nothing could be more dan- 
 gerous to the public, or more harmful to the laboring 
 class itself, than to make of it a privileged class, 
 absolved from the obligations, and even from the 
 laws, which bound the rest of the community. By 
 this ideal he set a great gulf between himself and the 
 demagogues who fawned upon Labor and corrupted 
 it by granting its unjust demands. 
 
 He had always present before him a vision of the 
 sacred Oneness of the body politic. This made him 
 the greatest of modern Democrats, and the chief 
 interpreter, as it seems to me, of the highest ideal of 
 American Democracy. The ideal of Oneness can 
 never be realized in a State which permits a single 
 class to enjoy privileges of its own at the expense of 
 all other classes; and it makes no difference whether 
 this class belongs to the Proletariat or to the Plutoc- 
 racy. "Equality before the law, and justice, are the 
 two eternal instruments for establishing the true 
 Democracy. And I do not recall that in any of the 
 measures which Roosevelt supported these two vital 
 
250 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 principles were violated. The following brief quota- 
 tions from later messages summarize his creed : 
 
 In the vast and complicated mechanism of our modern 
 civiHzed life, the dominant note is the note of industrialism, 
 and the relations of capital and labor, and especially of 
 organized capital and organized labor, to each other, and to 
 the public at large, come second in importance only to the 
 intimate questions of family life. 
 
 The corporation has come to stay, just as the trade union 
 has come to stay. Each can do and has done great good. Each 
 should be favored as long as it does good, but each should be 
 sharply checked where it acts against law and justice. 
 
 Any one can profess a creed; Theodore Roosevelt 
 lived his. 
 
 Nothing better tested his impartiality than the 
 strike of the Federation of Western Miners in 1907. 
 Many murders and much violence w^ere attributed 
 to this organization and they were charged with 
 assassinating Governor Steunenberg of Idaho. Their 
 leaders, Moyer and Haywood, were anarchists like 
 themselves, and although they professed contempt 
 for law, as soon as they were arrested and brought 
 up for trial, they clutched at ever>^ quibble of the 
 law, as drowning men clutch at straws to save them; 
 and, be it said to the glory or shame of the law, it 
 furnished enough quibbles, not only to save them 
 from the gallows, but to let them loose again on soci- 
 ety with the legal whitewash "not guilty" stamped 
 upon them. 
 
THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 251 
 
 Roosevelt understood the great importance of 
 punishing these men, and he committed the indiscre- 
 tion of classing them with certain big capitalists as 
 ** undesirable citizens." Members of the Federation 
 then wrote him denouncing his attempt to prejudice 
 the courts against Moyer and Haywood, and they 
 resented that their leaders should be coupled with 
 Harriman and other big capitalists as "undesirable 
 citizens." This gave the President the opportunity 
 to reply that such criticism did not come appropri- 
 ately from the Federation; for they and their sup- 
 porters had got up parades, mass-meetings, and peti- 
 tions in favor of Moyer and Haywood and for the 
 direct purpose of intimidating the court and jury. 
 "You want," he said in substance, "the square deal 
 for the defendants only. I want the square deal for 
 every one" ; and he added, " It is equally a violation 
 of the policy of the square deal for a capitalist to 
 protest against denunciation of a capitalist who is 
 guilty of wrongdoing and for a labor leader to pro- 
 test against the denunciation of a labor leader who 
 has been guilty of wrongdoing." ^ 
 
 But Moyer and Haywood, as I have said, escaped 
 punishment, and before long Haywood reappeared 
 as leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, an 
 anarchistic body with a comically inappropriate 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 531. 
 
252 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 name for its members objected to nothing so much 
 as to industry and work. The I.W.W., as they have 
 been known for short, have consistently preached 
 violence and "action," by which they might take 
 for themselves the savings and wealth of others as a 
 means to enable them to do no work. And some of 
 the recent strikes which have brought the greatest 
 misery upon the laborers whom they misled, have 
 been directed by I.W.W. leaders. 
 
 "I treated anarchists and bomb-throwing and 
 dynamiting gentry precisely as I treated other crim- 
 inals," Roosevelt writes: "Murder is murder. It is 
 not rendered one whit better by the allegation that 
 it is committed on behalf of a cause." ^ I need hardly 
 state that the President was as consistently vigilant 
 to prevent labor unions from persecuting non-union 
 men as he was in upholding the just rights of the 
 union. 
 
 Consider what this record of his with Capital and 
 Labor really means. The social conditions in the 
 United States, owing to the immense expansion in 
 the production of wealth — an expansion which in- 
 cluded the invention of innumerable machines and 
 the application, largely made possible by immigra- 
 tion, of millions of laborers — had changed rapidly, 
 ind had brought pressingly to the front novel and 
 
 ^ Autobiography, 532. 
 
THE SQUARE DEAL IN ACTION 253 
 
 gigantic industrial and financial problems. In the 
 solution of these problems Justice and Equality must 
 not only be regarded, but must play the determining 
 part. Now, Justice and Equality were beautiful ab- 
 stractions which could be praised by every dema- 
 gogue without laying upon him any obligation except 
 that of dulcet lip service. Every American, young or 
 old, had heard them lauded so unlimitedly that he 
 did not trouble himself to inquire whether they were 
 facts or not; they were words, sonorous and pleasing 
 words, which made his heart throb, and himself feel 
 a worthier creature. And then came along a young 
 zealot, mighty in physical vigor and moral energy, 
 who believed that Justice and Equality were not 
 mere abstractions, were not mere words for politi- 
 cians and parsons to thrill their audiences by, but 
 were realities, duties, which every man in a Democ- 
 racy was bound to revere and to make prevail. And 
 he urged them with such power of persuasion, such 
 tirelessness, such titanic zeal, that he not only con- 
 verted the masses of the people to believe in them, 
 too, but he also made the legislators of the country 
 understand that they must embody these principles 
 in the national statute book. He did not originate, 
 as I have said, all or most of the reforms, but he gave 
 ear to those who first suggested them, and his enthu- 
 siasm and support were essential to their adoption. 
 
254 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 In order to measure the magnitude of Roosevelt's 
 contribution in marking deeply the main principles 
 which should govern the New Age, we need only 
 remember how little his predecessor, President 
 McKinley, a good man with the best intentions, 
 either realized that the New Age w^as at hand, or 
 thought it necessary even to outline the principles 
 which should guide it; and how little his successor. 
 President Taft, a most amiable man, understood 
 that the New Age, with the Rooseveltian reforms, 
 had come to stay, and could not be swept back by 
 actively opposing it or by allowing the Rooseveltian 
 ideals to lapse. 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ROOSEVELT AT HOME 
 
 LTHOUGH Theodore Roosevelt was person- 
 ally known to more people of the United 
 States than any other President has been, and his 
 manners and quick responsive cordiality made mul- 
 titudes feel, after a brief sight of him, or after shak- 
 ing his hand, that they were old acquaintances, he 
 maintained during his life a dignified reticence re- 
 garding his home and family. But now that he is 
 dead and the world craves eagerly, but not irrever- 
 ently, to know as much as it can about his many 
 sides, I feel that it is not improper to say something 
 about that intimate side which was in some respects 
 the most characteristic of all. 
 
 Early in the eighties he bought a country place at 
 Oyster Bay, Long Island, and on the top of a hill he 
 built a spacious house. There was a legend that in 
 old times Indian Chiefs used to gather there to hold 
 their powwows; at any rate, the name, the Saga- 
 mores' Hill, survived them, and this shortened to 
 Sagamore Hill he gave to his home. That part of 
 Long Island on the north coast overlooking the 
 Sound is very attractive; it is a country of hills and 
 
256 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 hollows, with groves of tall trees, and open fields for 
 farming, and lawns near the house. You look down 
 on Oyster Bay which seems to be a small lake shut 
 in by the curving shore at the farther end. From the 
 house you see the Sound and the hills of Connecticut 
 along the horizon. 
 
 After the death of his first wife in January, 1884, 
 Roosevelt went West to the Bad Lands of North 
 Dakota where he lived two years at Medora, on a 
 ranch which he owned, and there he endured the 
 hardships and excitements of ranch life at that time; 
 acting as cow-puncher, ranchman, deputy sheriff, or 
 hunting big and little game, or writing books and 
 articles. In the autumn of 1886, however, having 
 been urged to run as candidate for Mayor of New 
 York City, he came East again. He made a vigorous 
 campaign, but having two opponents against him he 
 was beaten. Then he took a trip to Europe where he 
 married Miss Edith Kermit Carow, whom he had 
 known in New York since childhood, and on their 
 return to this country, they settled at Sagamore Hill. 
 Two years later, when President Harrison appointed 
 Roosevelt a Civil Service Commissioner, they moved 
 to Washington. There they lived in a rather small 
 house at 1720 Jefferson Place — "modest," one 
 might call it, in comparison with the modern palaces 
 which had begun to spring up in the National Cap- 
 
Copyrii-'ht liv In 
 
 SAGAMORE HILL 
 
 I . .>TW .1, X.V. 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 257 
 
 ital ; but people go to a house for the sake of its occu- 
 pants and not for its size and upholstery. 
 
 So for almost six years pretty nearly everybody 
 worth knowing crossed the Roosevelts' threshold, 
 and they themselves quickly took their place in 
 Washington society. Roosevelt's humor, his charm, 
 his intensity, his approachableness, attracted even 
 those who rejected his politics and his party. Bright 
 sayings cannot be stifled, and his added to the ga^'ety 
 of more than one group. He was too discreet to give 
 utterance to them all, but his private letters at that 
 time, and always, glistened with his remarks on pub- 
 lic characters. He said, for instance, of Senator X, 
 whom he knew in Washington : He " looks like Judas, 
 but unlike that gentleman, he has no capacity for 
 
 remorse." 
 
 When the Roosevelts returned to New York, where 
 he became Police Commissioner in 1895, they made 
 their home again at Oyster Bay. This was thirty 
 miles by rail from the city, near enough to be easily 
 accessible, but far enough away to deter the visits of 
 random, curious, undesired callers. Later, when auto- 
 mobiles came in, Roosevelt motored to and from 
 town. Mrs. Roosevelt looked after the place itself; 
 she supervised the farming, and the flower gardens 
 were her especial care. The children were now grow- 
 ing up, and from the time when they could toddle 
 
258 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 they took their place — a very large place — in the 
 life of the home. Roosevelt described the intense sat- 
 isfaction he had in teaching the boys what his father 
 had taught him. As soon as they were large enough, 
 they rode their horses, they sailed on the Cove and 
 out into the Sound. They played boys' games, and 
 through him they learned very young to observe 
 nature. In his college days he had intended to be a 
 naturalist, and natural history remained his strong- 
 est avocation. And so he taught his children to know 
 the birds and animals, the trees, plants, and flowers 
 of Oyster Bay and its neighborhood. They had their 
 pets — Kermit, one of the boys, carried a pet rat in 
 his pocket. 
 
 Three things Roosevelt required of them all; 
 obedience, manliness, and truthfulness. And I imag- 
 ine that all these virtues were taught by aff'ection 
 and example, rather than by constant correction. 
 For the family was wholly united, they did every- 
 thing together; the children had no better fun than 
 to accompany their father and mother, and there 
 were a dozen or more young cousins and neighbors 
 who went out with them too, forming a large, de- 
 lighted family for whom "Uncle" or "Cousin Theo- 
 dore" was leader and idol. And just as formerly, in 
 the long winter nights on his ranch at Medora, he 
 used to read aloud to the cowboys and hunters of 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 259 
 
 what was then the Western Wilderness, so at Saga- 
 more Hill, in the days of their childhood, he read or 
 told stories to the circle of boys and girls. 
 
 In 1 901, Mr. Roosevelt became President, and for 
 seven years and a half his official residence was the 
 White House, where he was obliged to spend most 
 of the year. But whenever he could steal away for a 
 few days he sought rest and recreation at Oyster 
 Bay, and there, during the summers, his family 
 lived. So far as the changed conditions permitted, 
 he did not allow his official duties to interfere with 
 his family life. "One of the most wearing things 
 about being President," a President once said to me, 
 "is the incessant publicity of it. For four years you 
 have not a moment to yourself, not a moment of 
 privacy." And yet Roosevelt, masterful in so many 
 other things, was masterful in this also. Nothing 
 interfered with the seclusion of the family breakfast. 
 There were no guests, only Mrs. Roosevelt and the 
 children, and the simplest of food. At Oyster Bay he 
 would often chop trees in the early morning, and 
 sometimes, while he was President, he would ride 
 before breakfast, but the meal itself was quiet, pri- 
 vate, uninterrupted. Then each member of the fam- 
 ily would go about his or her work, for idleness had 
 no place with them. The President spent his morn- 
 ing in attending to his correspondence and dictating 
 
26o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 letters, then in receiving persons by appointment, 
 and he always reserved time when any American, rich 
 or poor, young or old, could speak to him freely. He 
 liked to see them all and many were the odd experi- 
 ences which he had. He asked one old lady what he 
 could do for her. She replied: "Nothing; I came all 
 the way from Jacksonville, Florida, just to see what 
 a live President looked like. I never saw one before." 
 "That's very kind of you," the President replied; 
 "persons from up here go all the way to Florida just 
 to see a live alligator" — and so he put the visitor 
 at her ease. 
 
 Luncheon was a varied meal; sometimes there 
 were only two or three guests at it; at other times 
 there might be a dozen. It afforded the President an 
 opportunity for talking informally with visitors 
 whom he wished to see, and not infrequently it 
 brought together round the table a strange, not to 
 say a motley, company. 
 
 After luncheon followed more work in his office 
 for the President, looking over the letters he had dic- 
 tated and signing them, signing documents and hold- 
 ing interviews. Later in the afternoon he always 
 reser\^ed two hours for a walk or drive with Mrs. 
 Roosevelt. Nothing interfered with that. In the sea- 
 son he played tennis with some of the large group of 
 companions whom he gathered round him, officials 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 261 
 
 high and low, foreign Ambassadors and Cabinet 
 Ministers and younger under- secretaries who were 
 popularly known as the ''Tennis Cabinet." There 
 were fifty or more of them, and that so many should 
 have kept their athletic vigor into middle age, and 
 even beyond it, spoke well for the physique of the 
 men of official Washington at that time. 
 
 At Oyster Bay Roosevelt had instituted "hiking." 
 He and the young people and such of the neighbors 
 as chose would start from Sagamore Hill and walk 
 in a bee-line to a point four or five miles off. The rule 
 was that no natural impediment should cause them 
 to digress or to stop. So they went through the fields 
 and over the fences, across ditches and pools, and 
 even clambered up and down a haystack, if one hap- 
 pened to be in the way, or through a barnyard. Of 
 course they often reached home spattered with mud 
 or even drenched to the skin from a plunge into the 
 water, but with much fun, a livelier circulation, and 
 a hearty appetite to their credit. 
 
 In Washington the President continued this prac- 
 tice of hiking, but in a somewhat modified form. His 
 favorite resort was Rock Creek, then a wild stream, 
 with a good deal of water in it, and here and there 
 steep, rocky banks. To be invited by the President 
 to go on one of those hikes was regarded as a mark 
 of special favor. He indulged in them to test a man's 
 
262 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 bodily vigor and endurance, and there were many 
 amusing incidents and perhaps more amusing stories 
 about them. M. Tardieu, who at that time was pay- 
 ing a short visit to this country and was connected 
 with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told 
 me that the dispatches which the new French Am- 
 bassador, M. Jusserand, sent to Paris were full of 
 reports on President Roosevelt's personality. The 
 Europeans had no definite conception of him at that 
 time, and so the sympathetic and much-esteemed 
 Ambassador, who still represents France at Wash- 
 ington, tried to give his Government information by 
 which it could judge for itself what sort of a person 
 the President was. What must have been the sur- 
 prise in the French Foreign Office when it received 
 the following dispatch: (I give the substance, of 
 course, because I have not seen the original.) 
 
 'Yesterday,' wrote Ambassador Jusserand, 'President 
 Roosevelt invited me to take a promenade with him this 
 afternoon at three. I arrived at the White House punctually, 
 in afternoon dress and silk hat, as if we were to stroll in the 
 Tuileries Garden or in the Champs Elysees. To my surprise, 
 the President soon joined me in a tramping suit, with knicker- 
 bockers and thick boots, and soft felt hat, much worn. Two 
 or three other gentlemen came, and we started off at what 
 seemed to me a breakneck pace, which soon brought us out 
 of the city. On reaching the country, the President went pell- 
 mell over the fields, following neither road nor path, always 
 on, on, straight ahead! I was much winded, but I would not 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 263 
 
 give in, nor ask him to slow up, because I had the honor of 
 La belle France in my heart. At last we came to the bank of a 
 stream, rather wide and too deep to be forded. I sighed relief, 
 because I thought that now we had reached our goal and 
 would rest a moment and catch our breath, before turning 
 homeward. But judge of my horror when I saw the President 
 unbutton his clothes and heard him say, "We had better 
 strip, so as not to wet our things in the Creek." Then I, too, 
 for the honor of France, removed my apparel, everything 
 except my lavender kid gloves. The President cast an inquir- 
 ing look at these as if they, too, must come off, but I quickly 
 forestalled any remark by saying, "With your permission, 
 Mr. President, I will keep these on, otherwise it would be em- 
 barrassing if we should meet ladies." And so we jumped into 
 the water and swam across.' 
 
 M. Jusserand has a line sense of humor and doubt- 
 less he has laughed often over this episode, although 
 he must have been astonished and irritated when it 
 occurred. But it gave Roosevelt exactly what he 
 wanted by showing him that the plucky little French- 
 man was "game" for anything, and they remained 
 firm friends for life. 
 
 Occasionally, one of the guests invited on a hike 
 relucted from taking the plunge, and then he was al- 
 lowed to go up stream or down and find a crossing 
 at a bridge; but I suspect that his host and the ha- 
 bitual hikers instinctively felt a little less regard for 
 him after that. General Leonard Wood was one of 
 Roosevelt's boon companions on these excursions, 
 and, speaking of him, I am reminded of one of the 
 
264 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 President's orders which caused a great flurry among 
 Army ofiicers in Washington. 
 
 The President learned that many of these officers 
 had become soft, physically, through their long resi- 
 dence in the city, where an unmilitary life did not 
 tend to keep their muscles hard. As a consequence 
 these great men of war became easy-going, indolent 
 even, better suited to loaf in the armchairs of the 
 Metropolitan Club and discuss campaigns and bat- 
 tles long ago than to lead troops in the field. "Their 
 condition," said Roosevelt, "would have excited 
 laughter, had it not been so serious, to think that 
 they belonged to the military arm of the Govern- 
 ment. A cavalry colonel proved unable to keep his 
 horse at a sharp trot for even half a mile when I vis- 
 ited his post; a major-general proved afraid even to 
 let his horse canter when he went on a ride with us ; 
 and certain otherwise good men proved as unable to 
 walk as if they had been sedentary brokers." After 
 consulting Generals Wood and Bell, who were them- 
 selves real soldiers at the top of condition, the Presi- 
 dent issued orders that the infantry should march 
 fifty miles, and the cavalry one hundred, in three 
 days. There was an outcry. The newspapers de- 
 nounced Roosevelt as a tyrant who followed his 
 mere caprices. Some of the officers intrigued with 
 Congressmen to nullify the order. But when the 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 265 
 
 President himself, accompanied by Surgeon-General 
 Rixey and two officers, rode more than one hundred 
 miles in a single day over the frozen and rutty Vir- 
 ginia roads, the objectors could not keep up open 
 opposition. Roosevelt adds, ironically, that three 
 naval officers who walked the fifty miles in a day, 
 were censured for not obeying instructions, and were 
 compelled to do the test over again in three days. 
 
 Dinner in the White House was usually a formal 
 affair, to which most, if not all the guests, at least, 
 were invited some time in advance. There were, of 
 course, the official dinners to the foreign diplomats, 
 to the justices of the Supreme Court, to the members 
 of the Cabinet; ordinarily, they might be described 
 as general. The President never forgot those who had 
 been his friends at any period of his life. It might 
 happen that Bill Sewall, his earliest guide from 
 Maine, or a Dakota ranchman, or a New York po- 
 liceman, or one of his trusted enthusiasts in a hard- 
 fought political campaign, turned up at the White 
 House. He was sure to be asked to luncheon or to 
 dinner, by the President. And these former chums 
 must have felt somewhat embarrassed, if they were 
 capable of feeling embarrassment, when they found 
 themselves seated beside some of the great ladies of 
 Washington. Perhaps Roosevelt himself felt a little 
 trepidation as to how the unmixables would mix. He 
 
266 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 is reported to have said to one Western cowboy of 
 whom he was fond: "Now, Jimmy, don't bring your 
 gun along to-night. The British Ambassador is going 
 to dine too, and it would n't do for you to pepper the 
 floor round his feet with bullets, in order to see a 
 tenderfoot dance." 
 
 But those dinners were mainly memorable occa- 
 sions, and the guests who attended them heard some 
 of the best talk in America at that time, and came 
 away with increased wonder for the variety of knowl- 
 edge and interest, and for the unceasing charm and 
 courtesy of their host, the President. Contrary to the 
 opinion of persons who heard him only as a political 
 speaker shouting in the open air from the back plat- 
 form of his train or in a public square, Roosevelt was 
 not only a speaker, he was also a most courteous lis- 
 tener. I watched him at little dinners listen not only 
 patiently, but with an astonishing simulation of in- 
 terest, to very dull persons who usurped the con- 
 versation and imagined that they were winning his 
 admiration. Mr. John Morley, who was a guest at 
 the White House at election time in 1904, said: 
 "The two things in America which seem to me 
 .^ most extraordinary are Niagara Falls and President 
 1 Roosevelt." 
 
 Jacob Riis, the most devoted personal follower of 
 Roosevelt, gives this as the finest compliment he ever 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 267 
 
 heard of him. A lady said that she had always been 
 looking for some living embodiment of the high 
 ideals she had as to what a hero ought to be. "I al- 
 ways wanted to make Roosevelt out that," she de- 
 clared, "but somehow every time he did something 
 that seemed really great it turned out, upon looking 
 at it closely, that it was o?ilyjust the right thing to do.''^ 
 But at home Roosevelt had affection, not com- 
 pliments, whether these were unintentional and sin- 
 cere, Hke that of the lady just quoted, or were thinly 
 disguised flattery. And affection was what he most 
 craved from his family and nearest friends, and what 
 he gave to them without stint. As I have said, he al- 
 lowed nothing to interrupt the hours set apart for his 
 wife and children while he was at the White House; 
 and at Oyster Bay there was always time for them. 
 A typical story is told of the boys coming in upon him 
 during a conference with some important visitor, and 
 saying reproachfully, "It's long after four o'clock, 
 and you promised to go with us at four." "So I did," 
 said Roosevelt. And he quickly finished his business 
 with the visitor and went. When the children were 
 young, he usually saw them at supper and into bed, 
 and he talked of the famous pillow fights they had 
 with him. House guests at the White House some- 
 Vimes unexpectedly caught sight of him crawling in 
 
 1 Riis, 268-69. 
 
268 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the entry near the children's rooms, with two or 
 three children riding on his back. Roosevelt's days 
 were seldom less than fifteen hours long, and we can 
 guess how he regarded the laboring men of today who 
 clamor for eight and six, and even fewer hours, as the 
 normal period for a day's work. He got up at half- 
 past seven and always finished breakfast by nine, 
 when what many might call the real work of his day 
 began. 
 
 The unimaginative laborer probably supposes that 
 most of the duties which fall to an industrious Presi- 
 dent are not strictly work at all ; but if any one had 
 to meet for an hour and a half every forenoon such 
 Congressmen and Senators as chose to call on him, he 
 would understand that that was a job involving real 
 work, hard work. They came every day with a griev- 
 ance, or an appeal, or a suggestion, or a favor to ask, 
 and he had to treat each one, not only politely, but 
 more or less deferently. Early in his Administration 
 I heard it said that he offended some Congressmen by 
 denying their requests in so loud a voice that others 
 in the room could hear him, and this seemed to some 
 a humiliation. President McKinley, on the other 
 hand, they said, lowered his voice, and spoke so 
 softly and sweetly that even his refusal did not jar 
 on his visitor, and was not heard at all by the by- 
 standers. If this happened, I suspect it was because 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 269 
 
 Roosevelt spoke rather explosively and had a habit 
 of emphasis, and not because he wished in any 
 way to send his petitioner's rebuff through the 
 room. 
 
 Nor was the hour which followed this, when he re- 
 ceived general callers, less wearing. As these persons 
 came from all parts of the Union, so they were of all 
 sorts and temperaments. Here was a worthy citizen 
 from Colorado who, on the strength of having once 
 heard the President make a public speech in Denver, 
 claimed immediate friendship with him. Then might 
 come an old lady from Georgia, who remembered his 
 mother's people there, or the lady from Jacksonville, 
 Florida, of whom I have already spoken. Once a lit- 
 tle boy, who was almost lost in the crush of grown-up 
 visitors, managed to reach the President. "What can 
 I do for you?" the President asked; and the boy told 
 how his father had died leaving his mother with a 
 large family and no money, and how he was selling 
 typewriters to help support her. His mother, he said, 
 w^ould be most grateful if the President would accept 
 a typewriter from her as a gift. So the President 
 told the little fellow to go and sit down until the 
 other visitors had passed, and then he would attend 
 to him. No doubt, the boy left the White House 
 well contented — and richer. 
 
 Roosevelt's official day ended at half-past nine or 
 
270 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ten in the evening, and then, after the family had 
 gone to bed, he sat down to read or write, and it was 
 long after midnight, sometimes one o'clock, some- 
 times much later, before he turned in himself. 
 
 He regarded the preservation of health as a duty ; 
 and well he might so regard it, because in childhood 
 he had been a sickly boy, with apparently only a life 
 of invalidism to look forward to. But by sheer will, 
 and by going through physical exercises with indom- 
 itable perseverance, he had built up his body until he 
 was strong enough to engage in all sports and in the 
 hardships of Western life and hunting. After he be- 
 came President, he allowed nothing to interfere with 
 his physical exercise. I have spoken of his long hikes 
 and of his vigorous games with members of the Ten- 
 nis Cabinet. On many afternoons he would ride for 
 two hours or more with Mrs. Roosevelt or some 
 friend, and it is a sad commentary on the perpetual 
 publicity to which the American people condemn 
 their Presidents, that he sometimes was obliged to 
 ride off into the country with one of his Cabinet Min- 
 isters in order to be able to discuss public matters in 
 private with him. Roosevelt took care to provide 
 means for exercise indoors in very stormy weather. 
 He had a professional boxer and wrestler come to 
 him, and when jiu-jitsu, the Japanese system of 
 physical training, was in vogue, he learned some of 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 271 
 
 its introductory mysteries from one of its foremost 
 professors. 
 
 It was in a boxing bout at the White House with 
 his teacher that he lost the sight of an eye from a 
 blow which injured his eyeball. But he kept this loss 
 secret for many years. He had a wide acquaintance 
 among professional boxers and even prize-fighters. 
 Jeffries, who had been a blacksmith before he en- 
 tered the ring, hammered a penholder out of a horse- 
 shoe and gave it to the President, a gift which Roose- 
 velt greatly prized and showed among his trophies 
 at Oyster Bay. John L. Sullivan, perhaps the most 
 notorious of the champion prize-fighters of America, 
 held Roosevelt in such great esteem that when he 
 died his family invited the ex-President to be one of 
 the pall-bearers. But Mr. Roosevelt was then too 
 sick himself to be able to travel to Boston and serve. 
 
 At Oyster Bay in summer, the President found 
 plenty of exercise on the place. It contained some 
 eighty acres, part of which was woodland, and there 
 were always trees to be chopped. Hay-making, also, 
 was an equally severe test of bodily strength, and to 
 pitch hay brought every muscle into use. There, too, 
 he had water sports, but he always preferred rowing 
 to sailing, which was too slow and inactive an exercise 
 for him. In old times, rowing used to be the penalty 
 to which galley-slaves were condemned, but now it is 
 
272 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 commended by athletes as the best of all forms of ex- 
 ercise for developing the body and for furnishing 
 stimulating competition. 
 
 No President ever lived on better terms with the 
 newspaper men than Roosevelt did. He treated them 
 all with perfect fairness, according no special favors, 
 no "beats," or "scoops" to any one. So they re- 
 garded him as "square"; and further they knew that 
 
 he was a man of his word, not to be trifled with. " It 
 
 is generally supposed," Roosevelt remarked, "that 
 newspaper men have no sense of honor, but that is 
 not true. If you treat them fairly, they will treat 
 you fairly ; and they will keep a secret if you impress 
 upon them that it must be kept." 
 
 The great paradox of Roosevelt's character was 
 the contrast between its fundamental simplicity and 
 its apparent spectacular quality. His acts seemed 
 to be unusual, striking, and some uncharitable critics 
 thought that he aimed at effect; in truth, however, 
 he acted at the moment as the impulse or propriety 
 of the moment suggested. There was no premedita- 
 tion, no swagger. Dwellers in Berlin noticed that 
 after William the Crown Prince became the Kaiser 
 William II, he thrust out his chest and adopted a 
 rather pompous walk, but there was nothing like 
 this in Roosevelt's manner or carriage. In his public 
 speaking, he gesticulated incessantly, and in the 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 273 
 
 difficulty he had in pouring out his words as rapidly 
 as the thoughts came to him, he seemed sometimes 
 almost to grimace; but this was natural, not studied. 
 And so I can easily understand what some one tells 
 me who saw him almost daily as President in the 
 White House. "Roosevelt," he said, "had an im- 
 mense reverence for the Presidential office. He did 
 not feel cocky or conceited at being himself President ; 
 he felt rather the responsibility for dignity which 
 the office carried with it, and he was humble. You 
 might be as intimate with him as possible, but there 
 was a certain line which no one ever crossed. That 
 was the line which the office itself drew." 
 
 Roosevelt had that reverence for the great men 
 of the past which should stir every heart with a ca- 
 pacity for noble things. In the White House he never 
 forgot the Presidents who had dwelt there before 
 him. "I like to see in my mind's eye," he said to 
 Mr. Rhodes, the American historian, "the gaunt 
 form of Lincoln stalking through these halls." Dur- 
 ing a visit at the White House, Mr. Rhodes watched 
 the President at work throughout an entire day and 
 set down the points which chiefly struck him. Fore- 
 most among these was the lack of leisure which we 
 allow our Presidents. They have work to do which is 
 more important than that of a railroad manager, or 
 the president of the largest business corporation, or 
 
274 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 of the leader of the American Bar. They are expected 
 to know the pros and cons of each bill brought before 
 them to sign so that they can sign it not only intelli- 
 gently but justly, and yet thanks to the constant 
 intrusion which Americans deem it their right to 
 force on the President, he has no time for delibera- 
 tion, and, as I have said, Mr. Roosevelt was often 
 obliged, w^hen he wished to have an undisturbed con- 
 sultation with one of his Cabinet Secretaries, to take 
 him off on a long ride. 
 
 "I chanced to be in the President's room," Mr. 
 Rhodes continues, "when he dictated the rough 
 draft of his famous dispatch to General Chaffee re- 
 specting torture in the Philippines. While he was 
 dictating, two or three cards were brought in, also 
 some books with a request for the President's auto- 
 graph, and there were some other interruptions. 
 While the dispatch as it w^ent out in its revised form 
 could not be improved, a President cannot expect 
 to be always so happy in dictating dispatches in the 
 midst of distractions. Office work of far-reaching 
 importance should be done in the closet. Certainly 
 no monarch or minister in Europe does administra- 
 tive work under such unfavorable conditions; in- 
 deed, this public which exacts so much of the Presi- 
 dent's time should in all fairness be considerate in 
 
 its criticism." ^ 
 
 Rhodes: Historical Essays, 238-39. 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 275 
 
 To cope in some measure with the vast amount of 
 business thrust upon him, Roosevelt had unique en- 
 dowments. Other Presidents had been indolent and 
 let affairs drift; he cleared his desk every day. Other 
 Presidents felt that they had done their duty if they 
 merely dispatched the important business which 
 came to them; Roosevelt was always initiating, 
 either new legislation or new methods in matters 
 which did not concern the Government. One autumn, 
 when there was unusual excitement, with recrimina- 
 tions in disputes in the college football world, I was 
 surprised to receive a large four-page typewritten 
 letter, giving his views as to what ought to be done. 
 He reorganized the service in the White House, and 
 not only that, he had the Executive Mansion itself 
 remodeled somewhat according to the original plans 
 so as to furnish adequate space for the crowds who 
 thronged the official receptions, and, at the other 
 end of the building, proper quarters for the stenog- 
 raphers, typewriters, and telegraphers required to 
 file and dispatch his correspondence. Promptness 
 was his watchword, and in cases where it was ex- 
 pected, I never knew twenty-four hours to elapse 
 before he dictated his reply to a letter. 
 
 The orderliness which he introduced into the 
 White House should also be recorded. When I first 
 went there In 1882 with a party of Philadelphia 
 
276 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 junketers who had an appointment to shake hands 
 with President Arthur, as a preHminary to securing 
 a fat appropriation to the River and Harbor Bill of 
 that year, the White House was treated by the pub- 
 lic very much as a common resort. The country 
 owned it: therefore, why shouldn't any American 
 make himself at home in it? I remember that on one 
 of the staircases. Dr. Mar>' Walker (recently dead), 
 dressed in what she was pleased to regard as a mascu- 
 line costume, was haranguing a group of five or six 
 strangers, and here and there in the corridors we 
 met other random visitors. Mr. Roosevelt established 
 a strict but simple regimen. No one got past the Civil 
 War veteran who acted as doorkeeper without 
 proper credentials; and it was impossible to reach 
 the President himself without first encountering his 
 Secretary, Mr. Loeb. 
 
 To the President some persons were, of course, 
 privileged. If an old pal from the West, or a Rough 
 Rider came, the President did not look at the clock, 
 or speed him away. The stor}' goes that one morning 
 Senator Cullom came on a matter of business and 
 indeed rather in a hurry. On asking who was "in 
 there," and being told that a Rough Rider had been 
 with the President for a half-hour, the Senator said, 
 "Then there's no hope for me," took his hat, and 
 departed. 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 2-]-] 
 
 Although, as I have said, Roosevelt might be as 
 intimate and cordial as possible with any visitor, he 
 never forgot the dignity which belonged to his office. 
 Nor did he forget that as President he was socially 
 as well as officially the first person in the Republic. 
 
 In speaking of these social affairs, I must not pass 
 over without mention the unfailing help which his 
 two sisters gave him at all times. The elder, the wife 
 of Admiral William S. Cowles, lived in Washington 
 when Roosevelt was Civil Service Commissioner, 
 and her house was always in readiness for his use. 
 His younger sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson, lived 
 in New York City, and first at No. 422 Madison 
 Avenue and later at No. 9 East Sixty-third Street, 
 she dispensed hospitality for him and his friends. 
 Nothing could have been more convenient. If he 
 were at Oyster Bay, it was often impossible to make 
 an appointment to meet there persons whom he 
 wished to see, but he had merely to telephone to 
 Mrs. Robinson, the appointment was made, and the 
 interview was held. It was at her house that many of 
 the breakfasts with Senator Piatt — those meetings 
 which caused so much alarm and suspicion among 
 over-righteous reformers — took place while Roose- 
 velt was Governor. Mr. Odell nearly always accom- 
 panied the Senator, as if he felt afraid to trust the 
 astute Boss with the very persuasive young Cover- 
 
278 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 nor. Having Mrs. Robinson's house as a shelter, 
 Theodore could screen himself from the newspaper 
 men. There he could hold private consultations 
 which, if they had been referred to in the papers, 
 would have caused wild guesses, surmises, and em- 
 barrassing remarks. His sisters always rejoiced that, 
 with his wonderful generosity of nature, he took 
 them often into his political confidence, and lis- 
 tened with unfeigned respect to their point of view 
 on subjects on which they might even have a slight 
 difference of opinion. 
 
 Mr. Charles G. Washburn tells the following story 
 to illustrate Roosevelt's faculty of getting to the 
 heart of every one whom he knew. When he was 
 hunting in Colorado, "he met a cowboy who had 
 been with him with the Rough Riders in Cuba. The 
 man came up to speak to Roosevelt, and said, *Mr. 
 President, I have been in jail a year for killing a 
 gentleman.' 'How did you do it?' asked the Presi- 
 dent, meaning to inquire as to the circumstances. 
 'Thirty-eight on a fort^^-five frame,' replied the man, 
 thinking that the only interest the President had 
 was that of a comrade who wanted to know with 
 what kind of a tool the trick was done. Now, I will 
 venture to say that to no other President, from 
 Washington down to and including Wilson, would 
 the man-killer have made that response." ^ 
 
 ' Washburn, 202-03. 
 
ROOSEVELT AT HOME 279 
 
 I think that all of us will agree with Mr. Wash- 
 burn, who adds another story of the same purport, 
 and told by Roosevelt himself. 
 
 Another old comrade wrote him from jail in Ari- 
 zona: "Dear Colonel: I am in trouble. I shot a lady 
 in the eye, but I did not intend to hit the lady ; I was 
 shooting at my wife." Roosevelt had large charity 
 for sinners of this type, but he would not tolerate 
 deceit or lying. Thus, when a Congressman made 
 charges to him against one of the Wild Western 
 appointees whom he accused of drinking and of 
 gambling, the President remarked that he had to 
 take into consideration the moral standards of the 
 section, where a man w4io gambled or who drank 
 was not necessarily an evil person. Then the Con- 
 gressman pressed his charges and said that the fellow 
 had been in prison for a crime a good many years 
 before. This roused Roosevelt, who said, "He never 
 told me about that," and he immediately telegraphed 
 the accused for an explanation. The man replied that 
 the charge w^as true, whereupon the President at 
 once dismissed him, not for gambling or for drinking, 
 but for trying to hide the fact that he had once been 
 in jail. 
 
 In these days of upheaval, when the most ancient 
 institutions and laws are put in question, and 
 anarchists and Bolshevists, blind like Samson, wish 
 
28o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 to throw down the very pillars on which Civilization 
 rests, the Family, the fundamental element of civil- 
 ized life, is also violently attacked. All the more 
 precious, therefore, will Theodore Roosevelt's exam- 
 ple be, as an upholder of the Family. He showed how 
 essential it is for the development of the individual 
 and as a pattern for Society. Only through the Fam- 
 ily can come the deepest joys of life and can the most 
 intimate duties be transmuted into joys. As son, as 
 husband, as father, as brother, he fulfilled the ideals 
 of each of those relations, and, so strong w^as his 
 family affection, that, while still a comparatively 
 young man, he drew to him as a patriarch might, not 
 only his own children, but his kindred in many de- 
 grees. With utter truth he wrote, "I have had the 
 happiest home life of any man I have ever known." 
 And that, as we who were his friends understood, 
 was to him the highest and dearest prize which life 
 could bestow. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 HITS AND MISSES 
 
 IN this sketch I do not attempt to follow chrono- 
 logical order, except in so far as this is necessary 
 to make clear the connection between lines of policy, 
 or to define the structural growth of character. But 
 in Roosevelt's life, as in the lives of all of us, many 
 events, sometimes important events, occurred and 
 had much notice at the moment and then faded away 
 and left no lasting mark. Let us take up a few of these 
 which reveal the President from different angles. 
 
 Since the close of the Civil War the Negro Ques- 
 tion had brooded over the South. The war emanci- 
 pated the Southern negroes and then politics came 
 to embitter the question. Partly to gain a political 
 advantage, partly as some visionaries believed, to do 
 justice, and partly to punish the Southerners, the 
 Northern Republicans gave the Southern negroes 
 equal political rights with the whites. They even 
 handed over the government of some of the States 
 to wholly incompetent blacks. In self-defense the 
 whites terrorized the blacks through such secret 
 organizations as the Ku-Klux Klan, and recovered 
 their ascendancy in governing. Later, by such spe- 
 
282 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 cious devices as the Grandfathers' Law, they pre- 
 vented most of the blacks from voting, and reHeved 
 themselves of the trouble of maintaining a system 
 of intimidation. The real difficulty being social and 
 racial, to mix politics with it was to envenom it. 
 
 Roosevelt took a man for what he was without 
 regard to race, creed, or color. He held that a negro 
 of good manners and education ought to be treated 
 as a white man would be treated. He felt keenly the 
 sting of ostracism and he believed that if the South- 
 ern whites would think as he did on this matter, 
 they might the quicker solve the Negro Question 
 and establish human if not friendly relations with 
 the blacks. 
 
 The negro race at that time had a fine spokesman 
 in Booker T. Washington, a man who had been born 
 a slave, was educated at the Hampton Institute, 
 served as teacher there, and then founded the 
 Tuskeegee Institute for teaching negroes. He wisely 
 saw that the first thing to be done was to teach them 
 trades and farming, by which they could earn a liv- 
 ing and make themselves useful if not indispensable 
 to the communities in which they settled. He did not 
 propose to start off to lift his race by letting them 
 imagine that they could blossom into black Shake- 
 speares and dusky Raphaels in a single generation. 
 He himself was a man of tact, prudence, and sagacity 
 
HITS AND MISSES 283 
 
 with trained intelligence and a natural gift of 
 speaking. 
 
 To him President Roosevelt turned for some sug- 
 gestions as to appointing colored persons to offices 
 in the South. It happened that on the day appointed 
 for a meeting Washington reached the White House 
 shortly before luncheon time, and that, as they had 
 not finished their conference, Roosevelt asked him 
 to stay to luncheon. Washington hesitated politely. 
 Roosevelt insisted. They lunched, finished their busi- 
 ness, and Washington went away. When this per- 
 fectly insignificant fact was published in the papers 
 the next morning, the South burst into a storm of 
 indignation and abuse. Some of the Southern jour- 
 nals saw, in what was a mere routine incident, a ter- 
 rible portent, foreboding that Roosevelt planned to 
 put the negroes back to control the Southern whites. 
 Others alleged the milder motive that he was fishing 
 for negro votes. The common type of fire-eaters saw 
 in it one of Roosevelt's unpleasant ways of having 
 fun by insulting the South. And Southern cartoon- 
 ists took an ignoble, feeble retaliation by caricatur- 
 ing even Mrs. Roosevelt. 
 
 The President did not reply publicly. As his invi- 
 tation to Booker Washington was wholly unpremedi- 
 tated, he was surprised by the rage which it caused 
 among Southerners. But he was clear-sighted enough 
 
284 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 to understand that, without intending it, he had 
 made a mistake, and this he never repeated. Nothing 
 is more elusive than racial antipathy, and we need 
 not wonder that a man like Roosevelt who, although 
 he was most solicitous not to hurt persons' feelings 
 and usually acted, unless he had proof to the con- 
 trary, on the assumption that everybody was blessed 
 with a modicum of good-will and common sense, 
 should not always be able to foresee the strange in- 
 consistencies into which the antipathy of the white 
 Southerners for the blacks might lead. A little while 
 later there was a religious gathering in Washington 
 of Protestant-Episcopal ministers. They had a recep- 
 tion at the White House. Their own managers made 
 out a list of ministers to be invited, and among the 
 guests were a negro archdeacon and his wife, and the 
 negro rector of a Mar>'land parish. Although these 
 persons attended the reception, the Southern whites 
 burst into no frenzy of indignation against the Presi- 
 dent. Who could steer safely amid such shoals? ^ The 
 truth is that no President since Lincoln had a kind- 
 lier feeling towards the South than Roosevelt had. 
 He often referred proudly to the fact that his mother 
 came from Georgia, and that his two Bulloch uncles 
 fought in the Confederate Nav}^ He wished to bring 
 back complete friendship between the sections. But 
 
 ^ Leupp, 231. 
 
HITS AND MISSES 285 
 
 he understood the difficulties, as his explanation to 
 Mr. James Ford Rhodes, the historian, in 1905, 
 amply proved. He agreed fully as to the folly of the 
 Congressional scheme of reconstruction based on 
 universal negro suffrage, but he begged Mr. Rhodes 
 not to forget that the initial folly lay with the South- 
 erners themselves. The latter said, quite properly, 
 that he did not wonder that much bitterness still re- 
 mained in the breasts of the Southern people about 
 the carpet-bag negro regime. So it was not to be 
 wondered at that in the late sixties much bitterness 
 should have remained in the hearts of the Northern- 
 ers over the remembrance of the senseless folly and 
 wickedness of the Southerners in the early sixties. 
 Roosevelt felt that those persons who most heartily 
 agreed that as it was the presence of the negro which 
 made the problem, and that slavery was merely the 
 worst possible method of solving it, we must therefore 
 hold up to reprobation, as guilty of doing one of the 
 worst deeds which history records, those men who 
 tried to break up this Union because they were not 
 allowed to bring slavery and the negro into our new 
 territory. Every step which followed, from freeing 
 the slave to enfranchising him, was due only to the 
 North being slowly and reluctantly forced to act by 
 the South's persistence in its folly and wickedness. 
 The President could not say these things in pub- 
 
286 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 lie because they tended, when coming from a man in 
 public place, to embitter people. But Rhodes was 
 writing what Roosevelt hoped would prove the great 
 permanent history of the period, and he said that it 
 would be a misfortune for the country, and especially 
 a misfortune for the South, if they were allowed to 
 confuse right and wrong in perspective. 
 
 He added that his difficulties with the Southern 
 people had come not from the North, but from the 
 South. He had never done anything that was not for 
 their interest. At present, he added, they were, as a 
 whole, speaking well of him. When they would begin 
 again to speak ill, he did not know, but in either case 
 his duty was equally clear. ^ 
 
 Inviting Booker Washington to the White House 
 was a counsel of perfection which we must consider 
 one of Roosevelt's misses. Quite different was the 
 voyage of the Great Fleet, planned by him and car- 
 ried out without hitch or delay. 
 
 We have seen that from his interest in American 
 naval history, which began before he left Harvard, 
 he came to take a very deep interest in the Navy it- 
 self, and when he was Assistant Secretary, he worked 
 night and day to complete its preparation for enter- 
 ing the Spanish War. From the time he became Presi- 
 dent, he urged upon Congress and the country the 
 
 ^ February 20, 1905. 
 
HITS AND MISSES 287 
 
 need of maintaining a fleet adequate to ward off any 
 dangers to which we might be exposed. In season 
 and out of season he preached, with the ardor of a 
 propagandist, his gospel that the Navy is the surest 
 guarantor of peace which this country possesses. 
 By dint of urging he persuaded Congress to consent 
 to lay down one battleship of the newest type a year. 
 Congress was not so much reluctant as indifferent. 
 Even the lesson of the Spanish War failed to teach 
 the Nation's law-makers, or the Nation itself, that 
 we must have a Navy to protect us if we intended to 
 play the role of a World Power. The American people 
 instinctively dreaded militarism, and so they resisted 
 consenting to naval or military preparations which 
 might expand into a great evil such as they saw 
 controlling the nations of Europe. 
 
 Nevertheless Roosevelt, as usual, could not be de- 
 terred by opposition; and when the Hague Confer- 
 ence in 1907, through the veto of Germany, refused 
 to limit armaments by sea and land, he warned Con- 
 gress that one new battleship a year would not do, 
 that they must build four. Meanwhile, he had pushed 
 to completion a really formidable American Fleet, 
 which assembled in Hampton Roads on December i, 
 1907, and ten days later weighed anchor for parts un- 
 known. There were sixteen battleships, commanded 
 by Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans. Ever>^ ship was 
 
288 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 new, having been built since the Spanish War. The 
 President and Mrs. Roosevelt and many notables 
 reviewed the Fleet from the President's yacht May- 
 flower, as it passed out to sea. Later, the country 
 learned that the Fleet was to sail round Cape Horn, 
 to New Zealand and Australia, up the Pacific to San 
 Francisco, then across to Japan, and so steer home- 
 ward through the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, and 
 the Mediterranean to Gibraltar, across the Atlantic, 
 and back to Hampton Roads. 
 
 The American public did not quite know what to 
 make of this dramatic gesture. Roosevelt's critics 
 said, of course, that it was the first overt display of 
 his combativeness, and that from this he would go on 
 to create a great army and be ready, at the slightest 
 provocation, to attack any foreign Power. In fact, 
 however, the sending of the Great Fleet, which was 
 wholly his project, was designed by him to strengthen 
 the prospect of peace for the United States. Through 
 it, he gave a concrete illustration of his maxim: 
 "Speak softly, but carry a big stick." The Panama 
 Canal was then half dug and would be finished in a 
 few years. Distant nations thought of this country as 
 of a land peopled by dollar-chasers, too absorbed in 
 getting rich to think of providing defense for them- 
 selves. The fame of Dewey's exploit at Manila Bay 
 had ceased to strike wonder among foreign peoples, 
 
HITS AND MISSES 289 
 
 after they heard how small and almost contemptible, 
 judging by the new standards, the Squadron was by 
 which he won his victory. Japan, the rising young 
 giant of the Orient, felt already strong enough to 
 resent any supposed insult from the United States. 
 Germany had embarked on her wild naval policy of 
 creating a fleet which would soon be able to cope 
 with that of England. 
 
 When, however, the Great Fleet steamed into 
 Yokohama or Bombay or any other port, it furnished 
 a visible evidence of the power of the country from 
 which it came. We could not send an army to furnish 
 the same object-lesson. But the Fleet must have 
 opened the eyes of any foreign Jingoes who supposed 
 that they might send over with impunit>^ their bat- 
 tleships and attack our ports. In this way it served 
 directly to discourage war against us, and accord- 
 ingly it was a powerful agent for peace. Spectacular 
 the voyage was without question, like so many of 
 Roosevelt's acts, but if you analyze it soberly, do you 
 not admit that it was the one obvious, simple way by 
 which to impress upon an uncertain and rapacious 
 world the fact that the United States had man- 
 power as well as money-power, and that they were 
 prepared to repel all enemies? 
 
 On February 22, 1909, the White Fleet steamed 
 back to Hampton Roads and was received by Presi- 
 
290 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 dent Roosevelt. It had performed a great moral 
 achievement. It had also raised the efficiency of its 
 officers and the discipline of its crews to the high- 
 est point. There had been no accident; not a scratch 
 on any ship. 
 
 "Isn't it magnificent?" said Roosevelt, as he 
 toasted the Admirals and Captains in the cabin of 
 the Mayflower. "Nobody after this will forget that 
 the American coast is on the Pacific as well as on the 
 Atlantic." Ten days later he left the White House, 
 and after he left, the prestige of the American Fleet 
 was slowly frittered away. 
 
 So important is it, if we would form a just esti- 
 mate of Roosevelt, to understand his attitude to- 
 wards war, that I must refer to the subject briefly 
 here. One of the most authoritative observers of in- 
 ternational politics now living, a man who has also 
 had the best opportunity for studying the chief 
 statesmen of our age, wrote me after Roosevelt's 
 death: "I deeply grieve with you in the loss of our 
 friend. He was an extraordinary man. The only point 
 in which I ever found myself seriously differing from 
 him was in the value he set upon war. He did not 
 seem to realize how great an evil it is, and in how 
 many ways, fascinated as he was by the virtues which 
 it sometimes called out; but in this respect, also, I 
 think his views expanded and mellowed as time 
 
HITS AND MISSES 291 
 
 went on. His mind was so capacious as to take in 
 Old- World affairs in a sense which ver>^ few peo- 
 ple outside Europe, since Hamilton, have been able 
 to do." 
 
 Now the truth is that neither the eminent person 
 who wrote this letter, nor many others among us, 
 saw as clearly during the first decade of this century 
 as Roosevelt saw that war was not a remote possibil- 
 ity, but a very real danger. I think that he was al- 
 most the first in the United States to feel the menace 
 of Germany to the entire world. He knew the strength 
 of her army, and when she began to build rapidly a 
 powerful navy, he understood that the likelihood of 
 her breaking the peace was more than doubled; for 
 with the fleet she could at pleasure go up and down 
 the seas, picking quarrels as she went. If war came 
 on a great scale in Europe, our Republic would 
 probably be involved; we should either take sides 
 and so have to furnish a contingent, or we should 
 restrict our operations to self-defense. In either case 
 we must be prepared. 
 
 But Roosevelt recognized also that on the comple- 
 tion of the Panama Canal we might be exposed to 
 much international friction, and unless we were 
 ready to defend the Canal and its approaches, a For- 
 eign Power might easily do it great damage or wrest 
 it from us, at least for a time. Here, too, was another 
 
292 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 motive for facing the possibility of war. We were 
 growing up in almost childish trust in a world filled 
 with warlike nations, which regarded war not only as 
 the obvious way in which to settle disputes, but as 
 the easiest way to seize the territory and the wealth 
 of rich neighbors who could not defend themselves. 
 
 This being the condition of life as our country had 
 to lead it, we were criminally remiss in not taking 
 precautions. But Roosevelt went farther than this; 
 he believed that, war or no war, a nation must be able 
 to defend itself; so must every individual be. Every 
 youth should have sufficient militan,- training to fit 
 him to take his place at a moment's notice in the na- 
 tional armament. This did not mean the maintenance 
 of a large standing army, or the adoption of a soul- 
 and character-killing system of militarism like the 
 German. It meant giving training to every youth 
 who was physically sound which would develop and 
 strengthen his body, teach him obedience, and im- 
 press upon him his patriotic duty to his countr\^ 
 
 I was among those who, twenty years ago, feared 
 that Roosevelt's projects w^ere inspired by innate 
 pugnacity which he could not outgrow. Now, in this 
 year of his death, I recognize that he was right, and 
 I believe that there is no one, on whom the lesson of 
 the Atrocious War has not been lost, who does not 
 believe in his gospel of military training, both for its 
 
HITS AND MISSES 293 
 
 value in promoting physical fitness and health and in 
 providing the country with competent defenders. 
 Roosevelt detested as much as any one the horrors of 
 war, but, as he had too much reason to remind the 
 American people shortly before his death, there are 
 things worse than war. And when in 19 19 President 
 Charles W. Eliot becomes the chief advocate of uni- 
 versal militany^ training, we need not fear that it is 
 synonymous with militarism. 
 
 On one subject ■ — a protective tariff — I think 
 that Roosevelt was less satisfactory than on any 
 other. At Harvard, in our college days, John Stuart 
 Mill's ideas on economics prevailed, and they were 
 ably expounded by Charles F. Dunbar, who then 
 stood first among American economists. Being a 
 consistent Individualist, and believing that liberty 
 is a principle which applies to commerce, not less 
 than to intellectual and moral freedom. Mill, of 
 course, insisted on Free Trade. But after Roosevelt 
 joined the Republican Party — in the straw vote 
 for President, in 1880, he had voted like a large ma- 
 jority of undergraduates for Bayard, a Democrat — 
 he adopted Protection as the right principle in theor\- 
 and in practice. The teachings of Alexander Hamil- 
 ton, the wonderful spokesman of Federalism, the 
 champion of a strong Government which should be 
 beneficent because it was unselfish and enlightened, 
 
294 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 captivated and filled him. In 1886, in his Life of Ben- 
 ton, he wrote: "Free traders are apt to look at the 
 tariff from a sentimental standpoint; but it is in 
 reality a purely business matter and should be de- 
 cided solely on grounds of expediency. Political econ- 
 omists have pretty generally agreed that protection 
 is vicious in theor>^ and harmful in practice; but if 
 the majority of the people in interest wish it, and it 
 affects only themselves, there is no earthly reason 
 why they should not be allowed to try the experi- 
 ment to their heart's content."^ 
 
 Perhaps we ought to infer from this extract that 
 Roosevelt, as an historical critic, strove to preserve 
 an open mind; as an ardent Republican, however, 
 he never wavered in his support of the tariff. Even 
 his sense of humor permitted him to swallow with- 
 out a smile the demagogue's cant about "infant in- 
 dustries," or the raising of the tariff after election 
 by the Republicans who had promised to reduce it. 
 To those of us who for many years regarded the tariff 
 as the dividing line between the parties, his stand 
 was most disappointing. And when the head of one 
 of the chief Trusts in America cynically blurted out, 
 "The Tariff is the mother of Trusts," we hoped that 
 Roosevelt, who had then begun his stupendous battle 
 with the Trusts, would deal them a staggering blow 
 
 ^ Roosevelt: Thomas II. Benton, 67. American Statesmen Series. 
 
HITS AND MISSES 295 
 
 by shattering the tariff. But, greatly to our chagrin, 
 he did nothing. 
 
 His enemies tried to explain his callousness to this 
 reform by hinting that he had some personal interest 
 at stake, or that he was under obligations to tariff 
 magnates. Nothing could be more absurd than these 
 innuendoes; from the first of his career to the last, 
 no man ever brought proof that he had directly or 
 indirectly secured Roosevelt's backing by question- 
 able means. And there were times enough when pas- 
 sions ran so high that any one who could produce an 
 iota of such testimony would have done so. The sim- 
 ple fact is, that in looking over the field of important 
 questions which Roosevelt believed must be met 
 by new legislation, he looked on the tariff as unim- 
 portant in comparison with railroads, and conserva- 
 tion, and the measures for public health. I think, 
 also, that he never studied the question thoroughly; 
 he threw over Mill's Individualism early in his public 
 career and with it went Mill's political economy. As 
 late as December, 191 2, after the affronting Payne- 
 Aldrich Tariff Act had been passed under his Repub- 
 lican successor, I reminded Roosevelt that I had 
 never voted for him because I did not approve of 
 his tariff policy. To which he replied, almost in the 
 words of the Benton extract in 1886, " My dear boy, 
 the tariff is only a question of expediency." 
 
296 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 In this field also I fear that we must score a miss 
 against him. 
 
 Cavour used to say that he did not need to resort 
 to craft, which was supposed to be a statesman's 
 favorite instrument, he simply told the truth and 
 everybody was deceived. Roosevelt might have said 
 the same thing. His critics were always on the look- 
 out for some ulterior motive, some trick, or cunning 
 thrust, in what he did; consequently they misjudged 
 him, for he usually did the most direct thing in the 
 most direct way. 
 
 The Brownsville Affair proved this. On the night 
 of August 13, 1906, several colored soldiers stationed 
 at Fort Brown, Texas, stole from their quarters into 
 the near-by town of Brownsville and shot up the 
 inhabitants, against whom they had a grudge. As 
 soon as the news of the outbreak reached the fort, 
 the rest of the colored garrison was called out to 
 quell it, and the guilty soldiers, under cover of dark- 
 ness, joined their companions and were undiscovered. 
 Next day the commander began an investigation, 
 but as none of the culprits confessed, the President 
 discharged nearly all of the three companies. There- 
 upon his critics insinuated that Roosevelt had in- 
 dulged his race hatred of the blacks; a few years 
 before, many of these same critics had accused him 
 of wishing to insult the Southern whites by inviting 
 
HITS AND MISSES 297 
 
 Booker Washington to lunch. The reason for his ac- 
 tion with the Brownsville criminals was so clear that 
 it did not need to be stated. He intended that every 
 soldier or sailor who wore the uniform of the United 
 States, be he white, yellow, or black, should not be 
 allowed to sully that uniform and go unpunished. 
 He felt the stain on the service keenly; in spite of 
 denunciation he trusted that the common sense of 
 the Nation would eventually uphold him, as it did. 
 
 A few months later he came to Cambridge to 
 make his famous "Mollycoddle Speech," and in 
 greeting him, three or four of us asked him jokingly, 
 "How about Brownsville?" "Brownsville?" he re- 
 plied, laughing; " Brownsville will soon be forgotten, 
 but 'Dear Maria' will stick to me all my life." 
 
 This referred to another annoyance which had 
 recently bothered him. He had always been used to 
 talk among friends about public matters and per- 
 sons with amazing unreserve. He took it for granted 
 that those to whom he spoke would regard his frank 
 remarks as confidential ; being honorable himself, he 
 assumed a similar sense of honor in his listeners. 
 In one instance, however, he was deceived. Among 
 the guests at the White House were a gentleman 
 and his wife. The latter was a convert to Roman 
 Catholicism, and she had not only all the proverbial 
 zeal of a convert, but an amount of indiscretion 
 
298 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 which seems incredible in any one. She often led the 
 conversation to Roman Catholic subjects, and es- 
 pecially to the discussion of who was likely to be the 
 next American Cardinal. President Roosevelt had 
 great respect for Archbishop Ireland, and he said, 
 frankly, that he should be glad to see the red hat go 
 to him. The lady's husband was appointed to a for- 
 eign Embassy, and they were both soon thrown into 
 an Ultramontane atmosphere, where clerical intrigues 
 had long furnished one of the chief amusements 
 of a vapid and corrupt Court. The lady, who, of 
 course, could not have realized the impropriety, 
 made known the President's regard for Archbishop 
 Ireland. She even had letters to herself beginning 
 " Dear Maria," to prove the intimate terms on which 
 she and her husband stood with Mr. Roosevelt, and 
 to suggest how important a personage she was in his 
 estimation. Assured, as she thought, of her influence 
 in Washington, she seems also to have aspired to 
 equal influence in the Vatican. That would not be 
 the first occasion on which Cardinals' hats had been 
 bestowed through the benign feminine intercession. 
 Reports from Rome were favorable; Archbishop 
 Ireland's prospects looked rosy. 
 
 But the post of Cardinal is so eminent that there 
 are always several candidates for each vacancy. I do 
 not know whether or not it came about through one 
 
HITS AND MISSES 299 
 
 of Archbishop Ireland's rivals, or through "Dear 
 Maria's" own indiscretion, but the fact leaked out 
 that President Roosevelt was personally interested 
 in Archbishop Ireland's success. That settled the 
 Archbishop. The Hierarchy would never consent to 
 be influenced by an American President, who was 
 also a Protestant. It might take instructions from 
 the Emperor of Austria or the King of Spain ; it had 
 even allowed the German Kaiser, also a Protestant, 
 indirectly but effectually to block the election of 
 Cardinal RampoUa to be Pope in 1903; but the hint 
 that the Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, might 
 be made Cardinal because the American President 
 respected him, could not be tolerated. The Presi- 
 dent's letters beginning "Dear Maria" went gayly 
 through the newspapers of the world, and the man 
 in the street everywhere wondered how Roosevelt 
 could have been so indiscreet as to have trusted so 
 imprudent a zealot. " Dear Maria" and her husband 
 were recalled from their Embassy and put out of 
 reach of committing further indiscretions of that 
 sort. Archbishop Ireland never became Cardinal. 
 In spite of the President's forebodings, the "Dear 
 Maria" incident did not cling to him all his life, but 
 sank into oblivion, while the w^orld, busied with 
 matters of real importance, rushed on towards a 
 great catastrophe. Proofs that a man or a woman 
 
300 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 can do very foolish things are so common that " Dear 
 Maria" could not win lasting fame by hers. 
 
 I do not think, however, that this experience 
 taught Roosevelt reticence. He did not lose his faith 
 that a sense of honor was widespread, and would 
 silence the tongues of the persons whom he talked to 
 in confidence. 
 
 No President ever spoke so openly to newspaper 
 men as he did. He told them many a secret with only 
 the warning, "Mind, this is private," and none of 
 them betrayed him. When he entered the White 
 House he gathered all the newspaper men round 
 him, and said that no mention was to be made of 
 Mrs. Roosevelt, or of any detail of their family life, 
 while they lived there. If this rule were broken, he 
 would refuse for the rest of his term to allow the 
 representative of the paper which published the un- 
 warranted report to enter the White House, or to 
 receive any of the President's communications. This 
 rule also was religiously observed, with the result 
 that Mrs. Roosevelt was spared the disgust and in- 
 dignity of a vulgar publicity, which had thrown its 
 lurid light on more than one "First Lady of the 
 Land" in previous administrations, and even on the 
 innocent Baby McKee, President Harrison's grand- 
 child. 
 
 We cannot too often bear in mind that Theodore 
 
HITS AND MISSES 301 
 
 Roosevelt never forgot the Oneness of Society. If he 
 aimed at correcting an industrial or financial abuse 
 by special laws, he knew that this work could be 
 partial only. It might promote the health of the 
 entire body, but it was not equivalent to sanifying 
 that entire body. There was no general remedy. A 
 plaster applied to a skin cut does not cure an internal 
 disease. But he watched the unexpected effects of 
 laws and saw how that influence spread from one 
 field to another. 
 
 Roosevelt traced closely the course of Law and 
 Custom to their ultimate objects, the family and the 
 individual. In discussing the matter with Mr. Rhodes 
 he cordially agreed with what the historian said about 
 our American rich men. He insisted that the same 
 thing held true of our politicians, even the worst: 
 that the average Roman rich man, like the average 
 Roman public man, of the end of the Republic and of 
 the beginning of the Empire, makes the correspond- 
 ing man of our own time look like a self-denying, 
 conscientious Puritan. He did not think very highly 
 of the American multi-millionaire, nor of his wife, 
 sons, and daughters when compared with some other 
 types of our citizens; even in ability the plutocrat 
 did not seem to Roosevelt to show up very strongly 
 save in his own narrowly limited field; and he and 
 his womanhood, and those of less fortune who mod- 
 
302 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 eled their lives upon his and upon the lives of his 
 wife and children, struck Roosevelt as taking very 
 little advantage of their opportunities. But to de- 
 nounce them with hysterical exaggeration as re- 
 sembling the unspeakable tyrants and debauchees 
 of classic times, was simple nonsense. 
 
 Roosevelt hoped he had been of some assistance 
 in moving our people along the line Mr. Rhodes 
 mentioned; that is, along the line of a sane, moder- 
 ate purpose to superv^ise the business use of wealth 
 and to curb its excesses, while keeping as far aloof 
 from the policy of the visionary and demagogue as 
 from the policy of the wealthy corruptionist. 
 
c 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 
 
 RITICS frequently remark that Roosevelt was 
 the most masterful politician of his time, and 
 what we have already seen of his career should jus- 
 tify this assertion. We need, however, to define what 
 we mean by "politician." Boss Piatt, of New York, 
 was a politician, but far removed from Roosevelt. 
 Piatt and all similar dishonest manipulators of 
 voters — and the dishonesty took many forms — 
 held their power, not by principles, but by exerting 
 an unprincipled influence over the masses who sup- 
 ported them. Roosevelt, on the other hand, was a 
 great politician because he saw earlier than most 
 men certain fundamental principles which he re- 
 solved to carry through whether the Bosses or their 
 supporters liked it or not. In a word he believed in 
 principles rather than in men. He was a statesman, 
 and like the statesman he understood that half a 
 loaf is often better than no bread and that, though 
 he must often compromise and conciliate, he must 
 surrender nothing essential. 
 
 As a result, his career as Assemblyman, as Civil 
 Service Commissioner, as Police Commissioner of 
 
304 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 New York City, as Governor of New York State, 
 and as President, seems a continuous rising scale of 
 success. We see the achievement which swallows up 
 the baffling difficulties and the stubborn opposition. 
 These we must always remember if we would meas- 
 ure the extent of the victory. It was Roosevelt's per- 
 sistence and his refusal to be baffled or turned aside 
 which really made him seem to triumph in all his 
 work. 
 
 He never doubted, as I have often said, the neces- 
 sity of party organization in our political system, 
 although he recognized the tendency to corruption 
 in it, the unreasoning loyalty which it bred and its 
 substitution of Party for Country in its teaching. 
 He had known something of political machine meth- 
 ods at Albany. After he became President, he knew 
 them through and through as they were practiced 
 on national proportions at Washington. The Machine 
 had hoped to shelve him by making him Vice- 
 President, and in spite of it he suddenly emerged as 
 President. This confrontation would have been em- 
 barrassing on both sides if Roosevelt had not dis- 
 played unexpected tact. He avowed his purpose of 
 carrying out McKinley's policies and he kept it 
 faithfully, thus relieving the Machine of much 
 anxiety. By his straightforwardness he even won the 
 approval of Boss Quay, the lifelong political bandit 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 305 
 
 from Pennsylvania, who went to him and said in 
 substance : ' I believe that you are square and I will 
 stand by you until you prove otherwise.' Roosevelt 
 made no bargain, but like a sensible man he did not 
 forbid Quay from voting on his side. Personally, 
 also, Quay's lack of hypocrisy attracted him; for 
 Quay never pretended that he was in politics to pro- 
 mote the Golden Rule and he had skirted so close to 
 the Penal Code that he knew how it looked and how 
 he could evade it. Senator Hanna, the Ohio political 
 Boss, who had made McKinley President by ways 
 which cannot all be documented except by persons 
 who have examined the Recording Angel's book (and 
 research students of that original source never re- 
 turn), was another towering figure whom Roosevelt 
 had to get along with. He found out how to do it, 
 and to do it so amicably that it was reported that 
 he breakfasted often with the Ohio Senator and that 
 they even ate griddle-cakes and scrapple together. 
 The Senator evidently no more understood the alert 
 and fascinating young President than we under- 
 stand what is going on in the brain of a playful 
 young tiger, but instinct warned him that this mys- 
 terious young creature, electrified by a thousand 
 talents, was dangerous and must be held down. And 
 so with the other members of the Republican Ma- 
 chine which ran both Houses of Congress and ex- 
 
3o6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 pected to run the undisciplined President too. Roose- 
 velt studied them all and discovered how to deal 
 with each. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1904, everybody be- 
 gan to discuss the next Presidential campaign. Who 
 should be the Republican candidate? The President, 
 naturally, wished to be elected and thereby to hold 
 the office in his own right and not by the chance of 
 assassination. Senator Hanna surprised many of the 
 politicians by bagging a good many delegates for 
 himself. He probably did not desire to be President ; 
 like Warwick he preferred the glory of king-maker 
 to that of king; but he was a shrewd business man 
 who knew the value of having goods which, although 
 he did not care for them himself, he might exchange 
 for others. I doubt whether he deluded himself into 
 supposing that the American people would elect so 
 conspicuous a representative of the Big Interests as 
 he w^as, to be President, but he knew that the for- 
 tunes of candidates in political conventions are un- 
 certain, and that if he had a considerable body of 
 delegates to swing from one man to another, he 
 might, if his choice won, become the power behind 
 the new throne as he had been behind McKinley's. 
 And if we could suspect him of humor he may have 
 enjoyed fun to a mild degree in keeping the irrepress- 
 ible Roosevelt in a state of suspense. 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 307 
 
 Senator Banna's death, however, In March, 1904, 
 removed the only competitor whom Roosevelt could 
 have regarded as dangerous. Thenceforth he held 
 the field, and yet, farseeing politician though he was, 
 he did not feel sure. The Convention at Chicago 
 nominated him, virtually, by acclamation. In the 
 following months of a rather slow campaign he had 
 fits of depression, although all signs pointed to his 
 success. Talking with Hay as late as October 30, 
 he said: "It seems a cheap sort of thing to say, 
 and I would not say it to other people, but laying 
 aside my own great personal interests and hopes, — 
 for of course I desire intensely to succeed, — I have 
 the greatest pride that in this fight we are not only 
 making it on clearly avowed principles, but we have 
 the principles and the record to avow. 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?" ^ 
 
 Just at the end, the campaign was enlivened by 
 the attack which the Democratic candidate, Judge 
 Alton B. Parker, made upon his opponent. He 
 charged that Mr. Cortelyou, the manager of the 
 Republican campaign, had received great sums of 
 money from the Big Interests, and that he had, in- 
 deed, been appointed manager because, from his 
 
 1 W. R. Thayer: John Hay, ii, 356, 357. 
 
3o8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 previous experience as Secretary of the Department 
 of Commerce, he had special information in regard 
 to malefactors of great wealth which would enable 
 him to coerce them to good purpose for the Re- 
 publican Corruption Fund. President Roosevelt 
 published a letter denying Judge Parker's state- 
 ments as "unqualifiedly and atrociously false." If 
 Judge Parker's attack had any effect on the election 
 it was to reduce his own votes. Later, Edward H. 
 Harriman, the railroad magnate, tried to smirch 
 Roosevelt by accusing him of seeking Harriman's 
 help in 1904, but this charge also was never sustained. 
 At the election on November 8, Roosevelt had a 
 majority of nearly two million and a half votes out 
 of thirteen million and a half cast, thus securing by 
 large odds the greatest popular majority any Presi- 
 dent has had. The Electoral College gave him 336 
 votes and Parker 140. That same evening, his vic- 
 tory being assured, he dictated the following state- 
 ment to the press: "The wise custom which limits 
 the President to two terms, regards the substance 
 and not the form, and under no circumstances will I 
 be a candidate for and accept the nomination for 
 another." Those who heard this statement, or who 
 had talked the matter over with Roosevelt, under- 
 stood that he had in mind a renomination in 1908, 
 but many persons regarded it as his final renuncia- 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 309 
 
 tlon of ever being a candidate for the Presidency. 
 And later, when circumstances quite altered the sit- 
 uation, this "promise" was revived to plague him. 
 
 From March 4, 1905, he was President "in his own 
 right." Behind him stood the American people, and 
 he was justified in regarding himself, at that time, 
 as the most popular President since Washington. 
 The unprecedented majority of votes he had re- 
 ceived at the election proved that, and proved also 
 that the country believed in "his policies." So he 
 might go ahead to carry out and to extend the gen- 
 eral reforms which he had embarked on against much 
 opposition. No one could question that he had a 
 mandate from the people, and during his second term 
 he was still more aggressive. 
 
 Now, however, came the little rift which widened 
 and widened and at last opened a great chasm be- 
 tween Roosevelt and the people on one side and the 
 Machine dominators of the Republican Party on 
 the other. For although Roosevelt was the choice of 
 the Republicans and of migratory voters from other 
 parties, although he was, in fact, the idol of millions 
 who supported him, the Republican Machine in- 
 sisted on ruling. Before an election, the Machine 
 consents to a candidate who can win, but after he 
 has been elected the Machine instinctively acts as 
 his master. A strong man, like President Cleveland, 
 
310 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 may hold out against the Bosses of his party, but the 
 penalty he has to pay is to find himself bereft of sup- 
 port and his party shattered. This might have hap- 
 pened in Roosevelt's case also, if he had not been 
 more tactful than Cleveland was in dealing with his 
 enemies. 
 
 He now had to learn the bitter knowledge of the 
 trials which beset a President whose vision outsoars 
 that of the practical rulers of his party. In the House 
 of Representatives there was a little group led by 
 the Speaker, Joseph G. Cannon, of Illinois, who con- 
 trolled that part of Congress with despotic arro- 
 gance. In the Senate there was a similar group of 
 political oligarchs, called the Steering Committee, 
 which decided what questions should be discussed, 
 what bills should be killed, and what others should 
 be passed. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, headed this. 
 A multi-millionaire himself, he was the particular 
 advocate of the Big Interests. Next came Allison, 
 of Iowa, an original Republican, who entered Con- 
 gress in 1863 and remained there for the rest of his 
 life, a hide-bound party man, personally honest and 
 sufficiently prominent to be "talked of" for Vice- 
 President on several occasions. He was rather the 
 peacemaker of the Steering Committee, having the 
 art of reconciling antagonists and of smoothing an- 
 noying angles. A little older, was Orville H. Piatt, 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 311 
 
 the Senator from Connecticut who died in 1905, and 
 was esteemed a model of virtue among the Senators 
 of his time. As an offset to the men of threescore and 
 ten and over was Albert J. Beveridge, the young Sen- 
 ator from Indiana, vigorous, eloquent, fearless, and 
 radical, whose mind and heart were consecrated to 
 Roosevelt. Beveridge, at least, had no ties, secret or 
 open, with the Trusts, or the Interests, or Wall Street; 
 on the contrary, he attacked them fiercely, and among 
 other Anti-Trust legislation he drove through the 
 Meat Inspection Bill. How he managed to get on 
 with the gray wolves of the Committee it would be 
 interesting to hear; but we must rid ourselves of the 
 notion that those gray wolves sought personal profit 
 in money by their steering. None of them was 
 charged with using his position for the benefit of his 
 purse. Power was what those politicians desired; 
 Power, which gave them the opportunity to make 
 the political tenets of their party prevail. Orville 
 Piatt, or Allison, regarded Republicanism with al- 
 most religious fanaticism; and we need not search 
 far in history to find fanatics who were personally 
 very good and tender-hearted men, but who would 
 put heretics to death with a smile of pious satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 Roosevelt's task was to persuade the Steering 
 Committee to support him in as many of his Radical 
 
312 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 measures as he could. They had done this during 
 his first Administration, partly because they did 
 not see whither he was leading. Senator Hanna, then 
 a member of the Steering Committee, attempted to 
 steady all Republicans who seemed likely to be se- 
 duced by Roosevelt's subversive novelties by telling 
 them to "stand pat," and, as we look back now, the 
 Senator from Ohio, with his stand-pattism broom 
 reminds us of the portly Mrs. Partington trying to 
 sweep back the inflowing Atlantic Ocean. During 
 the second Administration, however, no one could 
 plead ignorance or surprise when Roosevelt urged 
 on new projects. He made no secret of his policies, 
 and he could not have disguised, if he would, the 
 fact that he was thorough. By a natural tendency the 
 "Stand-Patters" drew closer together. Similarly 
 the various elements which followed Roosevelt 
 tended to combine. Already some of these were be- 
 ginning to be called "Insurgents," but this name 
 did not frighten them nor did it shame them back 
 into the fold of the orthodox Republicans. As Roose- 
 velt continued his fight for reclamation, conserva- 
 tion, health, and pure foods, and governmental con- 
 trol of the great monopolies, the opposition to him, 
 on the part of the capitalists affected, grew more 
 intense. What wonder that these men, realizing at 
 last that their unlimited privileges would be taken 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 313 
 
 away from them, resented their deprivation. The 
 privileged classes in England have not welcomed the 
 suggestion that their great landed estates shall be 
 cut up, nor can we expect that the American dukes 
 and marquises of oil and steel and copper and trans- 
 portation should look forward with meek acquies- 
 cence to their own extinction. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is no politics in politics, and 
 so the gray wolves who ran the Republican Party, 
 knowing that Roosevelt, and not themselves, had 
 the determining popular support of the country, were 
 too wary to block him entirely as the Democrats had 
 done under Cleveland. They let his bills go through, 
 but with more evident reluctance, only after bitter 
 fighting. And as they were nearly all church mem- 
 bers in good standing, we can imagine that they 
 prayed the Lord to hasten the day when this pesti- 
 lent marplot in the White House should retire from 
 office. Trusting Roosevelt so far as to believe that 
 he would stand by his pledge not to be a can- 
 didate in 1908, they cast about for a person of their 
 own stripe whom they could make the country 
 accept. 
 
 But Roosevelt himself felt too deeply involved in 
 the cause of Reform, which he had been pushing for 
 seven years, to allow his successor to be dictated by 
 the Stand-Patters. So he sought among his associates 
 
314 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 in the Cabinet for the member who, judging by their 
 work together, would most loyally carry on his poli- 
 cies, and at length he decided upon William H. Taft, 
 his Secretary of War. "Root would make the better 
 President, but Taft would be the better candidate," 
 Theodore wrote to an intimate, and that opinion was 
 generally held in Washington and elsewhere. Mr. 
 Root had so conducted the Department of State, 
 since the death of John Hay, that many good judges 
 regarded him as the ablest of all the Secretaries of 
 that Department, and Roosevelt himself went even 
 farther. "Root," he said to me, "is the greatest in- 
 tellectual force in American public life since Lin- 
 coln." But in his career as lawyer, which brought 
 him to the head of the American Bar, he had been 
 attorney for powerful corporations, and that being 
 the time when the Government was fighting the 
 Corporations, it was not supposed that his can- 
 didacy would be popular. So Taft was preferred to 
 him. 
 
 The Republican Machine accepted Taft as a can- 
 didate with composure, if not with enthusiasm. Any 
 one would be better than Roosevelt in the eyes of 
 the Machine and its supporters, and perhaps they 
 perceived in Secretary Taft qualities not wholly un- 
 sympathetic. They were probably thankful, also, 
 that Roosevelt had not demanded more. He allowed 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR ' 315 
 
 the "regulars" to choose the nominee for Vice-Presi- 
 dent, and he did not meddle with the make-up of the 
 Republican National Committee. One of his critics, 
 Dean Lewis, marks this as Roosevelt's chief political 
 blunder, because by leaving the Republican Na- 
 tional Committee in command he virtually pre- 
 determined the policy of the next four years. Only 
 a very strong President with equal zeal and fighting 
 quality could win against the Committee. In 1908 
 he had them so docile that he might have changed 
 their membership, and changed the rules by which 
 elections were governed if he had so willed, but, just 
 as before the election of 1904, Roosevelt had doubted 
 his own popularity in the country, so now he missed 
 his chance because he did not wish to seem to wrest 
 from the unwilling Machine powers which it lost no 
 time in using against him. 
 
 The campaign never reached a dramatic crisis. 
 Mr. Bryan, the Democratic candidate, who still 
 posed as the Boy Orator of the Platte, although he 
 had passed forty-eight years of age, made a spirited 
 canvass, and when the votes were counted he gained 
 more than a million and a third over the total for 
 Judge Parker in 1904. But Mr. Taft won easily by a 
 million and a quarter votes. 
 
 Between election and inauguration an ominous 
 disillusion set in. The Rooseveltians had taken it for 
 
3i6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 granted that the new President would carr>' on the 
 policies of the old; more than that, the impression 
 prevailed among them that the high officials of the 
 Roosevelt Administration, including some members 
 of his Cabinet, would be retained, but when Inaugu- 
 ration Day came, it appeared that Air. Taft had 
 chosen a new set of advisers, and he denied that he 
 had given any one reason to believe that he would 
 do other^vise. 
 
 March 4, 1909, was a wintr>' day in Washington. 
 A snowstorm and high winds prevented holding the 
 inaugural exercises out of doors as usual on the East 
 Front of the Capitol. President Roosevelt and Presi- 
 dent-elect Taft drove in state dow^n Pennsylvania 
 Avenue, and Mr. Taft, having taken the oath of 
 office, delivered his inaugural address in the Senate 
 Chamber. The ceremonies being over, Mr. Roosevelt, 
 instead of accompanying the new President to the 
 White House, went to the railway station and took 
 the train for New York. This innovation had been 
 planned some time before, because Mr. Roosevelt 
 had arranged to sail for Europe in a few days, and 
 needed to reach Oyster Bay as soon as possible to 
 complete his preparations. 
 
 Many an eye-witness who watched him leave, as 
 a simple civilian, the Hall of Congress, must have 
 felt that with his going there closed one of the most 
 
CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR 317 
 
 memorable administrations this country had ever 
 known. Roosevelt departed, but his invisible pres- 
 ence still filled the capital city and frequented every 
 quarter of the Nation. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 WORLD HONORS 
 
 WHAT to do with ex- Presidents is a problem 
 which worries those happy Americans who 
 have nothing else to worry over. They think of an 
 ex- President as of a sacred white elephant, who must 
 not work, although he has probably too little money 
 to keep him alive in proper ease and dignity. In fact, 
 however, these gentlemen have managed, at least 
 during the past half-century, to sink back into the 
 civilian mass from which they emerged without suf- 
 fering want themselves or dimming the lustre which 
 radiates from the office. Roosevelt little thought that 
 in quitting the Presidency he was not going into po- 
 litical obscurity. 
 
 Roosevelt had two objects in view when he left 
 the White House. He sought long and complete rest, 
 and to place himself beyond the reach of politicians. 
 In fairness, he wished to give Mr. Taft a free field, 
 which would hardly have been possible if Roosevelt 
 had remained in Washington or New York, where 
 politicians might have had access to him. 
 
 Accordingly, he planned to hunt big game in Af- 
 rica for a year, and in order to have a definite pur- 
 
Copyright by Vnderwood xc Underwood, N.Y. 
 AT SAGAMORE HILL 
 
WORLD HONORS 319 
 
 pose, which might give his expedition lasting use- 
 fulness, he arranged to collect specimens for the 
 Smithsonian Institution in Washington. His second 
 son, Kermit, then twenty years of age, besides sev- 
 eral naturalists and hunters, accompanied him. His 
 expedition sailed from New York on March 23d, 
 touched at the Azores and at Gibraltar, where the 
 English Commander showed him the fortifications, 
 and transshipped at Naples into an East-African 
 liner. He found his stateroom filled with flowers sent 
 by his admiring friend. Kaiser William II, with a 
 telegram of effusive greeting, and with messages 
 and tokens from minor potentates. More important 
 to him than these tributes, however, was the pres- 
 ence of Frederick C. Selous, the most famous hunter 
 of big game in Africa, who joined the ship and proved 
 a congenial fellow passenger. They reached Mom- 
 basa on April 23d, and after the caravan had been 
 made ready, they started for the interior. 
 
 We need not follow in detail the year which 
 Roosevelt and his party spent in his African hunting. 
 The railroad took them to Lake Victoria Nyanza, 
 but they stopped at many places on the way, and 
 made long excursions into the country. Then from 
 the Lake they proceeded to the Albert Nyanza and 
 steamed dowm the Nile to Gondokoro, which they 
 reached on February 26, 1910. On March 14th at 
 
320 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Khartoum, where Mrs. Roosevelt and their daughter 
 Ethel awaited them, Roosevelt emerged into civiliza- 
 tion again. He and Kermit had shot 512 beasts and 
 birds, of which they kept about a dozen for trophies, 
 the rest going to the Smithsonian Institution and to 
 the museums. A few of their specimens were unique, 
 and the total product of the expedition was the 
 most important which had ever reached America 
 from Africa. 
 
 After spending a few days in visiting Omdurman 
 and other scenes connected with the British con- 
 quest of the Mahdists, less than a dozen years before, 
 the Roosevelts went down the river to Cairo, where 
 the ex-President addressed the Egyptian students. 
 These were the backbone of the so-called National- 
 ist Party, which aimed at driving out the British and 
 had killed the Prime Minister a month before. They 
 warned Roosevelt that if he dared to touch on this 
 subject he, too, would be assassinated. But such 
 threats did not move him then or ever. Roosevelt re- 
 proved them point-blank for killing Boutros Pasha, 
 and told them that a party which sought freedom 
 must show its capacity for living by law and order, 
 before it could expect to deserve freedom. 
 
 From Egypt, Roosevelt crossed to Naples, and 
 then began what must be described as a triumphal 
 progress through Central and Western Europe. Only 
 
WORLD HONORS 321 
 
 General Grant, after his Presidency, had made a sim- 
 ilar tour, but he did not excite a tenth of the popular 
 interest and enthusiasm which Roosevelt excited. 
 Although Grant had the prestige of being the success- 
 ful general of the most tremendous war ever fought 
 in America, he had nothing picturesque or magnetic 
 in his personality. The peasants in the remote re- 
 gions had heard of Roosevelt; persons of every class 
 in the cities knew about him a little more definitely; 
 and all were keen to see him. Except Garibaldi, no 
 modern ever set multitudes on fire as Roosevelt did, 
 and Garibaldi was the hero of a much narrower 
 sphere and had the advantage of being the hero of the 
 then downtrodden masses. Roosevelt, on the other 
 hand, belonged to the ruling class in America, had 
 served nearly eight years as President of the United 
 States, and was equally the popular idol without 
 class distinction. And he had just come from a 
 very remarkable exploit, having led his scientific and 
 hunting expedition for twelve months through the 
 perils and hardships of tropical Africa. We Americans 
 may well thrill with satisfaction to remember that it 
 was this most typical of Americans who received the 
 honors and homage of the world precisely because he 
 was most typically American and strikingly indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Before he reached Italy on his way back, he had 
 
322 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 invitations from most of the sovereigns of Europe to 
 visit them, and universities and learned bodies re- 
 quested him to address them. At Rome, as guest of 
 King Victor Emanuel II, he received ovations of the 
 exuberant and throbbing kind, which only the Ital- 
 ians can give. But here also occurred what might have 
 been, but for his common sense and courage, a hitch 
 in his triumphal progress. The intriguers of the Vat- 
 ican, always on the alert to edify the Roman Catho- 
 lics in the United States, thought they saw a chance 
 to exalt themselves and humble the Protestants by 
 stipulating that Colonel Roosevelt, who had ac- 
 cepted an invitation to call upon the Pope, should not 
 visit any Protestant organization while he was in that 
 city. Some time before, Vice-President Fairbanks 
 had incensed Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal Sec- 
 retary, and his group, by remarks at the Methodist 
 College in Rome. Here was a dazzling opportunity 
 for not only getting even, but for coming out victo- 
 rious. If the Vatican schemers could force Colonel 
 Roosevelt, who, at the moment, was the greatest fig- 
 ure in the world, to obey their orders, they might 
 exult in the sight of all the nations. Should he balk, 
 he would draw down upon himself a hostile Catholic 
 vote at home. Probably the good-natured Pope him- 
 self understood little about the intrigue and took 
 little part in it, for Pius X was rather a kindly and 
 
WORLD HONORS 323 
 
 a genuinely pious pontiff. But Cardinal Merry del 
 Val, apt pupil of the Jesuits, made an egregious blun- 
 der if he expected to catch Theodore Roosevelt in a 
 Papal trap. The Rector of the American Catholic 
 College in Rome wrote: '"The Holy Father will be 
 delighted to grant audience to Mr. Roosevelt on 
 April 5th, and hopes nothing will arise to prevent it, 
 such as the much-regretted incident which made the 
 reception of Mr. Fairbanks impossible.' Roosevelt 
 replied to our Ambassador as follows: ' On the other 
 hand, I in my turn must decline to have any stipula- 
 tions made or submit to any conditions which in any 
 way limit my freedom of conduct.' To this the Vat- 
 ican replied through our Ambassador: 'In view of 
 the circumstances for which neither His Holiness nor 
 Mr. Roosevelt is responsible, an audience could not 
 occur except on the understanding expressed in the 
 former message.' " ^ 
 
 Ex-President Roosevelt did not, by calling upon 
 the Pope, furnish Cardinal Merry del Val with cause 
 to gloat. A good while afterward in talking over the 
 matter with me, Roosevelt dismissed it with "No 
 self-respecting American could allow his actions or 
 his going and coming to be dictated to him by any 
 Pope or King." That, to him, was so self-evident a 
 fact that it required no discussion ; and the American 
 
 ^ Washburn, 164. 
 
324 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 people, Including probably a large majority of Roman 
 Catholics, agreed with him. 
 
 From Rome he went to Austria, to Vienna first, 
 where the aged Emperor, Francis Joseph, welcomed 
 him; and then to Budapest, where the Hungarians, 
 eager for their independence, shouted themselves 
 hoarse at sight of the representative of American in- 
 dependence. Wherever he went the masses in the 
 cities crowded round him and the people in the coun- 
 tPy' flocked to cheer him as he passed. Since Norway 
 had conferred on him the Nobel Peace Prize after the 
 Russo-Japanese War, he journeyed to Christiania to 
 pay his respects to the Nobel Committee, and there 
 he delivered an address on the conditions necessary 
 for a universal peace in which he foreshadowed many 
 of the terms which have since been preached by the 
 advocates of a League of Nations. In Berlin, the 
 Kaiser received him with ostentatious friendliness. 
 He addressed him as "Friend Roosevelt." Since the 
 Colonel was not a monarch the Kaiser could not ad- 
 dress him as "Brother" or as "Cousin," and the 
 word "Friend" disguised whatever condescension he 
 may have felt. There was a grand military review of 
 twelve thousand troops, which the Kaiser and his 
 "Friend" inspected, and he took care to inform 
 Roosevelt that he was the first civilian to whom this 
 honor had ever been paid. An Imperial photographer 
 
WORLD HONORS 325 
 
 made snapshots of the Colonel and the Kaiser, and 
 these were subsequently given to the Colonel with 
 superscriptions and comments written by the Kaiser 
 on the negatives. Roosevelt's impression of his Im- 
 perial host was, on the whole, favorable. I do not 
 think he regarded him as very solid, personally, but 
 he recognized the results of the power which Wil- 
 liam's inherited position as Emperor conferred on 
 him. 
 
 Paris did not fall behind any of the other Eu- 
 ropean capitals in the enthusiasm of its welcome. 
 There, Roosevelt was received in solemn session by 
 the Sorbonne, before which he spoke on citizenship 
 in a Republic, and, with prophetic vision, he warned 
 against the seductions of phrase-makers as among 
 the insidious dangers to which Republics were ex- 
 posed. 
 
 His most conspicuous triumph, however, was in 
 England. On May 6th, King Edward VH died, and 
 President Taft appointed Colonel Roosevelt special 
 envoy, to represent the United States at the royal 
 funeral. This drew together crowned heads from all 
 parts of Europe, so that at one of the State functions 
 at Buckingham Palace there were no fewer than thir- 
 teen monarchs at table. The Colonel stayed at Dor- 
 chester House with the American Ambassador, Mr. 
 Whitelaw Reid, and was beset by calls and invita- 
 
326 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 tions from the crowned personages. I have heard him 
 give a most amusing account of that experience, but 
 it is too soon to repeat it. Then, as always, he could 
 tell a bore at sight, and the bore could not deceive 
 him by any disguise of ermine cloak or Imperial title. 
 The German Kaiser seems to have taken pains to pose 
 as the preferred intimate of " Friend Roosevelt, " but 
 the "Friend" remained unwaveringly Democratic. 
 One day William telephoned to ask Roosevelt to 
 lunch with him, but the Colonel diplomatically 
 pleaded a sore throat, and declined. At another time 
 when the Kaiser wished him to come and chat, Roose- 
 velt replied that he would with pleasure, but that he 
 had only twenty minutes at the Kaiser's disposal, as 
 he had already arranged to call on Mrs. Humphry 
 Ward at three-thirty. These reminiscences may seem 
 trifling, unless you take them as illustrating the truly 
 Democratic simplicity with which the First Citizen 
 of the American Republic met the scions of the Haps- 
 burgs and the HohenzoUerns on equal terms as gen- 
 tleman w^ith gentlemen. 
 
 Some of his backbiters and revilers at home whis- 
 pered that his head was turned by all these pageants 
 and courtesies of kings, and that he regretted that 
 our system provided for no monarch. This afforded 
 him infinite amusement. "Think of it !" he said to me 
 after his return. "They even say that I want to be a 
 
WORLD HONORS 327 
 
 prince myself! Not I! I've seen too many of them! 
 Do you know what a prince is? He's a cross between 
 Ward McAllister and Vice-President Fairbanks. How 
 can any one suppose I should like to be that?" 
 It may be necessary to inform the later generation 
 that Mr. Ward McAllister was by profession a de- 
 cayed gentleman in New York City who achieved 
 fame by compiling a list of the Four Hundred persons 
 whom he condescended to regard as belonging to 
 New York Society. Vice-President Fairbanks was an 
 Indiana politician, tall and thin and oppressively 
 taciturn, who seemed to be stricken dumb by the 
 weight of an immemorial ancestry or by the sense of 
 his own importance ; and who was not less cold than 
 dumb, so that irreverent jokers reported that persons 
 might freeze to death in his presence if they came too 
 near or stayed too long. 
 
 All this was only the froth on the stream of Roose- 
 velt's experience in England. He took deep enjoy- 
 ment in meeting the statesmen and the authors and 
 the learned men there. The City of London bestowed 
 the freedom of the city upon him. The Universities 
 of Cambridge and Oxford gave him their highest hon- 
 orary degrees. At the London Guildhall he made a 
 memorable address, in which he warned the British 
 nation to see to it that the grievances of the Egyp- 
 tian people were not allowed to fester. Critics at the 
 
328 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 moment chicled this advice as an exhibition of bad 
 taste; an intrusion, if not an impertinence, on the 
 part of a foreigner. They did not know, however, 
 that before speaking, Roosevelt submitted his re- 
 marks to high officers in the Government and had 
 their approval ; for apparently they were well pleased 
 that this burning topic should be brought under dis- 
 cussion by means of Roosevelt's warning. 
 
 At Cambridge University he exhorted the students 
 not to be satisfied with a life of sterile athleticism. 
 "I never was an athlete," said he, "although I have 
 always led an outdoor life, and have accomplished 
 something in it, simply because my theory is that al- 
 most any man can do a great deal, if he will, by get- 
 ting the utmost possible service out of the qualities 
 that he actually possesses. . . . The average man who 
 is successful — the average statesman, the average 
 public servant, the average soldier, who wins what we 
 call great success — is not a genius. He is a man who 
 has merely the ordinary- qualities that he shares with 
 his fellows, but who has developed those ordinary 
 qualities to a more than ordinar>^ degree." 
 
 The culmination of his addresses abroad was his 
 Romanes Lecture, delivered at the Convocation at 
 Oxford University on June 7, 19 10. Lord Curzon, the 
 Chancellor, presided. Roosevelt took for his theme, 
 "Biological Analogies in Histor>^" a subject which 
 
WORLD HONORS 329 
 
 his lifelong interest in natural history and his consid- 
 erable reading in scientific theory made appropriate. 
 He afterwards said that in order not to commit 
 shocking blunders he consulted freely his old friend 
 Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of the Museum of 
 Natural History in New York City, but the substance 
 and ideas were unquestionably his own. 
 
 Dr. Henry Goudy, "the public orator" at Cam- y" 
 bridge, in a Presentation Speech, eulogized Roose- 
 velt's manifold activities and achievements, declar- 
 ing, among other things, that he had "acquired a title 
 to be ranked with his great predecessor Abraham 
 Lincoln — ' of whom one conquered slavery, and the 
 other corruption.' " Lord Curzon addressed him as, 
 "peer of the most august kings, queller of wars, de- 
 stroyer of monsters wherever found, yet the most 
 human of mankind, deeming nothing indifferent to 
 you, not even the blackest of the black." 
 
 This cluster of foreign addresses is not the least re- 
 markable of Roosevelt's intellectual feats. No doubt 
 among those who listened to him in each place there 
 were carping critics, scholars who did not find his 
 words scholarly enough, dilettanti made tepid by 
 over-culture, intellectual cormorants made heavy by 
 too much information, who found no novelty in what 
 he said, and were insensible to the rush and freshness 
 of his style. But in spite of these he did plant in each 
 
330 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 audience thoughts which they remembered, and he 
 touched upon a range of interests which no other 
 man then aUve could have made to seem equally 
 vital. 
 
 On June i8th Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt reached 
 New York. All the way up the harbor from Sandy 
 Hook, he was escorted by a vast concourse of vessels, 
 large and small, tugs, steamboats, and battleships. 
 At the Narrows, Fort Wadsworth greeted him with 
 the Presidential salute of twenty-one guns. The rev- 
 enue-cutter, Androscoggin, took him from the Kai- 
 serin Augnste Victoria, on which he had crossed the 
 ocean, and landed him at the Battery. There an im- 
 mense multitude awaited him. Mayor Strong bade 
 him welcome, to which he replied briefly in affection- 
 ate words to his fellow countr>^men. Then began a 
 triumphal procession up Broadway, and up Fifth 
 Avenue, surpassing any other which New York had 
 seen. No other person in America had ever been so 
 welcomed. The million or more who shouted and 
 cheered and waved, were proud of him because of 
 his great reception in Europe, but they admired him 
 still more for his imperishable work at home, and 
 loved him most of all, because they knew him as 
 their friend and fellow, Theodore Roosevelt, their 
 ideal American. A group of Rough Riders and two 
 regiments of Spanish War Veterans formed his im- 
 
WORLD HONORS 331 
 
 mediate escort, than whom none could have pleased 
 him better. 
 
 His head was not turned, but his heart must have 
 overflowed with gratitude. 
 
 Later, when the crowds had dispersed, he went 
 into a bookstore, and some one in the street having 
 recognized him, the word passed, and a great crowd 
 cheered him as he came out. Telling his sister of the 
 occurrence, he said, "And they soon will be throwing 
 rotten apples at me!" 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY? 
 
 DID those words of Roosevelt spring from his 
 sense of humor — humor which recognizes the 
 topsy-turv>^ of Hfe and its swift changes, and still 
 laughs — or from the instinct which knows that even 
 in the sweetest of all experiences there must be a drop 
 of bitterness? Whatever their cause, they proved to 
 be a true foreboding. He had not been home twenty- 
 four hours before he perceived, on talking with his 
 friends, that the Republican Party during his absence 
 had drifted far from the course he had charted. "His 
 policies" had vanished with his control, and the men 
 who now managed the Administration and the party 
 regarded him, not merely with suspicion, but with 
 aversion. 
 
 To tell the story of this conflict is the disagreeable 
 duty of the historian of that period, especially if he 
 have friends and acquaintances on both sides of the 
 feud. There are some facts not yet known; there are 
 others which must be touched upon very delicately 
 if at all ; and, in the main, so much of the episode grew 
 out of personal likes and dislikes that it is hard to 
 base one's account of it on documents. In trying 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 333 
 
 to get at the truth, I have been puzzled by the 
 point-blank contradictions of antagonistic witnesses, 
 whose veracity has not been questioned. Equally per- 
 plexing are the lapses of memory in cases where I 
 happen to have seen letters or documents written at 
 the time and giving real facts. The country would 
 assuredly have been alarmed if it had suspected that, 
 during the years from 1909 to 191 2, the statesmen 
 who had charge of it w^ere as liable to attacks of 
 amnesia as they proved to be later. 
 
 The head and front of the quarrel which wrecked 
 the Republican Party must be sought in Roosevelt's 
 thoroughly patriotic desire to have a successor who 
 should carry on the principles which he had fought 
 for and had embodied in national laws during the 
 nearly eight years of his Presidency. He felt more 
 passionately than anybody else the need of contin- 
 uing the work he had begun, not because it was his 
 work, but because on it alone, as he thought, the 
 reconciliation between Capital and Labor in the 
 United States could be brought about, and the im- 
 pending w^ar of classes could be prevented. So he 
 chose Judge Taft as the person who, he believed, 
 would follow his lead in this undertaking. But the 
 experience of a hundred and ten years, since Wash- 
 ington was succeeded by John Adams, might have 
 taught him that no President can quite reproduce 
 
334 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the qualities of his predecessor and that the estab- 
 lishment of a Presidential dynasty is not congenial 
 to the spirit of the American people. Jefferson did, 
 indeed, hand on his mantle to Madison, and the 
 experiment partially succeeded. But Madison was 
 much nearer Jefferson in ability and influence than 
 Judge Taft was near Roosevelt. 
 
 During the campaign of 1908, and immediately 
 after the election, we can imagine that Mr. Taft was 
 sincerely open to Roosevelt's suggestions, and that 
 he quite naturally gave Roosevelt the impression 
 that he intended to follow them, not because they 
 were Roosevelt's, but because they were his own also. 
 As soon as he began to realize that he was President, 
 and that a President has a right to speak and act 
 on his own motion, Mr. Taft saw other views rising 
 within him, other preferences, other resolves. From 
 the bosom of his family he may have heard the ex- 
 hortation, "Be your own President; don't be any- 
 body's man or rubber stamp." No doubt intimate 
 friends strengthened this advice. The desire to be 
 free and independent, which lies at the bottom of 
 every normal heart, took possession of him also; 
 further, was it not the strict duty of a President to 
 give the country the benefit of his best judgment 
 instead of following the rules laid down by another, 
 or to parrot another's doctrines? 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 335 
 
 Whatever may have been the process by which the 
 change came, it had come before Taft's inauguration. 
 He chose a new Cabinet, although Roosevelt sup- 
 posed that several of the members of his Cabinet 
 would be retained. Before the Colonel started for 
 Africa he felt that a change had come, but he went 
 away with the hope that things would turn out bet- 
 ter than he feared. His long absence under the Equa- 
 tor would relieve any anxiety Taft might have as to 
 Roosevelt's intention to dictate or interfere. 
 
 Very little political news reached the Colonel w^hile 
 he was hunting. On reaching Italy, on his return 
 journey, he met Mr. Gifford Pinchot, who had come 
 post-haste from New York, and conveyed to him the 
 latest account of the political situation at home. It 
 was clear that the Republican Party had split into 
 two factions — the Regulars, who regarded President 
 Taft as their standard-bearer, and the Insurgents, 
 who rallied round Roosevelt, and longed desperately 
 for his return. To the enemies of the Administration, 
 it seemed that Mr. Taft had turned away from the 
 Rooseveltian policies. In his appointments he had 
 replaced Roosevelt men by Regulars. His Secretary 
 of the Interior, Mr. Ballinger, came into conflict 
 with Mr. Pinchot over conservation, and the public 
 assumed that the President was not only uncon- 
 cerned to uphold conservation, but was willing that 
 
336 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the natural resources of the Nation should fall again 
 into the hands of greedy private corporations. This 
 assumption proved to be false, and Secretary Ballin- 
 ger was exonerated by a public investigation; but for 
 two years, at least, the cloud hung over Mr. Taft's 
 reputation, and, as always happens, the correction be- 
 ing far less nimble than the accusation, took a much 
 longer time in remedying the harm that it had done. 
 When, therefore, Roosevelt landed at the Battery 
 on June i8, 1910, the day of his apotheosis, he knew 
 that a factional fight was raging in the Republican 
 Party. His trusty followers, and every one who bore 
 a grudge against the Administration, urged him to 
 unfurl his flag and check any further disintegration; 
 but prudence controlled him and he announced that 
 he should not speak on political matters for at least 
 two months. He was sincere; but a few days later 
 at the Harvard Commencement exercises he met 
 Governor Hughes, of New York State, who was 
 waging a fierce struggle against the Machine to put 
 through a bill on primary^ elections. The Governor 
 begged the Colonel as a patriotic boss-hating citi- 
 zen, to help him, and Roosevelt hastily wrote and 
 dispatched to Albany a telegram urging Republicans 
 to support Hughes. In the result, his advice was not 
 heeded, a straw which indicated that the Machine 
 no longer feared to disregard him. 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 337 
 
 For several weeks Roosevelt waited and watched, 
 and found out by personal investigation how the 
 Republican Party stood. It took little inspection 
 to show him that the Taft Administration was not 
 carrying out his policies, and that the elements 
 against which he had striven for eight years were 
 creeping back. Indeed, they had crept back. It would 
 be unjust to Mr. Taft to assert that he had not 
 continued the war on Trusts. Under his able Attor- 
 ney-General, Mr. George W. Wickersham, many 
 prosecutions were going forward, and in some cases 
 the legislation begun by Roosevelt was extended 
 and made more effective. I speak now as to the 
 general course of Mr. Taft's Administration and not 
 specially of the events of 19 10. In spite of this 
 continuation of the battle with the Octopus — as 
 the Big Interests, Wall Street, and Trusts were in- 
 discriminately nicknamed — the public did not be- 
 lieve that Mr. Taft and his assistants pushed the 
 fight with their whole heart. Perhaps they were mis- 
 judged. Mr. Taft being in no sense a spectacular 
 person, whatever he did would lack the spectacular 
 quality which radiated from all Roosevelt's actions. 
 Then, too, the pioneer has deservedly a unique re- 
 ward. Just as none of the navigators who followed 
 Columbus on the voyage to the Western Continent 
 could win credit like his, so the prestige which Roose- 
 
338 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 velt gained from being the first to grapple with the 
 great monopoHes could not be shared by any suc- 
 cessor of his, who simply carried on the work of 
 "trust-busting," as it was called, which had be- 
 come commonplace. 
 
 Nevertheless, although nobody doubted Mr. 
 Wickersham's legal ability, the country felt that 
 during the Taft Administration zeal had gone out 
 of the campaign of the Administration against the 
 Interests. Roosevelt had plunged into the fray with 
 the enthusiasm of a Crusader. Taft followed him 
 from afar, but without feeling the Crusader's conse- 
 cration or his terrible sincerity. And during the first 
 six months of his Administration, President Taft 
 had unwittingly given the country the measure of 
 himself. 
 
 The Republican platform adopted at Chicago de- 
 clared "unequivocally for a revision of the tariff by 
 a special session of Congress, immediately following 
 the inauguration of the next President. ... In all 
 tariff legislation the true principle of protection is 
 best maintained by the imposition of such duties as 
 will equal the difference between the cost of produc- 
 tion at home and abroad, together with a reasonable 
 profit to American industries. We favor the estab- 
 lishment of maximum and minimum rates to be 
 administered by the President under limitations 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 339 
 
 fixed in the law, the maximum to be available to 
 meet discriminations by foreign countries against 
 American goods entering their markets, and the 
 minimum to represent the normal measure of pro- 
 tection at home." The American public, regardless 
 of party, assumed that the "revision" referred to in 
 this plank of the Republican platform meant a re- 
 vision downward; and it supposed, from sayings and 
 opinions of Mr. Taft, that he put the same construc- 
 tion upon it. He at once called a special session of 
 Congress, and a new tariff bill was framed under the 
 direction of Sereno E. Payne, a Stand-Pat Repub- 
 lican member of Congress, Chairman of the Com- 
 mittee on Ways and Means, and Nelson W. Aldrich, 
 Senator from Rhode Island, and guardian angel and 
 factotum for the Big Interests. For several months 
 these gentlemen conducted the preparation of the 
 new bill. Payne had already had experience in put- 
 ting through the McKinley Tariff in 1890, and the 
 Dingley Tariff in 1897. Again the committee-room 
 was packed by greedy protectionists who, for a 
 consideration, got from the Government whatever 
 profit they paid for. Neither Payne nor Aldrich had 
 the slightest idea that to fix tariff rates to enrich 
 special individuals and firms was a most corrupt 
 practice. When a Republican Senator, who honestly 
 supposed that the revision would be downward, pri- 
 
340 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 vately remonstrated, the reply he heard was, "Where 
 shall we get our campaign funds?" Finally, after 
 some discussion between the House and the Senate 
 — a discussion which did not lessen the enormities 
 of the measure — the Payne- Aldrich Bill was passed 
 by Congress and signed by President Taft, and it 
 enjoyed the bad eminence of being worse than the 
 McKinley and the Dingley tariffs which had pre- 
 ceded it. 
 
 The public, which had seen more clearly than on 
 former occasions, how such charters to legalize indus- 
 trial piracy were devised, was somewhat dashed by 
 President Taft's approval. Perhaps it still hoped 
 that the creation of a non-partisan Tariff Commis- 
 sion of experts would put an end to this indecent 
 purchase and sale of privileges and would establish 
 rates after the scientific investigation of each case. 
 Soon, however, these hopes were swept away; for 
 on September 17, 1909, the President delivered at 
 Winona, Minnesota, a laudatory speech on the new 
 tariff. He admitted that some points in Schedule K 
 • — that comprising wool and woolen goods — were 
 too high. But, he said solemnly that this was "the 
 best tariff law the Republicans ever made, and, 
 therefore, the best the country ever had." In that 
 Winona speech, Mr. Taft hung a millstone round 
 his own neck. His critics and his friends alike had 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 341 
 
 thrust upon them this dilemma : either he knew that 
 the Payne-Aldrich Tariff had been arrived at by 
 corrupt ways and was not a revision downward — 
 in spite of which he pronounced it the "best ever"; 
 or he did not know its nature and the means used in 
 framing it. In the latter case, he could not be con- 
 sidered a person sufficiently informed on great finan- 
 cial questions, or on the practices of some of the 
 politicians who made laws for him to sign, to be 
 qualified to sit in the President's chair. If, on the 
 other hand, knowing the measure to be bad he de- 
 clared it the ''best ever," he was neither sincere nor 
 honest, and in this case also he was not a President 
 whom the country could respect. 
 
 I would not imply that the American public went 
 through this process of reasoning at once, or arrived 
 at such clear-cut conclusions; Demos seldom in- 
 dulges in the luxury of logic; but the shock caused 
 by the Winona speech vibrated through the country 
 and never after that did the public fully trust Mr. 
 Taft. It knew that the Interests had crawled back 
 and dictated the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, and it sur- 
 mised that, although he prosecuted the Trusts dili- 
 gently, they did not feel greatly terrified. But no- 
 body whispered or suspected that he was not honest. 
 
 While President Taft slowly lost his hold on the 
 American people, he gained proportionately with the 
 
342 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Republican Machine. That Machine was composed 
 of the Regulars of the party, or the Conservatives, 
 as they preferred to be called, and it was losing its 
 hold on the country. There comes a time in every 
 sect, party, or institution when it stops growing, its 
 / arteries harden, its young men see no visions, its 
 old men dream no dreams; it lives in the past and 
 desperately tries to perpetuate the past. In politics 
 when this process of petrifaction is reached, we call 
 it Bourbonism, and the sure sign of the Bourbon is 
 that, being unconscious that he is the victim of 
 sclerosis, he sees no reason for seeking a cure. Unable 
 to adjust himself to change and new conditions he 
 falls back into the past, as an old man drops into 
 his worn-out armchair. 
 
 Now Roosevelt had been, of course, the negation 
 of Bourbonism. He had led the Republican Party 
 into new fields and set it to do new work, and far 
 off, shining clearly, its goal beckoned it on. His fol- 
 lowers were mostly young men; they saw that the 
 world had changed, and would change still further, 
 and they went forward valiantly to meet it and, if 
 possible, to shape its changes. For ten years past, 
 these Radicals, as the Regulars named them some- 
 what reproachfully, and who were better defined as 
 " Insurgents," had played an increasingly important 
 part in Congress. They would not submit to the 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 343 
 
 Bosses and the Machine, but voted independently, 
 and, although they were not all of them avowed 
 Rooseveltians, they all were going in his direction. 
 In the second year of Mr. Taft's Administration, 
 they rebelled against the rigid dictatorship of 
 Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker of the House. 
 "Uncle Joe," as the public nicknamed him, dated 
 from before the Civil War, and entered Congress in 
 1863, forty-seven years before 19 10. It was as if a 
 rigid Bourbon, who had served under Louis XV in 
 France in 1763, had been chief law-maker under 
 Napoleon I in 1810. Mr. Cannon, however, had 
 never learned that the Civil War was over, whereas 
 every Frenchman who survived the Revolution 
 knew that it had taken place. So the Insurgents rose 
 up against him, in his old age, deprived him of his 
 dictatorial power, and, at the next election, Demo- 
 crats and Republicans combined to sweep him out 
 of office altogether. 
 
 The Jews who ridiculed Noah when he began to 
 build the Ark were, it proved. Bourbons, but they 
 had some excuse, for when Noah was working there 
 was no portent of a flood and not even a black cloud 
 with a shower wrapped up in it hung on the horizon. 
 But the Republican Regulars, under Mr. Taft, could 
 not complain that no sign had been vouchsafed to 
 them. The amazing rise in power and popularity of 
 
344 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt during the decade, the surging unrest of 
 Labor throughout the world, the obviously altered 
 conditions which immense fortunes and the amassing 
 of wealth by a few corporations had produced, and 
 such special symptoms as the chafing at the Payne- 
 Aldrich Tariff, the defeat of Speaker Cannon, and 
 the election of a Democratic House of Representa- 
 tives ought to have warned even the dullest Repub- 
 lican. For good, or for ill, a social and industrial 
 revolution was under way, and, instead of trimming 
 their sails to meet it, they had not even taken ship. 
 
 Roosevelt and the Insurgents had long understood 
 the revolution of which they were a part, and had 
 taken measures to control it. Roosevelt's first 
 achievement, as we have seen, was to bring the Big 
 Interests under the power of the law. The hawks 
 and vultures whose wings he clipped naturally did 
 not like it or him, but the laws had force behind 
 them, and they submitted. The leaders of the popu- 
 lar movement, however, declared that this was not 
 enough. They preached the right of the people to 
 rule. The people, they urged, must have a real share 
 in electing the men who w^ere to make the laws and 
 to administer and interpret them. 
 
 Every one knew that the system of party govern- 
 ment resulted in a Machine, consisting of a few men 
 who controlled the preliminary steps which led to 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 345 
 
 the nomination of candidates and then decided the 
 election, so far as their control of the regular party 
 members could do this. It would be idle, said the 
 advocates of these popular rights, to make the best 
 of laws in behalf of the people and allow them to be 
 enforced by representatives and judges chosen, under 
 whatever disguise, by the great capitalists. And so 
 these Progressives, bent on trusting implicitly the 
 intelligence, the unselfishness, and the honesty of 
 the People, proposed three novel political instru- 
 ments for obtaining the pure Democracy they 
 dreamed of. First, the Initiative, by which a certain 
 number of voters could suggest new laws; second, 
 the Referendum, by which a vote should be taken to 
 decide whether the People approved or not of a law 
 that was in operation; and third, the Judicial Re- 
 call, by which a majority of the voters could nullify 
 a decision handed down by a judge. This last was 
 often misnamed and misconstrued, the "Recall of 
 Judges," but so far as I know very few of the Pro- 
 gressive leaders, certainly not Colonel Roosevelt, 
 proposed to put the tenure of office of a judge at the 
 mercy of a sudden popular vote. 
 
 When Roosevelt returned from Africa, he found 
 that the Progressive movement had developed rap- 
 idly, and the more he thought over Its principles, 
 the more they appealed to him. To arrive at Social 
 
346 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Justice was his life-long endeavor. In a speech deliv- 
 ered on August 31, 1910, at Ossawatomie, Kansas, 
 he discoursed on the "New Nationalism." As if to 
 push back hostile criticism at the start, he quoted 
 Abraham Lincoln: "Labor is prior to, and inde- 
 pendent 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 which 
 are as worthy of protection as any other rights. . . . 
 Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of 
 property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is 
 desirable; it is a positive good in the world. Let not 
 him who is houseless pull down the house of another, 
 but let him work diligently and build one for him- 
 self, thus, by example, showing that his own shall 
 be safe from violence when built." 
 
 Not all those who cry " Plato! Plato!" are Platon- 
 ists. So, not all those who now appeal to Lincoln's 
 mighty name for sanction of their own petty caprices 
 and crazy creeds, have learned the first letter of the 
 alphabet which Lincoln used; but Roosevelt, I be- 
 lieve, knew Lincoln better, knew the spirit of Lin- 
 coln better, than any other President has known it. 
 And Lincoln would have approved of most, if not 
 of all, of the measures which, in that Ossawatomie 
 speech, Roosevelt declared must be adopted. When- 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 347 
 
 ever he spoke or wrote after that, he repeated his 
 arguments in defense of the "New Nationalism," 
 and they sank deep into the public conscience. 
 
 He took no active part in poUtics, as he thought, 
 but the country knew better than he did that, wher- 
 ever he was, politics was active. Every one consulted 
 him ; his occasional speeches roused a storm of criti- 
 cism ; a dozen would-be candidates in each party sat 
 on the anxious seat and waited for his decision. So 
 he watched the year 19 10 draw to its close and 191 1 
 wheel by, without his giving the final word. Al- 
 though he was very really the centre of attention, 
 he nevertheless felt lonely, and a friend tells me of 
 going to Oyster Bay, late in the autumn, and finding 
 Roosevelt in fact alone, as his family were away, and 
 depressed by the thought that he was cut off, prob- 
 ably forever, from throwing himself into work which 
 would be of public benefit. But Roosevelt was a 
 fighter, not a sulker, and he was too healthy in spirit 
 to give way to disappointment. 
 
 That he resented the purpose, as he supposed, of 
 the Taft Administration to throw over his policies, 
 I do not doubt, although there are letters in exist- 
 ence which indicate that he still had courteous if not 
 friendly relations with President Taft. But what ate 
 into him more than any personal resentment was 
 his chagrin at seeing the Great Cause, for which he 
 
348 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 had spent his Hfe, neglected and denied by the 
 Republican Party. Progressivism seemed to be 
 slowly in process of suffocation by the Big Interests 
 which it had come into being to protest against, to 
 curb, and to control. 
 
 There were other leaders in this Cause, the most 
 prominent being Senator La Follette, of Wisconsin. 
 He had caught up very early some of Bryan's dema- 
 gogic doctrines, which he had softened a good deal 
 and made palatable to the Republicans of his State. 
 Then he had stood out as a Liberal in Congress, and 
 from Liberal he became Insurgent, and now that 
 the Insurgents were being defined as Progressives, 
 he led the Progressives in Congress. The same spirit 
 was permeating the Democrats; only the hide-bound 
 Regular Republicans appeared not to notice that a 
 new day had dawned. "Uncle Joe" Cannon, their 
 Speaker of the House, reveled in his Bourbonism, 
 made it as obnoxious as he could, and then was 
 swept away by the enraged Liberals. 
 
 By the summer of 191 1 the discussion of possible 
 candidates grew more heated. Roosevelt still kept 
 silent, but he told his intimates that he would not 
 run. He did not wish to be President again, especially 
 at the cost of an internecine struggle. I believe that 
 he was sincere; so is the consummate actor or the 
 prima donna, whom the world applauds, sincere in 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 349 
 
 bidding farewell to the stage forever. Nevertheless, 
 which of them is conscious of the strength of the 
 passion, which long habit, and supremacy, and the 
 intoxication of success have evoked, dwells in them? 
 Given the moment and the lure, they forget their 
 promise of farewell. 
 
 By this time the politicians began to foresee that 
 the dissension in the Republican Party would make 
 it difficult to choose a candidate who could win. 
 Every President desires to be reelected if he can be, 
 not necessarily because he is greedy of power, but 
 because reelection is equivalent to public approval 
 of his first term. Mr. Taft, therefore, stood out as 
 the logical candidate of the Conservatives. The 
 great majority of the Progressives desired Roosevelt, 
 but, since he would say neither yes nor no, they 
 naturally turned to Senator La Follette. And La 
 Follette launched a vigorous campaign for the nomi- 
 nation and was undoubtedly gaining ground except 
 in the East, where some of his views had been re- 
 garded as too extreme even for the Liberals. To his 
 great misfortune, in a speech at Philadelphia on 
 February 2, 191 2, he showed signs of a temporary 
 mental collapse and, although his friends protested 
 that this mishap was not serious, much less perma- 
 nent, he never got back into the running. 
 
 Meanwhile, Roosevelt's nearest zealots not only 
 
 .up 
 
 •*L. . 4 i 
 
350 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 urged upon him the duty of coming out squarely as 
 the Progressive aspirant, but they set up throughout 
 the country their propaganda for him. He received 
 letters by the bushel and every letter appealed to his 
 patriotism and to his sense of duty. The Progressives 
 were in dead earnest. They believed that the coun- 
 try, if not civilization, had reached a crisis on the 
 outcome of which would depend the future health 
 and peace of Society. They had a crusade, not a 
 mere political campaign, ahead of them, and they 
 could not believe that Roosevelt, their peerless 
 champion, would fail them. 
 
 The average person, who calmly sits back in his 
 easy-chair and passes his verdict on the acts of great 
 men, does not always allow for the play of emotions 
 which may have influenced them. What sort of reac- 
 tion must appeals like these have stimulated? How 
 can the unimaginative man, who has never been 
 urged by his fellow townspeople to be even Trustee 
 of the Town library or graveyard, put himself in the 
 place of a Leader, who is told by millions of persons, 
 possibly fanatics but not flatterers, that the destiny 
 of the Nation depends upon his listening to their 
 entreaties? 
 
 Everything conspired to win Roosevelt over: La 
 Follette being eliminated, there was no other Pro- 
 gressive whom the majority would agree upon. The 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 351 
 
 party spoke with only one voice, and uttered only 
 one name. And, presently, the Governors of seven 
 States — Bass of New Hampshire, Hadley of Mis- 
 souri, Osborn of Michigan, Glasscock of West Vir- 
 ginia, Carey of Wyoming, Aldrich of Nebraska, and 
 Stubbs of Kansas — issued an appeal to him which 
 seemed to give an official stamp to the popular en- 
 treaties. Roosevelt's enemies insinuated that the 
 seven Governors had been moved to act at his own 
 instigation, and they tried to belittle the entire 
 movement as a "frame-up," in the common phrase 
 of the day. No doubt he was consulted in the general 
 direction of the campaign; no doubt, being a very 
 alert student of political effects, he suggested many 
 things; but the rush of enthusiasts to him was gen- 
 uine and spontaneous. 
 
 I happened to spend the evening of February 25, 
 1912, with him at the house of Judge Robert Grant 
 in Boston. Judge Grant and I were not politicians, 
 and I, at least, had never voted for a Republican 
 Presidential candidate. But both of us were very old 
 personal friends of the Colonel, and for five hours 
 we three talked with the utmost frankness. He knew 
 that he could trust us, and, I think, he planned to 
 get the views of non-partisan friends before an- 
 nouncing his final decision. Three days earlier, at 
 Columbus, Ohio, he gave a great speech, in which 
 
352 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he proclaimed a new charter for Democracy and 
 vigorously advocated the Initiative, Referendum, 
 and Recall. We discussed these from every side; he 
 got the Outlook in which his speech was printed and 
 read to us passages which he thought corrected pop- 
 ular misunderstanding of it. When I objected to the 
 platform in general, because it would tend to destroy 
 representative government and substitute therefor 
 the whims of the populace at the moment, he replied 
 that we had no representative government. "I can 
 name forty-six Senators," he said, "who secured 
 their seats and hold them by the favor of a Wall 
 Street magnate and his associates, in all parts of the 
 country-. Do you call that popular, representative 
 government?" he asked. 
 
 The evening wore on, and in similar fashion he 
 parried all our criticism. We urged him not to be a 
 candidate, because, we said, we thought that the 
 public ought to be reined in and disciplined, instead 
 of being encouraged to be more lawless and self- 
 willed. I defended our judiciary system and said 
 that the American people needed most of all to be 
 taught respect for the Courts. He explained that his 
 Recall of Judicial Decisions did not mean, as the 
 Opposition alleged, the Recall of Judges. Then we 
 urged him, for the sake of his own future, not to 
 engage in a factional strife which might end his use- 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 353 
 
 fulness to the country, but he brushed aside every 
 argument based on his selfish advantage. "I wish," 
 he said to me, "to draw into one dominant stream 
 all the intelligent and patriotic elements, in order to 
 prepare against the social upheaval which will other- 
 wise overwhelm us." "A great Central Party, such 
 as Cavour founded for the liberation of Italy?" 
 said I. "Exactly," said he. 
 
 The thing which mainly struck me at the time, 
 and which I still vividly remember, was the Colonel's 
 composure throughout all this debate. Vehement he 
 was — because he could not describe even a butterfly 
 without vividness w^hich easily passed into vehe- 
 mence — but he was in no sense mentally over- 
 wrought; nor did he continually return to one sub- 
 ject like a man with an obsession. His humor flashed 
 out, even at his own expense, but he had throughout 
 the underlying gravity of one who knows that he is 
 about to make a very important decision. I mention 
 these facts because at the time, and afterward, 
 Roosevelt's enemies circulated the assertion that 
 his mind was unbalanced, and that this fact ac- 
 counted for his break with the regular Republicans. 
 I have in my hand a printed circular, issued by a 
 Chicago lawyer, offering five thousand dollars apiece 
 to each of several hospitals and other charitable 
 institutions, if Roosevelt would allow himself to be 
 
354 THEODORE ROOSE\'ELT 
 
 examined by competent alienists and they did not 
 pronounce him to be a "madman"! No! he was not 
 mad, but he had the ferv^or, the courage, the im- 
 patience of a Crusader about to undergo ordeal by 
 battle. 
 
 From notes of the conversation Judge Grant made 
 at the time I quote the following. Judge Grant asked: 
 
 "Will any of the party leaders support you?" 
 "No," he said, "none of them; not even Lodge, I think. I 
 don't see how he can. My support will come from the people, 
 officered by a few lieutenants — young men principally like 
 Governor Bass, of New Hampshire." He said that he realized 
 that the probabilities were all against his nomination; that a 
 President in office had all the machinery on his side; but that 
 of course it wouldn't do to admit outside that he expected to 
 lose; that if he could reach the popular vote through direct 
 primaries, he could hope to win. It was manifest that he be- 
 lieved that it was indispensable for the future good of the Re- 
 pul)lican Party that he should make the breach. When he 
 said as much, I asked, "But the situation is complex, I sup- 
 pose? You would like to be President?" "You are right," he 
 replied. " It is complex. I like power; but I care nothing to be 
 President as President. I am interested in these ideas of mine 
 and I want to carry them through, and feel that I am the one 
 to carry them through." He said that he believed the most 
 important questions today were the humanitarian and eco- 
 nomic problems, and intimated that the will of the people 
 had been thwarted in these ways, especially by the courts on 
 constitutional grounds, and that reforms were urgent. 
 
 As I went out into the midnight, I felt sad, as 
 one might after bidding farewell to a friend who has 
 volunteered to lead a forlorn hope. I did not realize 
 
WHICH WAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ? 355 
 
 then the moral depth from which Roosevelt's re- 
 solve came, or that he would rather die for that 
 cause than be victorious in any other. 
 
 The next day, Monday, Februarys 26th, he an- 
 nounced to the country' that he was a candidate for 
 the Republican nomination. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE TWO CONVENTIONS 
 
 DURING the weeks while Roosevelt had been 
 deliberating over "throwing his hat into the 
 ring," his opponents had been busily gathering dele- 
 gates. By this delay they gained a strategic advan- 
 tage. According to the unholy custom which gave 
 to the Republicans in the Southern States a quota 
 of delegates proportioned to the population and not 
 to the number of Republican voters, a large Southern 
 delegation was pledged for ?^Ir. Taft ver^^ early. 
 Most of the few Southern Republicans were either 
 office-holders or negroes; the former naturally sup- 
 ported the Administration on which their living 
 depended; the latter, whose votes were not counted, 
 also supported the President from whom alone they 
 might expect favors. The former slave States elected 
 216 delegates, nearly all of whom went to President 
 Taft, making a ver>^ good start for him. In the 
 Northern, Western, and Pacific States, however, 
 Roosevelt secured a large proportion of the dele- 
 gates. In the system of direct primaries, by which 
 the people indicated their preference instead of hav- 
 ing the candidates chosen in the State Conventions, 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 357 
 
 which were controlled by the Machine, the Progres- 
 sives came out far ahead. Thus, in North Dakota, 
 President Taft had less than 4000 votes out of 48,000 
 cast, the rest going to Roosevelt and La FoUette. In 
 several of the great States he carried everything 
 before him. In Illinois, his majority was 139,000 
 over Taft's; in Pennsylvania, 67 of the 76 delegates 
 went to him. In Ohio, the President's own State, the 
 Taft forces were "snowed under"; in California, a 
 stronghold of Progressivism, Roosevelt had a large 
 plurality. Nevertheless, wherever the Regulars con- 
 trolled the voting, they usually brought President 
 Taft to the front. Even when they could not produce 
 the votes, they managed to send out contesting 
 delegations. 
 
 On looking back, it appears indisputable that if 
 the Republicans could then have cast their ballots 
 they would have been overwhelmingly for Roose- 
 velt; and if the Roosevelt delegates to the Conven- 
 tion had not been hampered in voting, they too 
 would have nominated him. But the elections had 
 been so artfully manipulated that, when the Con- 
 vention met, there were 220 contests. Everybody 
 understood that the final result hung on the way in 
 which these should be decided. 
 
 The Convention assembled in the great Coliseum 
 Hall at Chicago on June 18, 1912. But for ten days 
 
358 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the hosts had been coming in, one delegation after 
 another; the hotels were packed; each committee 
 had its special quarters; crowds of sight-seers, shout- 
 ers, and supporters swelled the multitude. The Re- 
 publican National Committee met; the managers of 
 each candidate met. The committees, which had not 
 yet an ofhcial standing, conferred unofficially. Ru- 
 mors floated from every room; there were secret 
 conferences, attempts to win over delegates, prom- 
 ises to trade votes, and even efforts at concilia- 
 tion. Night and day this wild torrent of excitement 
 rushed on. 
 
 A spectator from Mars might have remarked: 
 "But for so important a business as the choice of a 
 candidate who may become President of the United 
 States, you ought to have quiet, deliberation, free 
 play, not for those who can shout loudest, but for 
 those who can speak wisest." And to this remark, 
 the howling and whirling dervishes who attended 
 the Convention would have replied, if they had 
 waited long enough to hear it through, by yelling, 
 
 "Hail! Hail! the gang's all here! 
 What the hell do we care? 
 What the hell do we care?" 
 
 and would have darted off to catch up with their fel- 
 low Bacchanals. A smell of cocktails and of whiskey 
 was ubiquitous; a dense pall of tobacco smoke per- 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 359 
 
 vaded the committee-rooms; and out of doors the 
 clang of brass bands drowned even the incessant 
 noise of the throngs. There was no night, for the 
 myriads of electric lights made shadows but no dark- 
 ness, and you wondered when these strange crea- 
 tures slept. 
 
 Such Saturnalia did not begin with the Conven- 
 tion of 1 91 2. Most of those who took part in them 
 hardly thought it a paradox that these should be 
 the conditions under which the Americans nomi- 
 nated their candidates for President. 
 
 Roosevelt had not intended to appear at the 
 Convention, but when he discovered that the long- 
 distance telephone from Chicago to Oyster Bay, by 
 which his managers conferred with him, was being 
 tapped, he changed his mind. He perceived, also, 
 that there was a lack of vigorous leadership among 
 those managers which demanded his presence. By 
 going, he would call down much adverse criticism, 
 even from some of those persons whose support he 
 needed. On the other hand, he would immensely 
 strengthen his cause in Chicago, where the mere 
 sight of him would stimulate enthusiasm. 
 
 So he and Mrs. Roosevelt took the five-thirty 
 afternoon train to Chicago, on Friday, June 14th, 
 leaving as privately as possible, and accompanied 
 by seven or eight of their children and cousins. Late 
 
36o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 on Saturday, the train, having narrowly escaped 
 being wrecked by an accident, reached Chicago. At 
 the station there was an enormous crowd. Roose- 
 velt's young kinsmen kept \ery close to him and 
 wedged their way to an automobile. With the great- 
 est difficulty his car slowly proceeded to the Con- 
 gress Hotel. Never was there such a furor of welcome. 
 Everybody wore a Roosevelt button. Ever>^body 
 cheered for ''Teddy." Here and there they passed 
 State delegations bearing banners and mottoes. 
 Rough Riders, who had come in their well-worn uni- 
 forms, added to the Rooseveltian exultation. Who- 
 ever judged by this demonstration must think it 
 impossible that the Colonel could be defeated. 
 
 After he and his party had been shown to the 
 suites reserved for them, he went out on the balcony 
 of a second-floor room and spoke a few words to the 
 immense multitude waiting below. He said, in sub- 
 stance, that he was glad to find from their cheers 
 that Chicago did not believe in the thieves who stole 
 delegates. Some who saw him say that his face was 
 red with anger; others aver that he was no more 
 vehement than usual, and simply strained himself 
 to the utmost to make his voice carry throughout his 
 audience. Still, if he said what they report, he was 
 not politic. 
 
 Then followed days and nights of incessant strain. 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 361 
 
 The Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt had their personal 
 apartment in the northeast corner of the hotel, at 
 some distance from the Florentine Room, which 
 served as the official headquarters for the Progres- 
 sives. He had, besides, a private office with a recep- 
 tion-room, and Tyree, one of the devoted detectives 
 who had serv^ed under him in old times, carefully 
 guarded the. entrance. There was hardly a moment 
 when one or two persons were not closeted with him. 
 Occasionally, he would come out into the reception- 
 room and speak to the throng waiting there. No 
 matter what the news, no matter how early or late 
 the hour, he was always cheerful, and the mere sight 
 of him brought joy and confidence to his followers. 
 The young kinsmen went everywhere and brought 
 back reports of what they had seen or heard. One of 
 them kept a diar>^ of the events as they whirled past, 
 hour by hour, and in this one can note many of the 
 fleeting but vivid touches, which recall to the reader 
 now the reality of those feverish days. He attended 
 a big Taft rally at the Taft headquarters. Bell-bo^'s 
 ran up and down the hotel corridors announcing 
 it. "After each announcement," writes the young 
 cousin, "a group of Roosevelt men would cry out, 
 'All postmasters attend!'" Two Taftites spoke 
 briefly and "were greeted by a couple of hand- 
 claps apiece; and then the star performer of the 
 
362 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 evening was announced in the most glowing terms 
 as a model of political propriety, and the foremost 
 and most upright citizen of the United States — 
 William Barnes, Jr., of Albany." Mr. Barnes was 
 supposed, at that time, to lead the New York Repub- 
 lican Machine. "We have got to save the country," 
 he said, "save the constitution, save our liberty. 
 We are in danger of monarchy. The country must be 
 saved!!" The Roosevelt cousin thought that he 
 spoke "without fervor to a listless, sedate, and very 
 polite audience. It was made all the more preposter- 
 ous by the fact that a very ancient colored gentle- 
 man stood back of Barnes, and whenever Barnes 
 paused, would point to the crowd and feebly begin 
 clapping his hands. They would then slowly and 
 very politely take up the applause, in every case 
 waiting for his signal. It was almost pathetic." 
 
 At one time the Roosevelt scouts alleged that 
 "Timothy Woodruff is wavering, with four other 
 delegates, and will soon fall to us," and told "of dele- 
 gates flopping over, here and there." A still more ex- 
 traordinary^ piece of news came from Hooker to the 
 effect that he had in some way intercepted a tele- 
 gram "from Murray Crane to his nephew saying 
 that Crane and Barnes would 'fight or ruin' and 
 that it was now 'use any means and sacrifice the 
 Republican Party.' Had it not been for the way he 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 363 
 
 told us, I could n't have believed such a thing 
 possible." 
 
 Rumors like these were not verified at the time, 
 and they are assuredly unverifiable now. I repeat 
 them merely to show how suspense and excitement 
 were constantly fed before the Convention met. 
 Remembering how long ex-Senator Crane and Mr. 
 Barnes had had their hands on the throttle of the 
 Republican Machine, we are not surprised at the 
 young Rooseveltian's statement: "The Taft forces 
 control anything that has to do with machiner^s but 
 all the feeling is for Roosevelt, and the Congress 
 Hotel, at any rate, favors the 'Big Noise,' as you 
 will sometimes hear him called in the lobbies or in 
 the streets." Apparently, stump speeches were made 
 at any moment, and without provocation, in any 
 hall, room, or lobby of the hotel, by any one who 
 felt the spirit move him; and, lest silence should 
 settle down and soothe the jaded nerves, a band 
 would strike up unexpectedly. The marching to and 
 fro of unrestrained gangs, shouting, "We- want- 
 Teddy!" completed the pandemonium. 
 
 Monday came. The young scouts were as busy as 
 ever In following the trails which led to Taft activ- 
 ities. The news they had to tell was always very 
 cheering. They found little enthusiasm among the 
 President's supporters. They heard, from the most 
 
364 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 trustworthy sources, that this or that Taft leader or 
 delegation was coming over. And, in truth, the Taft 
 body probably did not let off a tenth of the noise 
 which their opponents indulged in. The shallows 
 murmur, but the deeps are dumb, does not exactly 
 apply to the two opposing hosts. The Taft men re- 
 sorted very little to shouting, because they knew 
 that if they were to win at all it must be by other 
 means. The Rooseveltians, on the other hand, really 
 felt a compelling surge of enthusiasm which they 
 must uncork. 
 
 Meanwhile Colonel Roosevelt and his lieutenants 
 knew that the enemy was perfecting his plan to de- 
 feat them. On Monday evening his zealots packed 
 the Auditorium and he poured himself out to them 
 in one of his torrential speeches calculated to rouse 
 the passions rather than the minds of his hearers. 
 But it fitly symbolized the situation. He, the daunt- 
 less leader, stood there, the soul of sincerity and 
 courage, impressing upon them all that they were 
 engaged in a most solemn cause and defying the 
 opposition as if it were a legion of evil spirits. His 
 closing words — "We stand at Armageddon and 
 we battle for the Lord" — summed it all up so com- 
 pletely that the audience burst into a roar of ap- 
 proval, and never doubted that he spoke the truth. 
 
 Tuesday at noon, a crowd of fifteen thousand per- 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 365 
 
 sons, delegates and visitors, packed the vast Con- 
 vention Hall of the Coliseum. Mr. Victor Rosewater, 
 of Nebraska, presided at the opening. As it was 
 known that the Republican National Committee in- 
 tended to place on the temporary roll of delegates 
 seventy-two names of persons whose seats were 
 contested, Governor Hadley, of Missouri, made a mo- 
 tion that only those delegates, whose right was not 
 contested, should sit and vote during the prelimi- 
 nan>' proceedings. Had he been successful, the Regu- 
 lars would have lost the battle from the beginning. 
 But he was ruled out of order on the ground that the 
 only business before the Convention was the election 
 of a Temporar>^ Chairman. This took place, and Sen- 
 ator Root, from New York, was elected by 558 votes; 
 McGovern, the Roosevelt candidate, received 501 
 votes; there were 14 scattering, and 5 persons did 
 not vote. Senator Root, therefore, w^on his election 
 by 38 votes over the combined opposition, but his 
 plurality was secured by the votes of the 72 whose 
 seats were contested. 
 
 During the three following days the Roosevelt 
 men fought desperately to secure what they believed 
 to be justice. They challenged every delegate, they 
 demanded a roll-call on the slightest excuse, they 
 deluged the Regulars with alternate showers of sar- 
 casm and anger. But it availed them nothing. They 
 
366 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 soon perceived that victoty lay with the Republican 
 National Committee, which had the organization of 
 the Convention and the framing of the rules of pro- 
 cedure. The Taft people, the Regulars, controlled 
 the National Committee, and they knew that the 
 rules would do the rest, especially since the Chair- 
 man of the Convention, Senator Root, was the inter- 
 preter of the rules. 
 
 At no other National Convention in American his- 
 tors' did a Chairman keep his head and his temper 
 so admirably as did Mr. Root on this occasion. His 
 intellect, burning with a cold, wiiite light, illumined 
 every point, but betrayed no heat of passion. He ap- 
 plied the rules as impartially as if they were theorems 
 of algebra. Time after time the Rooseveltians pro- 
 tested against the holders of contested seats to vote, 
 but he was unmoved because the rule prescribed 
 that the person had a right to vote. When the con- 
 tests were taken up, the Taft men always won, the 
 Roosevelt men alwa^^s lost. The Machine went as if 
 by clock-work or like the guillotine. More than once 
 some Rooseveltian leader, like Governor Hadley, 
 stung by a particularly shocking display of over- 
 bearing injustice, taunted the majority with shouts 
 of "Robbers" and "Theft." Roars of passion swept 
 through the hall. The derision of the minority was 
 countered by the majority with equal vigor, but the 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 367 
 
 majority did not always feel, in spite of its truculent 
 manner, confident of the outcome. 
 
 By what now seems shameless theft, the Creden- 
 tials Committee approved the seating of two Taft 
 delegates from California, in spite of the fact that the 
 proper officials of that State had certified that its 
 twenty-six delegates were all for Roosevelt, and had 
 been elected by a majority of 76,000 votes. Chairman 
 Root put the question to the Convention, however, 
 and those two discredited delegates were admitted 
 for Taft by a vote of 542 to 529. This indicates how 
 close the Convention then stood, when a change of 
 seven votes would have given Roosevelt a majority 
 of one and have added to his list the two California 
 delegates who were counted out. Had such a change 
 taken place, those who watched the Convention 
 believed there would have been a "landslide" to 
 Roosevelt. But the Republican Committee's sorely 
 tested rules held. After that, the Rooseveltians saw 
 no gleam of hope. 
 
 On Saturday, June 22d, the list of delegates to the 
 Convention having been drawn up as the Republican 
 Machine intended, Mr. Taft was nominated by a 
 vote of 561; Roosevelt received 107, La FoUette 
 41, Cummins 17, Hughes 2; 344 delegates did not 
 vote. The last were all Roosevelt men, but they had 
 been requested by Roosevelt to refuse to vote. 
 
368 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Through ]\Ir. Henrys J. Allen, of Kansas, he sent 
 this message: 
 
 The Convention has now declined to purge the roll of the 
 fraudulent delegates placed thereon by the defunct National 
 Committee, and the majority which thus endorsed fraud was 
 made a majority only because it included the fraudulent dele- 
 gates themselves, who all sat as judges on one another's cases. 
 If these fraudulent votes had not thus been cast and counted 
 the Convention would have been purged of their presence. 
 This action makes the Convention in no proper sense any 
 longer a Republican Convention representing the real Re- 
 publican Party. Therefore, I hope the men elected as Roose- 
 velt delegates will now decline to vote on any matter before 
 the Convention. I do not release any delegate from his hon- 
 orable obligation to vote for me if he votes at all, but under 
 the actual conditions I hope that he will not vote at all. 
 
 The Convention as now composed has no claim to represent 
 the voters of the Republican Party. It represents nothing but 
 successful fraud in overriding the will of the rank and file of 
 the party. Any man nominated by the Convention as now 
 constituted would be merely the beneficiary of this successful 
 fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to accept 
 the Convention's nomination under these circumstances; and 
 any man thus accepting it would have no claim to the support 
 of any Republican on party grounds, and would have forfeited 
 the right to ask the support of any honest man of any party 
 on moral grounds. 
 
 Mr. Allen concluded with these words of his own: 
 
 We do not bolt. We merely insist that you, not we, are 
 making the record. And we refuse to be bound by it. We have 
 pleaded with you ten days. We have fought with you five 
 days for a square deal. We fight no more, we plead no longer. 
 We shall sit in protest and the people who sent us here shall 
 judge us. 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 369 
 
 Gentlemen, you accuse us of being radical. Let me tell you 
 that no radical in the ranks of radicalism ever did so radical 
 a thing as to come to a National Convention of the great 
 Republican Party and secure through fraud the nomination 
 of a man whom they knew could not be elected.^ 
 
 Every night during that momentous week the 
 Roosevelt delegates met in the Congress Hotel, 
 talked over the day's proceedings, gave vent to their 
 indignation, confirmed each other's resolution, and 
 took a decision as to their future action. The powerful 
 Hiram Johnson, Governor of California, led them, 
 and through his eloquence he persuaded all but 107 
 of them to stand by Roosevelt whether he w^ere nom- 
 inated by the Convention or not. 
 
 And this they did. For when the vote for the nom- 
 ination was taken at the Convention only 107 of the 
 Roosevelt men cast their ballots. They favored 
 Roosevelt, but they were not prepared to quit the 
 Republican Party. During the roll-call the Roose- 
 velt delegates from Massachusetts refused to vote. 
 Thereupon, Mr. Root, the Chairman, ruled that they 
 must vote, to which Frederick Fosdick replied, when 
 his name was read again, "Present, and not voting. I 
 defy the Convention to make me vote for any man " ; 
 and seventeen other Roosevelt delegates refrained. 
 Mr. Root then called up the alternates of these ab- 
 
 1 Fifteenth Republican National Convention (New York, 1912), 333, 
 335- 
 
370 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 stainers and three of them recorded their votes for 
 Taft, but there was such a demonstration against 
 this ruling that Mr. Root thought better of it and 
 proceeded in it no farther. Many of his RepubHcan 
 associates at the time thought this action high- 
 handed and unjustified, and many more agree in 
 this opinion today. 
 
 Except for this grave error, Mr. Root's ruHngs 
 were strictly according to the precedents and di- 
 rections of the Republican National Committee, and 
 we may believe that even he saw the sardonic humor 
 of his unvar>' ing application of them at the expense of 
 the Rooseveltians. Before the first day's session was 
 over, the process was popularly called the "steam 
 roller." Late in the week, a delegate rose to a point 
 of order, and on being recognized by the Chairman, 
 he shouted that he wished to call the attention of the 
 Chairman to the fact that the steam roller was ex- 
 ceeding its speed limit, at which Mr. Root replied, 
 "The Chairman rules that the gentleman's point of 
 order is well taken." And everybody laughed. 
 
 There was one dramatic moment which, as Dean 
 Lewis remarks, has had no counterpart in a National 
 Convention. When the Machine had succeeded, in 
 spite of protests and evidence, in stealing the two 
 delegates from California, the friends of Mr. Taft 
 gave triumphant cheers. Then the Roosevelt men 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 371 
 
 rose up as one man and sent forth a mighty cheer 
 which astonished their opponents. It was a cheer in 
 which wxre mingled indignation and scorn, and, 
 above all, relief. Strictly interpreted, it meant that 
 those men who had sat for four days and seen their 
 wishes thwarted, by what they regarded as fraud, 
 and had held on in the belief that this fraud could 
 not continue to the end, that a sense of fairness would 
 return and rule the Regulars, now realized that Fraud 
 would concede nothing and that their Cause was 
 lost. And they felt a great load lifted. No obligation 
 bound them any longer to the Republican Party 
 which had renounced honesty in its principles and 
 fair play in its practice. Henceforth they could go 
 out and take any step they chose to promote their 
 Progressive doctrines.-^ 
 
 Shortly after the Convention adjourned, having, 
 by these methods, nominated Mr. Taft and James S. 
 Sherman for President and Vice-President, the Roose- 
 veltians held a great meeting in Orchestra Hall. 
 Governor Johnson presided and apparently a major- 
 ity of the Rooseveltians wished, then and there, to 
 organize a new party and to nominate Roosevelt as 
 its candidate. Several men made brief but earnest 
 addresses. Then Roosevelt himself spoke, and al- 
 though he lacked nothing of his usual vehemence, 
 
 1 Lewis, 363. 
 
372 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he seemed to be controlled by a sense of the solem- 
 nity of their purpose. He told them that it was no 
 more a question of Progressivism, which he ardently 
 believed in, but a question of fundamental honesty 
 and right, which ever}' body ought to believe in and 
 uphold. He advised them to go to their homes, to 
 discuss the crisis with their friends; to gain what ad- 
 herence and support they could, and to return in two 
 months and formally organize their party and nom- 
 inate their candidate for President. And he added: 
 "If you wish me to make the fight, I will make it, 
 even if only one State should support me. The only 
 condition I impose is that you shall feel entirely free, 
 when you come together, to substitute any other 
 man in my place, if you deem it better for the move- 
 ment, and in such case, I will give him my heartiest 
 support." 
 
 And so the defeated majority of the Republicans 
 at Chicago, Republicans no longer, broke up. There 
 were many earnest hand-shakings, many pledges to 
 meet again in August, and to take up the great work. 
 Those who intended to stay by the Republican Party, 
 not less than those who cast their lot with the Pro- 
 gressives, bade farewell, with deep emotion, to the 
 Leader whom they had wished to see at the head of 
 the Republican Party. Chief among these was Gov- 
 ernor Hadle}-, of Missouri, who at one moment, dur- 
 
o 
 
 THE TWO CONVENTIONS 37 
 
 ing the Convention, seemed likely to be brought for- 
 ward by the Regulars as a compromise candidate. 
 Some of the Progressives resented his defection from 
 them; not so Roosevelt, who said: "He will not be 
 with us, but we must not blame him." 
 
 Six weeks later, the Progressives returned to Chi- 
 cago. Again, Roosevelt had his headquarters at the 
 Congress Hotel. Again, the delegates, among whom 
 were several women, met at the Coliseum. Crowds of 
 enthusiastic supporters and larger crowds of curiosity- 
 seekers swarmed into the vast building. On Monday, 
 August 5, the first session of the Progressive Party's 
 Convention was held. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, 
 of Indiana, made the opening address, in which he 
 defined the principles of their party and the objects 
 it hoped to obtain. Throughout the proceedings 
 there was much enthusiasm, but no battle. It was 
 rather the gathering of several thousand very ear- 
 nest men and women bent on consecrating them- 
 selves to a new Cause, which they believed to be the 
 paramount Cause for the political, economic, and 
 social welfare of their country. Nearly all of them 
 were Idealists, eager to secure the victory of some 
 special reform. And, no doubt, an impartial observer 
 might have detected among them traces of that 
 "lunatic fringe," which Roosevelt himself had long 
 ago humorously remarked clung to the skirts of every 
 
374 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 reform. But the whole body, judged without preju- 
 dice, probably contained the largest number of disin- 
 terested, public-spirited, and devoted persons, who 
 had ever met for a national and political object since 
 the group which formed the Republican Party in 
 
 1854. 
 
 The professional politician who usually prepon- 
 derates in such Conventions, and, in the last, had 
 usurped control both of the proceedings and decisions, 
 had little place here. The chief topic of discussion 
 turned on the admission of negro delegates from the 
 South. Roosevelt believed that an attempt to create 
 a negro Progressive Party, as such, would alienate 
 the Southern whites and would certainly sharpen 
 their hostility towards the blacks. Therefore, he ad- 
 vised that the negro delegates ought to be approved 
 by the White Progressives in their several districts. 
 In other words, the Progressive Party in the South 
 should be a white party with such colored members 
 as the whites found acceptable. 
 
 On Monday and Tuesday the work done in the 
 Convention was much less important than that done 
 by the Committee on Resolutions and by the Com- 
 mittee on Credentials. On Wednesday the Conven- 
 tion heard and adopted the Platform and then nomi- 
 nated Roosevelt by acclamation. Miss Jane Addams, 
 of Hull House, Chicago, seconded the nomination, 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 375 
 
 praising Roosevelt as "one of the few men in our 
 public life who has been responsive to modern move- 
 ment." "The program, " she said, "will need a leader 
 of invincible courage, of open mind, of democratic 
 sympathies — one endowed with power to inter- 
 pret the common man, and to identify himself with 
 the common lot." Governor Hiram Johnson, from 
 California, was nominated for Vice-President. Over 
 the platform, to which the candidates were escorted, 
 hung Kipling's stanza : 
 
 "For there is neither East nor West, 
 Border nor breed nor birth. 
 When two strong men stand face to face, 
 
 Though they come from the ends of the earth." 
 
 Portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, 
 and Hamilton, a sufficiently inclusive group of patri- 
 ots, looked down upon them. After Roosevelt and 
 Johnson addressed the audience, the trombones 
 sounded "Old Hundred" and the great meeting 
 closed to the words — • 
 
 "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 
 
 The Progressive Platform contained many planks 
 which have since been made law^s by the Democratic 
 Party, which read the signs of the times more quickly 
 than did the Republicans. Especially many of the 
 suggestions relating to Labor, the improvement of 
 the currency, the control of corporate wealth, and 
 
376 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 oversight over public hygiene, should be commended. 
 In general, it promised to bring the Government 
 nearer to the people by gi\'ing the people a more and 
 more direct right over the Government. It declared 
 for a rational tariff and the creation of a non-partisan 
 Tariff Commission of experts, and it denounced 
 alike the Republicans for the Payne-Aldrich Bill, 
 which dishonestly revised upwards, and the Demo- 
 crats, who wished to abolish protection altogether. 
 It urged proper military and naval preparation and 
 the building of two battleships a year — a plank 
 which we can imagine Roosevelt wrote in with pecul- 
 iar satisfaction. It advocated direct primaries; the 
 conservation of natural resources; woman suffrage. 
 So rapidl>' has the country progressed in seven 
 years that most of the recommendations have al- 
 ready been adopted, and are among the common- 
 places which nobody disputes any longer. But the 
 Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall of Judi- 
 cial Decisions were the points, as I remarked above, 
 over which the country debated most hotly. The Re- 
 call, in particular, created a w^idespread alarm, and 
 just as Roosevelt's demand for it in his Columbus 
 speech prevented, as I believe, his nomination by the 
 Republican Convention in June, so it deprived the 
 Progressives at the election in November of scores of 
 thousands of votes. The people of the United States 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 377 
 
 — every person who owned a bit of property, a stock 
 or a bond, or who had ten dollars or more in the sav- 
 ings bank — looked upon it almost with consterna- 
 tion. For they knew that they were living in a time of 
 flux, when old standards were melting away like snow 
 images in the sun, when new ideals, untried and based 
 on the negation of some of the oldest principles in 
 our civilization, were being pushed forward. They in- 
 stinctively rallied to uphold Law, the slow product 
 of centuries of growth, the sheet anchor of Society 
 in a time of change. Where could we look for solidity, 
 or permanence, if judicial decisions could be recalled 
 at the caprice of the mob — the hysterical, the un- 
 instructed, the fickle mob? The opinion of one 
 trained and honest judge outweighs the whims of 
 ten thousand of the social dregs. 
 
 The Recall of Judicial Decisions, therefore, caused 
 many of Roosevelt's friends, and even Republicans 
 who would otherwise have supported him, to balk. 
 They not only rejected the proposal itself, but they 
 feared that he, by making it, indicated that he had 
 lost his judgment and was being swept into the vor- 
 tex of revolution. Judges and courts and respect for 
 law, like lighthouses on granite foundations, must be 
 kept safe from the fluctuations of tides and the 
 crash of tempests. 
 
 The campaign which followed Is chiefly remark- 
 
378 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 able for Roosevelt's amazing activity. He felt that 
 the success of the Progressive Party at the polls de- 
 pended upon him as its Leader. The desire for per- 
 sonal success in any contest into which he plunged 
 would have been a great incentive, but this was a 
 cause which dwarfed any personal considerations of 
 his. Senator Joseph M. Dixon, of Montana, managed 
 the campaign; Roosevelt himself gave it a dynamic 
 impulse which never flagged. He went to the Pacific 
 Coast, speaking at every important centre on the 
 way, and returning through the Southern States to 
 New York City. In September he swept through 
 New England, and he was making a final tour 
 through the Middle West, when, on October 14th, 
 just as he was leaving his hotel to make a speech in 
 the Auditorium in Milwaukee, a lunatic named John 
 Schranck shot him with a revolver. The bullet en- 
 tered his body about an inch below the right nipple 
 and would probably have been fatal but for an eye- 
 glass-case and a roll of manuscript he had in his 
 pocket. Before the assassin could shoot again, his 
 hand was caught and deflected by the Colonel's 
 secretary. "Don't hurt the poor creature," Roose- 
 velt said, when Schranck was overpowered and 
 brought before him. Not knowing the extent of his 
 wound, and waiting only long enough to return to 
 his hotel room and change his white shirt, as the 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 379 
 
 bosom of the one he had on was soaked with blood, 
 and disregarding the entreaties of his companions to 
 stay quiet, he went to the Auditorium and spoke for 
 more than an hour. Only towards the end did the 
 audience perceive that he showed signs of fatigue. 
 This extraordinary performance was most foolhardy, 
 and some of his carping critics said that, as usual, 
 Roosevelt wanted to be theatrical. But there was no 
 such purpose in him. He felt to the depths of his soul 
 that neither his safety nor that of any other indi- 
 vidual counted in comparison with the triumph of 
 the Cause he was fighting for. 
 
 After a brief examination the surgeons stated that 
 he had better be removed to the Mercy Hospital in 
 Chicago. They put him on his special car and by an 
 incredible negligence they sent him off to make the 
 night journey without any surgical attendant. On 
 reaching the Mercy Hospital, Dr. Ryan made a 
 further examination and reported that there seemed 
 to be no immediate danger, although he could not 
 be sure whether the Colonel would live or not. 
 Roosevelt, who was advertised to make a great 
 speech in Louisville, Kentucky, that evening, sum- 
 moned Senator Beveridge and sent him off with the 
 manuscript of the address to take his place. Mrs. 
 Roosevelt reached Chicago by the first train possi- 
 ble, and stayed with him while he underwent, impa- 
 
38o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 tiently, nearly a fortnight's convalescence. Then, 
 much sooner than the surgeons thought wise, al- 
 though his wound had healed with remarkable speed, 
 he returned to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th he 
 closed his campaign by addressing sixteen thousand 
 persons in the Madison Square Garden. He spoke 
 with unwonted calm and judicial poise; and so ear- 
 nestly that the conviction which he felt carried con- 
 viction to many who heard him. " I am glad beyond 
 measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who 
 in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent, 
 pledged to fight, while life lasts, the great fight for 
 righteousness and for brotherhood and for the wel- 
 fare of mankind." 
 
 President Taft and the members of his Cabinet 
 took little or no active part in the campaign. Indeed, 
 the Republicans seemed unable to arouse enthusi- 
 asm. They relied upon their past victories and the 
 robust campaign fund, which the Interests gladly 
 Furnished. The Democratic candidate was Woodrow 
 Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, who had been pro- 
 fessor at Princeton University, and then its president. 
 As Governor, he had commended himself by fighting 
 the Machine, and by advocating radical measures. 
 As candidate, he asserted his independence by de- 
 claring that "a party platform is not a program." 
 He spoke effectively, and both he and his party 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 381 
 
 had the self-complacency that comes to persons who 
 believe that they are sure to win. And how could 
 their victory be in doubt since the united Democrats 
 had for opponents the divided Republicans? When 
 Colonel Roosevelt was shot, Governor Wilson mag- 
 nanimously announced that he would make no more 
 speeches. Roosevelt objected to this, believing that 
 a chance accident to him, personally, ought not to 
 stop any one from criticising him politically. "What- 
 ever could with truth and propriety have been said 
 against me and my cause before I was shot, can," he 
 urged, "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 before. This 
 is not a contest about any man; it is a contest con- 
 cerning principles." 
 
 At the election on November 5th, Wilson was 
 elected by 6,286,000 votes out of 15,310,000 votes, 
 thus being a minority President by two million and 
 a half votes. Roosevelt received 4,126,000 and Taft 
 3,483,000 votes. The combined vote of what had 
 been the Republican Party amounted to 7,609,000 
 votes, or 1,323,000 more than those received by Mr. 
 Wilson. When it came to the Electoral College, the 
 result was even more significant. Wilson had 435, 
 Roosevelt 88, and Taft, thanks to Vermont and 
 
382 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Utah, secured 8 votes. Roosevelt carried Pennsyl- 
 vania the rock- bound Republican State, Missouri 
 which was usually Democratic, South Dakota, 
 Washington, Michigan, and eleven out of the thir- 
 teen votes of California. These figures, analyzed 
 calmly, after the issues and passions have cooled into 
 history, indicate two things. First, the amazing per- 
 sonal popularity of Roosevelt, who, against the oppo- 
 sition of the Republican Machine and all its ramifi- 
 cations, had so easily defeated President Taft, the 
 candidate of that Machine. And secondly, it proved 
 that Roosevelt, and not Taft, really represented a 
 large majority of what had been the Republican 
 Party. Therefore, it was the Taft faction which, in 
 spite of the plain evidence given at the choice of the 
 delegates, and at the Convention itself — evidence 
 which the Machine tried to ignore and suppress — 
 it was the Taft faction and not Roosevelt which 
 split the Republican Party in 191 2. 
 
 Had it allowed the preference of the majority to 
 express itself by the nomination of Roosevelt, there 
 is every reason to believe that he would have been 
 elected. For we must remember that the Democratic 
 Platform was hardly less progressive than that of 
 the Progressives themselves. Counting the Wilson 
 and the Roosevelt vote together, we find 10,412,000 
 votes were cast for Progressive principles against 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 383 
 
 3,483,000 votes for the reactionary Conservatives. 
 And yet the gray wolves of the RepubHcan Party, and 
 its Old Guard, and its Machine, proclaimed to the 
 country that its obsolescent doctrines represented 
 the desires and the ideals of the United States in 
 1912! 
 
 Although the campaign, as conducted by the 
 Republicans, seemed listless, it did not lack venom. 
 Being a family fight between the Taft men and the 
 Roosevelt men, it had the bitterness which family 
 quarrels develop. Mr. Taft and most of his Secre- 
 taries had known the methods of Mr. Roosevelt and 
 his Ministers. They could counter, therefore, charges 
 of incompetence and indifference by recalling the 
 inconsistencies, or worse, of Roosevelt's regime. 
 When the Progressives charged the Taft Adminis- 
 tration with being easy on the Big Interests, Attor- 
 ney-General Wickersham resorted to a simple sum 
 in arithmetic in order to contradict them, showing 
 that whereas Roosevelt began forty-four Anti-Trust 
 suits, and concluded only four important cases dur- 
 ing his seven and a half years in office, under Taft 
 sixty-six new suits were begun and many of the old 
 ones were successfully concluded. Some great cases, 
 like that of the Standard Oil and of the Railroad 
 Rates, had been settled, which equaled in impor- 
 tance any that Roosevelt had taken up. In the course 
 
384 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 of debate on the stump, each side made virulent 
 accusations against the other, and things were said 
 which were not true then and have long since been 
 regretted by the sayers. That happens in all political 
 contests. 
 
 Roosevelt himself, being the incarnation, if not 
 indeed the cause, of the Progressive Party, had to 
 endure an incessant volley of personal attack. They 
 charged him with inordinate ambition. We heard 
 how Mr. William Barnes, Jr., the would-be savior of 
 the country, implied that Roosevelt must be de- 
 feated in order to prevent the establishment of mon- 
 archy in the United States. Probably Mr. Barnes, in 
 his moments of reflection, admitted to himself that 
 he did not really mean that, but many campaign 
 orators and editors repeated the insinuation and be- 
 sought free-born Americans not to elect a candidate 
 who would assume the title of King Theodore. Many 
 of his critics could account for his leaving the Repub- 
 lican Party and heading another, only on the theory 
 that he was moved by a desire for revenge. If he 
 could not rule he would ruin. The old allegation that 
 he must be crazy was of course revived. 
 
 After the election, the Republican Regulars, who 
 had stubbornly refused to read the handwriting on 
 the wall during the previous four years, heaped new 
 abuse upon him. They said that he had betrayed the 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 385 
 
 Party. They said that he had shown himself an in- 
 grate towards Taft, whose achievements in the 
 Presidency awoke his envy. And more recently, 
 many persons who have loathed the Administration 
 of President Wilson, blame Roosevelt for having 
 brought down this curse upon the country. 
 
 These various opinions and charges seem to me to 
 be mistaken; and in the foregoing chapters, if I have 
 truly divined Theodore Roosevelt's character, every 
 reader should see that his action in entering the field 
 for the Republican nomination in 19 12, and then in 
 founding the Progressive Party, was the perfectly 
 natural culmination of his career. Some one said that 
 he went off at a tangent in 1912. Some one else has 
 said better that this tangent was a straight line lead- 
 ing back to 1882, when he sat in the New York 
 Assembly. Remember that the love of Justice was 
 from boyhood his leading principle. Remember that, 
 after he succeeded in having a law passed relieving 
 the miserably poor cigar-makers from the hideous 
 conditions under which they had to work, a judge 
 declared the law unconstitutional, thereby proving 
 to Roosevelt that the courts, which should be the 
 citadels of Justice, might and did, in this case, care 
 more for the financial interests of landowners than 
 for the health, life, and soul of human beings. That 
 example of injustice was branded on his heart, and 
 
386 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he resolved to combat the judicial league with in- 
 humanity, wherever he met it. So Abraham Lincoln, 
 when, at the age of twenty-two he first saw a slave 
 auction in New Orleans, said, in indignant horror, 
 to his companion, John Hanks: "If I ever get a 
 chance to hit that thing [meaning slavery] I '11 hit it 
 hard." Exactly thirty years later, Abraham Lincoln, 
 as President, was hitting that thing — slavery — so 
 hard that it perished. Roosevelt's experience as 
 Assemblyman, as Civil Service Commissioner, as 
 Police Commissioner, as Governor, and as President, 
 had confirmed his belief that the decisions of the 
 courts often stood between the People and Justice. 
 Especially in his war on the Interests was he an- 
 gered at finding corporate abuses, and even criminal 
 methods, comfortably protected by an upholstery 
 of favoring laws. With that tact and willingness to 
 compromise on non-essentials in order to gain his 
 essential object, which mark him as a statesman, he 
 used the Republican Party, naturally the party of 
 the plutocrats who controlled the Interests, just as 
 long as he could. Then, when the Republican Ma- 
 chine rose against him, he quitted it and founded 
 the Progressive Party, to be the instrument for 
 carrying on and completing the great reforms he had 
 at heart. Here was no desertion, no betrayal; here 
 was, first of all, common sense; if the road no longer 
 
THE TWO CONVENTIONS 387 
 
 leads towards your goal, you leave it and take an- 
 other. No one believed more sincerely than Roose- 
 velt did, in fealty to party. In 1884 he would not 
 bolt, because he hoped that the good which the 
 Republican principles would accomplish would more 
 than offset the harm which the nomination of Blaine 
 would inflict. But in 1912, the Republicans cynically 
 rejected his cause which he had tried to make the 
 Republican cause, and then, as in 1884, he held that 
 the cause was more important than the individual, 
 and he followed this idea loyally, lead where it 
 might. 
 
 In trying thus to state Roosevelt's position fairly, 
 I do not mean to imply that I should agree with his 
 conclusions in regard to the Recall of the Judicial 
 Decisions; and the experiments which have already 
 been made with the Referendum and Initiative and 
 Direct Primaries are so unsatisfactory that Roose- 
 velt himself would probably have recognized that 
 the doubts, which many of us felt when he first pro- 
 posed those measures, have been justified. But I 
 wish to emphasize my admiration for the large con- 
 sistency of his career, and my conviction that, with- 
 out his crowning action in 191 2, he would have failed 
 to be the moral force which he was. If ambition, if 
 envy, if a selfish desire to rule, had been the motives 
 which guided him, he would have lain low in 191 2; 
 
388 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 for all his friends and the managers of the Repub- 
 lican Party assured him that if he would stand aside 
 then, he would be unanimously nominated by the 
 Republicans in 1916. But he could not be tempted. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 
 
 THEY will be throwing rotten apples at me 
 soon," Theodore had said to his sister, on the 
 day when New York went frantic in placing him 
 among the gods. His treatment, after he championed 
 Progressivism, showed him to be clairv'Oyant. Not 
 only did his political opponents belabor him — that 
 was quite natural — but his friends, having failed to 
 persuade him not to take the fatal leap, let him see 
 plainly that, while he still had their affection, they 
 had lost their respect for his judgment. He himself 
 bore the defeat of 19 12 with the same valiant cheer- 
 fulness with which he took every disappointment 
 and thwarting. But he was not stolid, much less in- 
 different. '*It is all very well to talk with the Cru- 
 sading spirit," he said after the election, "and of the 
 duty to spend and be spent; and I feel it absolutely 
 as regards myself; but I hate to see my Crusading 
 lieutenants suffer for the cause." He was thinking 
 of the eager young men, including some of his kins- 
 men, who had gone into the campaign because they 
 believed in him. 
 
 His close friends did not follow him, but they still 
 
390 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 loved him. And it was a sign of his open-mindedness 
 that he would listen to their opinions and even con- 
 sult them, although he knew that they entirely re- 
 jected his Progressivism. General Luke E. Wright, 
 who remained a devoted friend but did not become 
 a Progressive, used to explain what the others called 
 the Colonel's aberration, as being really a very subtle 
 piece of wisdom. Experienced ranchmen, he would 
 say, when their herds stampede in a sudden alarm, 
 spur their horses through the rushing cattle, fire 
 their revolvers into the air, and gradually, by mak- 
 ing the herds suppose that men and beasts are all 
 together in their wild dash, work their way to the 
 front. Then they cleverly make the leaders swing 
 round, and after a long stampede the herd comes 
 panting back to the place it started from. This, 
 General Wright said, is what Roosevelt was doing 
 with the multitudes of Radicals who seemed to be 
 headed for perdition. 
 
 Just as he had absented himself in Africa for a 
 year, after retiring from the Presidency, so Roose- 
 velt decided to make one more trip for hunting and 
 exploration. As he could not go to the North Pole, 
 he said, because that would be poaching on Peary's 
 field, he selected South America. He had long 
 wished to visit the Southern Continent, and invita- 
 
THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 391 
 
 tions to speak at Rio Janeiro and at Buenos Aires 
 gave him an excuse for setting out. As before, he 
 started with the distinct purpose of collecting animal 
 and botanical specimens; this time for the American 
 Museum of Natural History in New York, which 
 provided two trained naturalists to accompany him. 
 His son Kermit, toughened by the previous adven- 
 ture, went also. 
 
 Having paid his visits and seen the civilized parts 
 of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, he ascended the 
 Paraguay River and then struck across the plateau 
 which divides its watershed from that of the tribu- 
 taries of the Amazon; for he proposed to make his 
 way through an unexplored region in Central Brazil 
 and reach the outposts of civilization on the Great 
 River. Dr. Osborn had dissuaded him from going 
 through a tract where the climate was known to be 
 most pernicious. The Brazilian Government had 
 informed him that, by the route he had chosen, he 
 would meet a large river — the Rio da Duvido, the 
 River of Doubt — by which he could descend to the 
 Amazon. Roosevelt's account of this exploration, 
 given in his ''The Brazilian Wilderness," belongs 
 among the masterpieces of explorers' records. 
 
 There were some twenty persons, including a 
 dozen or fifteen native rowers and pack-bearers, in 
 his party. They had canoes and dugouts, supplies of 
 
392 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 food for about forty days, and a carefully chosen 
 outfit. With high hopes they put their craft into the 
 water and moved downstream. But on the fourth 
 day they found rapids ahead, and from that time on 
 they were constantly obliged to land and carry their 
 dugouts and stores round a cataract. The peril of 
 being swept over the falls was always imminent, and 
 as the trail which constituted their portages had to 
 be cut through the matted forest, their labors were 
 increased. In the first eleven days, they progressed 
 only sixty miles. No one knew the distance they 
 would have to traverse nor how long the river would 
 be broken by falls and cataracts before it came down 
 into the plain of the Amazon. Some of their canoes 
 were smashed on the rocks; two of the natives were 
 drowned. They watched their provisions shrink. Con- 
 trary- to their expectations, the forest had almost 
 no animals. If they could shoot a monkey or a mon- 
 ster lizard, they rejoiced at having a little fresh meat. 
 Tropical insects — of which the pium seems to 
 have been the worst — bit them day and night and 
 caused inflammation and even infection. Man-eating 
 fish lived in the river, making it dangerous for the 
 men when they tried to cool their inflamed bodies 
 by a swim. Most of the party had malaria, and could 
 be kept going only by large doses of quinine. Roose- 
 velt, wliile in the water, wounded his. leg on a rock, 
 
THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 393 
 
 inflammation set in, and prevented him from walk- 
 ing, so that he had to be carried across the portages. 
 
 The physical strength of the party, sapped by 
 sickness and fatigue, was visibly waning. Still the 
 cataracts continued to impede their progress and 
 to add terribly to their toil. The supply of food had 
 shrunk so much that the rations were restricted and 
 amounted to little more than enough to keep the 
 men able to go forward slowly. Then fever attacked 
 Roosevelt, and they had to wait for a few days be- 
 cause he was too weak to be moved. He besought 
 them to leave him and hurry along to safety, because 
 ever>^ day they delayed consumed their diminishing 
 store of food, and they might all die of starvation. 
 They refused to leave him, however, and he secretly 
 determined to shoot himself unless a change for the 
 better in his condition came soon. It came; they 
 moved forward. At last, they left the rapids behind 
 them and could drift and paddle on the unobstructed 
 river. Roosevelt lay in the bottom of a dugout, 
 shaded by a bit of canvas put up over his head, and 
 too weak from sickness, he told me, even to splash 
 water on his face, for he was almost fainting from 
 the muggy heat and the tropical sunshine. 
 
 On April 15th, forty-eight days after they began 
 their voyage on the River of Doubt, they saw a peas- 
 ant, a rubber-gatherer, the first human being they 
 
394 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 had met. Thenceforward they journeyed without 
 incident. The River of Doubt flowed into the larger 
 river Madeira where they found a steamer which 
 took them to Manaos on the Amazon. A regular line 
 of steamers connects Manaos with New York, where 
 Roosevelt and Kermit and Cherrie, one of the natur- 
 alists, landed on May 19, 19 14. During the home- 
 ward voyage Roosevelt slowly recovered his strength, 
 but he had never again the iron physique with which 
 he had embarked the year before. His friends had 
 urged him not to go, warning him that a man of fifty- 
 four was already too old to waste his reserve force 
 on unnecessary enterprises. Rut his love of adven- 
 ture, his passion for testing his endurance and pluck 
 by facing the grimmest dangers, and his wish to keep 
 out of American political turmoil for a time, pre- 
 vailed against wiser counsel. The Brazilian Wilder- 
 ness stole away ten years of his life. 
 
 I do not know whether later, when he found him- 
 self checked by recurrent illness, he regretted having 
 chosen to encounter that ordeal in Brazil. He was a 
 man who wasted no time over regrets. The past for 
 him was done. The material out of which he wove 
 his life was the present or the future. Days gone 
 were as water that has flowed under the mill. Acting 
 always from what he regarded as the best motives 
 of the present, he faced with equal heart whatever 
 
THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 395 
 
 result they brought. So when he found on his return 
 home that some geographers and South American 
 explorers laughed at his stopy^ of the River of Doubt, 
 he laughed, too, at their incredulity, and presently 
 the Brazilian Government, having established the 
 truth of his exploration and named the river after 
 him, Rio Teodoro, his laughter prevailed. He took 
 real satisfaction in having placed on the map of Cen- 
 tral Brazil a river six hundred miles long. 
 
 New York made no festival for him on this second 
 home-coming. The city and the country welcomed 
 him, but not effusively. The American people, how- 
 ever, felt a void without Roosevelt. Whether they 
 always agreed with him or not, they found him per- 
 petually interesting, and during the ten or eleven 
 weeks when he went into the Brazilian silence and 
 they did not know whether he was alive or dead, 
 they learned how much his presence and his ready 
 speech had meant to them. And so they rejoiced to 
 know that he was safe and at home again at Saga- 
 more Hill. 
 
 Roosevelt insisted, imprudently, on accompany- 
 ing his son Kermit to Madrid, where he was to marry 
 the daughter of the American Minister. He made 
 the trip to Spain and back, as quickly as possible, 
 and then he turned to politics. That year, Congress- 
 men and several Governors were to be elected, and 
 
396 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt allowed himself to be drawn into the cam- 
 paign. As I have said, he was like the consummate 
 actor who, in spite of his protestations, can never 
 bid farewell to the stage. And now a peculiar obliga- 
 tion moved him. He must help the friends who had 
 followed him eagerly into the conflict of 191 2, and, 
 in helping them, he must save the Progressive princi- 
 ples and drive them home with still greater cogency. 
 He delivered a remarkable address at Pittsburgh; 
 he toured New York State in an automobile; he 
 spoke to multitudes in Pennsylvania from the back 
 platform of a special train; he visited Louisiana and 
 several other States. But the November elections dis- 
 appointed him. The Progressive Party, if not dead, 
 had ceased to be a real power in j^olitics; but Pro- 
 gressivism, as an influence and an ideal, was surviv- 
 ing under other forms. 
 
 Probably the chief cause for this wane was the 
 putting into operation, by President Wilson and the 
 triumphant Democrats, of many of the Progres- 
 sive suggestions which the Democratic Platform had 
 also contained. The psychological effect of success in 
 politics is always important and this accounted for 
 the cooling of the zeal of a certain number of enthu- 
 siasts who had vociferously supported Roosevelt in 
 1 91 2. The falling-off in the vote measured further 
 the potency of Roosevelt's personal magnetism; 
 
THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 397 
 
 thousands voted for him who would not vote for 
 other candidates professing his principles. Finally, 
 other issues — the imbroglio with Mexico, for in- 
 stance — were looming up, and exciting a different 
 interest among the American people. 
 
 Before we discuss the greatest issue of all, in which 
 Theodore Roosevelt's career as a patriot culminated, 
 we must recall two or three events which absorbed 
 him at the time and furnished evidence of vital 
 import to those w^ho would appraise his character 
 fairly. 
 
 During the campaign of 1912, his enemies resorted 
 to all sorts of slanders, calumnies, lies, ignoble al- 
 ways, and often indecent, to blacken him. On Oc- 
 tober 1 2th, the Iron Ore, a trade paper edited by 
 George A. Newett at Ishpeming, Michigan, pub- 
 ished this accusation: " Roosevelt lies and curses in a 
 most disgusting way; he gets drunk too, and that not 
 infrequently, and all of his intimates know about it." 
 When he was President, Roosevelt had appointed 
 Newett as postmaster, but Newett stayed by the 
 Republican Party, and did not scruple to serv^e it, 
 as he supposed, in this way. The charge of drunken- 
 ness spread so far and, as usual, so many persons said 
 that where there is much smoke there must be some 
 fire, that Roosevelt determined to crush that lie once 
 for all. He would not have it stand unchallenged, to 
 
398 THEODORE • ROOSEVELT 
 
 shame his children after he was dead, or to furnish 
 food for the maggots which feed on the reputations 
 of great men. So he brought suit against Newett. 
 His counsel, James H. Pound, assembled nearly two- 
 score witnesses, who had known Roosevelt since he 
 left College, men who had visited him, had hunted 
 with him, had served with him in the Spanish War, 
 had been his Cabinet Ministers, journalists who had 
 followed him on his campaigning tours, detectives, 
 and his personal body-servant; General Leonard 
 Wood, and Jacob Riis, and Dr. Alexander Lambert, 
 who had been his family physician for a quarter of 
 a century. This cloud of witnesses all testified unan- 
 imously that they had never seen him drink anything 
 stronger than wine, except as a medicine; that he 
 took very little wine, and that they had never seen 
 him drunk. They also declared that he was not a 
 curser or blasphemer. 
 
 After listening to this mass of evidence for a week, 
 Newett begged to withdraw his charge and to apolo- 
 gize, and he confessed that he had nothing but hear- 
 say on which to base his slanders. Then Roosevelt 
 addressed the court and asked it not to impose 
 damages upon the defendant, as he had not prose- 
 cuted the libeler with the intention of getting satis- 
 faction in money. He wrote one of his sisters from 
 Marquette, where the trial was held: "I deemed it 
 
THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 399 
 
 best not to demand money damages; the man is a 
 country editor, and while I thoroly^ depise him, I 
 do not care to seem to persecute him." (May 31, 
 
 1913-) 
 
 Roosevelt had to undergo one other trial, this 
 time as defendant. The managers of the Republican 
 Party and the Interests behind them, not content 
 with blocking his way to the nomination in 1912, 
 wished utterly to destroy him as a political factor; 
 for they still dreaded that, as a Progressive, he might 
 have a triumphant resurrection and recapture the 
 confidence of the American people. To accomplish 
 their purpose they wished to discredit him as a re- 
 form politician, and as a leader in civic and social 
 welfare. 
 
 Roosevelt himself gave the occasion for their on- 
 slaught upon him. In supporting Harvey D. Hinman, 
 the Progressive candidate for the Governor of New 
 York in 1914, he declared that William Barnes, Jr., 
 who managed the Republican Machine politics in 
 that State, had a bi-partisan alliance with the Dem- 
 ocratic Machine in the interest of crooked politics 
 and crooked business. Mr. Barnes, in whose ears the 
 word " Boss " sounded obnoxious as applied to him- 
 self, brought suit for libel, and it came to trial at 
 
 ' I copy "thoroly,"as he wrote it, as a reminder that Roosevelt 
 practiced the spelling reform which he advocated. 
 
400 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Syracuse on April 19, 191 5. Mr. Barnes's counsel, 
 Mr. Ivins, peered into every item of Mr. Roose- 
 velt's political career with a microscope. Mr. Barnes 
 had, of course, all the facts, all the traditions that 
 his long experience at Albany could give him. And 
 as he dated back to Boss Piatt's time, he must have 
 heard, at first hand from the Senator, his relations 
 with Roosevelt as Governor. But the most search- 
 ing examination by Mr. Barnes brought him no 
 evidence, and cross-examination, pursued for many 
 days, brought him no more. When it became Roose- 
 velt's turn to reply, he showed how the Albany Eve- 
 ning Journal, Mr. Barnes's organ, had profited by 
 illegal political advertising. He proved the existence 
 of the bi-partisan alliance with the Democratic Ma- 
 chine, and showed its effects on legislation and elec- 
 tions. After deliberating two days, the jury brought 
 in a verdict in favor of Roosevelt. 
 
 The trial, which had lasted two months, and cost 
 Roosevelt $52,000 (so expensive is it for an honest 
 man to defend his honesty against hostile politi- 
 cians!) decided two things: first, that Mr. Barnes 
 was a Boss, and had used crooked methods; and 
 next, that Theodore Roosevelt, under the most in- 
 tense scrutiny which his enemies could employ, 
 was freed from any suspicion of dishonest political 
 methods or acts. As William M. Ivins, attorney for 
 
THE BRAZILIAN ORDEAL 401 
 
 Mr. Barnes, left the New York Constitutional Con- 
 vention to try the case at Syracuse, he said with un- 
 concealed and alluring self-satisfaction to Mr. Root: 
 "I am going to nail Roosevelt's hide to the barn 
 door." Mr. Root replied: "Be sure it is Roosevelt's 
 and not some other hide that is nailed there." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 PROMETHEUS BOUND 
 
 THE event which put Roosevelt's patriotism 
 to the final test, and, as it proved, evoked all 
 his great qualities in a last display, was the out- 
 break of the Atrocious World War in August, 1914. 
 By the most brutal assault in modern times, Ger- 
 many, and her lackey ally, Austria, without notice, 
 overran Belgium and Northeastern France, and 
 devastated Serbia. The other countries, especially 
 the United States, were too startled at first to un- 
 derstand either the magnitude or the possible im- 
 plications of this war. On August i8th, President 
 Wilson issued the first of his many variegated mes- 
 sages, in which he gave this warning: "We must be 
 impartial in thought as well as in action, must put 
 a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every 
 tranvsaction that might be construed as a preference 
 of one party to the struggle before another." He 
 added that his first thought was of America. 
 
 Any one who analyzed his message carefully must 
 have wondered how it was possible, in the greatest 
 moral issue which had ever been thrust before the 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 403 
 
 world's judgment, to remain impartial ''even in 
 thought" between good and evil. Perhaps it was 
 right, though hardly necessary, to impress upon 
 Americans that they must look after their own in- 
 terests first. Would it not have been more seemly, 
 however, especially for President Wilson, who on 
 the previous Fourth of July had uttered his sancti- 
 monious tribute to the superiority in virtue of the 
 United States to all other nations, to urge his coun- 
 trymen to put some of this virtue into practice at 
 that crisis? 
 
 But the masses did not reason. They used his ad- 
 monition to remain neutral "even in thought" to 
 justify them in not having any great anxiety as to 
 who was right and who wrong; and the^^ interpreted 
 his concern for "America first" as authorizing them 
 to go about their affairs and profit as much as they 
 could in the warlike conditions. Some of us, indeed, 
 took an opposite view. We saw that the conflict, if 
 fought to a finish, would decide whether Democracy 
 or Despotism should rule the earth. We felt that the 
 United States, the vastest, strongest, and most popu- 
 lous Republic in the worid, pledged to uphold Democ- 
 racy, should throw itself at once on the side of the 
 European nations which were struggling, against 
 great odds, to save Democracy from the most atro- 
 cious of despots. Inevitably, we were regarded as 
 
404 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 incorrigible idealists whose suggestions ran counter 
 to etiquette and were, after all, crazy. 
 
 For several years, Roosevelt had been a contrib- 
 uting editor of the Outlook, and although his first 
 instinct, when the Germans ravished Belgium, was 
 to protest and then, if necessary, to follow up our 
 protest by a show of force, he wrote in the Outlook 
 an approval of our taking immediately a neutral 
 attitude. Still, he did not let this preclude stern ac- 
 tion later. "Neutrality," he said, "may be of prime 
 necessity to maintain peace . . . but we pay the pen- 
 alty of this action on behalf of peace for ourselves, 
 and possibly for others in the future, by forfeiting 
 our right to do anything on behalf of peace for the 
 Belgians at present." Three years afterwards these 
 sentences of his were unearthed by his enemies and 
 flung against him; but his dominant purpose, from 
 the start, was too well known for any one to accuse 
 him of inconsistency. He assumed, when President 
 Wilson issued his impartial "even in thought" mes- 
 sage, that the President must have some secret dip- 
 lomatic information which would vindicate it. 
 
 As the months went on, however, it became clear 
 to him that Mr. Wilson was pursuing towards the 
 European War the same policy of contradictions, 
 — of brief paroxysms of boldness, followed by long 
 periods of lassitude, which had marked his conduct 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 405 
 
 of our relations towards the Mexican bandits. He 
 saw only too well, also, into what ignoble depths 
 this policy led us. Magnificent France, throttled 
 Belgium, England willing but not yet ready, dev- 
 astated Serbia, looked to us for sympathy and help, 
 and all the sympathy they got came from private 
 persons in America, and of help there was none. 
 Meanwhile, the Germans undermined and gan- 
 grened the American people. Every ship brought 
 over their slyest and most unscrupulous propagan- 
 dists, who cooperated with the despicable German 
 professors and other agents already planted here, 
 and opened the sewers of their doctrines. Their spies 
 began to go up and down the land, without check. 
 Count Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, as- 
 sumed to play with the Administration at Washing- 
 ton as a cat might play with half a score of mice, 
 feeling sure that he could devour them when he chose. 
 A European gentleman, who came from a neutral 
 country, and called on Bernstorff in April, 1915, told 
 me that when he asked the Ambassador how he got 
 on with the United States, he replied: "Very well, y 
 indeed; we pay no attention to the Government, but 
 go ahead and do what we please." Within a fort- 
 night the sinking of the Lusitania showed that 
 Bernstorff had not boasted idly. 
 
 Roosevelt understood the harm which the Ger- 
 
4o6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 man conspiracy was doing among our people, not 
 only by polluting their ideals, but actually strength- 
 ening the coils which the propagandists had been 
 winding, to strangle at the favorable moment Ameri- 
 can independence itself. We discovered then that the 
 process of Germanization had been going on secretly 
 during twenty years. Since England was the chief 
 enemy in the way of German world domination, the 
 German- Americans laid themselves out to render the 
 English odious here. And they worked to such good 
 purpose that the legal officers of the Administration 
 admonished the American people that the English, 
 in holding up merchant vessels laden with cargoes 
 for Germany, committed breaches against interna- 
 tional law which were quite as heinous as the sinking 
 by German submarines of ships laden with American 
 non-combatants. They magnified the loss of a cargo 
 of perishable food and set it against the ferocious 
 destruction of neutral human beings. Senator Lodge, 
 however, expressed the clear thought and right 
 feeling of Americans when he said that we were more 
 moved by the thought, of ]tHe corpse of an innocent 
 victim of the Hun submarines than by thati^f a 
 bale of cotton; 
 
 These enormities, these sins of omission and com- 
 mission, of which Roosevelt declared our Govern- 
 ment guilty, amazed and exasperated him, and from 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 407 
 
 the beginning of 191 5 onward, he set himself three 
 tasks. He wished to expose and circumvent German 
 machinations over here. Next, he deemed it a press- 
 ing duty to rouse our country to the recognition 
 that we must prepare at once for war. He saw, as 
 every other sensible person saw, that as the con- 
 flict grew more terrible in Europe and spread into 
 Asia and Africa, we should be drawn into it, and 
 that therefore we must make ready. He seconded 
 the plan of General Leonard Wood to organize a 
 camp for volunteers at Plattsburg and other places; 
 and what that plan accomplished in fitting Amer- 
 ican soldiers to meet and vanquish the Kaiser's 
 best troops, has since been proved. President Wilson, 
 however, would not officially countenance any prep- 
 aration which, so far as the public was allowed to 
 know his reasons, might be taken by the Germans 
 as an unfriendly act. Finally, Roosevelt labored 
 unceasingly to revive and make militant the ideals 
 of true Americanism. 
 
 That the Germans accurately gauged that Presi- 
 dent Wilson would not sanction any downright vig- 
 orous action against them, was sufficiently proved 
 on May 7, 191 5, when German submarines torpe- 
 doed and sank, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the 
 British passenger steamship Lusitania, eastward 
 bound, a few miles south of the Point of Kinsale on 
 
4o8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the Irish coast. With her went down nearly thirteen 
 hundred persons, all of them non-belligerents and 
 more than one hundred of them American men, 
 women, and children. This atrocious crime the Ger- 
 mans committed out of their stupid miscalculation 
 of the motives which govern non-German peoples. 
 They thought that the British and Americans would 
 be so terrorized that they would no longer dare to 
 cross the ocean. The effect was, of course, just the 
 opposite. A cry of horror swept over the civilized 
 world, and swiftly upon it came a great demand for 
 punishment and retribution. 
 
 Then was the moment for President Wilson to 
 break off dij^lomatic relations with Germany. The 
 very day after the waters of the British Channel had 
 closed over the innocent victims. President Wilson 
 made an address in which he announced that "a 
 nation may be too proud to fight." The country 
 gasped for breath when it read those words, which 
 seemed to be the official statement of the President 
 of the United States that foreign nations might out- 
 rage, insult, and degrade this nation with impunity, 
 because, as the rabbit retires into its hole, so we 
 would burrow deep into our pride and show neither 
 resentment nor sense of honor. As soon as possible, 
 word came from the White House that, as the Presi- 
 dent's speech had been written before the sinking 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 409 
 
 of the Lusitania, his remarks had no bearing on that 
 atrocity. Pride is a wonderful cloak for cowards, 
 but it never saves them. Perhaps the most amazing 
 piece of impudence in Germany's long list was the 
 formal visit described by the newspapers which the 
 German Ambassador, Bernstorff, paid to Mr. Bryan, v 
 the Secretary of State, to present to our Govern- 
 ment the formal condolence of Germany and him- 
 self at this painful happening. Bernstorff, we know 
 now, planned the sinking and gave the German 
 Government notice by wireless just where the sub- 
 marines could best destroy the Lusitania, on that 
 Friday afternoon. 
 
 Ten days later, Mr. Wilson sent a formal protest 
 to Germany in which he recalled "the humane and 
 enlightened attitude hitherto assumed by the Im- 
 perial German Government in matters of interna- 
 tional right, and particularly in regard to the free- 
 dom of the seas " ; and he professed to have "learned 
 to recognize the German views and the German in- 
 fluence in the field of international obligation as 
 always engaged upon the side of justice and hu- 
 manity." If Mr. Bryan had written this, no one 
 would have been astonished, because Mr. Bryan 
 made no pretense of knowing even the rudimentary 
 facts of history; but that President Wilson, by pro- 
 fession a historian, should laud, as being always 
 
410 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 engaged in justice and humanity, the nation which, 
 under Frederick the Great, had stolen Silesia and 
 dismembered Poland, and which, in his own lifetime, 
 had garroted Denmark, had forced a wicked war on 
 Austria, had trapped France by lies into another 
 war and robbed her of Alsace-Lorraine, and had only 
 recently wiped its hands, dripping with blood drawn 
 from the Chinese, was amazing! 
 
 Small wonder if after that, the German hyphen- 
 ates lifted up their heads arrogantly in this country, 
 or that the Kaiser in Germany believed that the 
 United States was a mere jelly-fish nation which 
 would tolerate any enormity he might concoct. This 
 was the actual comfort President Wilson's message 
 gave Germany. The negative result was felt among 
 the Allied nations which, struggling against the Ger- 
 man Monster like Laocoon in the coils of the Python, 
 took Mr. Wilson's praise of Germany's imaginary 
 love of justice and humanity as a death-warrant for 
 themselves. They could not believe that he who wrote 
 such words, or the American people who swallowed 
 them, could ever be roused to giv^e succor to the 
 Allies in their desperation. 
 
 Three years later I asked Roosevelt what he would 
 have done, if he had been President in May, 191 5. 
 He said, in substance, that, as soon as he had read 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 411 
 
 in the New York newspaper ^ the advertisement 
 which Bernstorff had inserted warning all Ameri- 
 can citizens from taking passage on the Uisitania, 
 he would have sent for Bernstorff and asked him 
 whether the advertisement was officially acknowl- 
 edged by him. Even Bernstorff, arch-liar that he 
 was, could not have denied it. "I should then have 
 sent to the Department of State to prepare his 
 passports; I should have handed them to him and 
 said, 'You will sail on the Ltisitania yourself next 
 Friday; an American guard will see you on board, 
 and prevent your coming ashore.' The breaking- 
 off of diplomatic relations with Germany," Roose- 
 velt added, "would probably have meant war, and 
 we were horribly unprepared. But better war, than 
 submission to a humiliation which no President of 
 this country has ever before allowed; better war a 
 thousand times, than to let the Germans go on really 
 making war upon us at sea, and honeycombing the 
 American people with plots on land, while our Gov- 
 ernment shamelessly lavishes praise on the crimi- 
 nal for his justice and humanity and virtually begs 
 his pardon." 
 
 Thus believed Roosevelt in the Lusitania crisis, 
 and many others of us agreed with him. The stopping 
 
 1 The advertisement was printed in the New York Times of April 
 23. 1915- 
 
412 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 of German intrigues here, the breaking-off of diplo- 
 matic relations, would have been of inestimable 
 benefit to this country. It would have caused every 
 American to rally to the country's defense. It would 
 have forced the reluctant Administration to prepare 
 a navy and an army. It would have sifted the patri- 
 otic sheep from the sneaking and spying goats. It 
 would have brought immense comfort to the Allies 
 and corresponding despondency to the Huns. For 
 Germany plunged into the war believing that Eng- 
 land would remain neutral. When England came in, 
 to redeem her word of honor, Germany's frantic pur- 
 pose was to have us keep neutral and supply her 
 with food and munitions. Had she known that there 
 was any possibility of our actively joining the Allies, 
 she would have hastened to make peace. Our first 
 troops could have reached France in the early spring 
 of 1 91 6. They would not have been, of course, shock 
 troops, but their presence in France would have 
 been an assurance to the Allies that we were com- 
 ing with all our force, and the Germans would soon 
 have understood that this meant their doom. By 
 the summer of 19 16, the war would have been 
 over. 
 
 Think what this implies! Two years and a half of 
 fighting would never have taken place. At least three 
 million lives among the Allied armies would have 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 413 
 
 been saved. Russia would have been spared revolu- 
 tion, chaos, Bolshevism. Some, at least, of the myri- 
 ads of massacred Armenians would not have been 
 slain. Thousands of square miles of devastated terri- 
 tory would not have been spoiled. A hundred billions 
 of dollars for equipping and carrying on the war 
 would never have been spent. All this is not an idle 
 dream ; it is the calm statement of what would prob- 
 ably have happened if President Wilson, after the 
 Lusitania outrage, had dared to break with Ger- y 
 many. History will hold him accountable for those 
 millions of lives sacrificed, for the unspeakable suffer- 
 ing which the people of the ravaged regions had to 
 endure, for the dissolution of Russia, which threat- 
 ened to throw down the bases of our civilization, 
 and for the waste of incalculable treasure. 
 
 President Wilson's apologists assert that the coun- 
 try was not ready for him to take any resolute atti- 
 tude towards Germany in May, 1915. They argue 
 that if he had attempted to do so there would have 
 been great internal dissension, perhaps even civil 
 war, and especially that the German sections would 
 have opposed preparations for war so stubbornly as 
 to have made them impossible. This is pure assump- 
 tion. The truth is that whenever or wherever an 
 appeal was made to American patriotism, it met 
 with an immediate response. The sinking of the 
 
414 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Lusitania created such a storm of horror and indig- 
 nation that if the President had Hfted a finger, the 
 manhood of America, and the womanhood, too, 
 would have risen to back him up. But instead of 
 Hfting a finger, he wrote that message to Germany, 
 praising the Germans for their traditional respect 
 for justice and humanity. And a long time had yet 
 to pass before he made the least sign of encourage- 
 ment to those Americans who would uphold the 
 honor of the United States and would have this, the 
 greatest of Republics, take its due part in defending 
 Democracy against the Huns' attempt to wipe 
 Democracy off the earth forever. 
 
 Having missed his opportunity then, Mr. Wilson 
 could of course plead that the country was less and 
 less inclined to go to war, because he furnished the 
 pro-German plotters the very respite they had needed 
 for carrying on their work. By unavowed ways they 
 secured a strong support among the members of the 
 National House of Representatives and the Senate. 
 They disguised themselves as pacifists, and they 
 found it easy to wheedle the "lunatic fringe" of 
 native pacifists into working for the domination of 
 William of Hohenzollern over the United States, 
 and for the establishing of his world dominion. The 
 Kaiser's propagandists spread evil arguments to jus- 
 tify all the Kaiser's crimes, and they found willing 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 415 
 
 disciples even among the members of the Adminis- 
 tration to repeat and uphold these arguments. 
 
 They told us, for instance, that their massacre 
 served the victims of the Lusitania right for taking 
 passage on a British steamship. They even wished 
 to pass a law forbidding Americans from traveling 
 on the ocean at all, because, by doing so, they might 
 be blown up by the Germans, and that would in- 
 volve this country in diplomatic difficulties with 
 Germany. Next, the Germans protested against our 
 selling munitions of war to the Allies. Neither cus- 
 tom nor international law forbade doing this, and 
 the protest stood out in stark impudence when it 
 came from Germany, the country which, for fifty 
 years and more, had sold munitions to every one 
 who asked and had not hesitated to sell impartially 
 to both antagonists in the Russo-Japanese War. By 
 playing on the sentimentality of this same "lunatic 
 fringe," the German intriguers almost succeeded in 
 driving through a bill to stop this traffic. They knew 
 the true Prussian way of whimpering when bullying 
 did not avail them. And so they not only whimpered 
 about our sending shells over to kill the German 
 soldiers, but they whimpered also over the dire ef- 
 fects which the Allied blockade produced upon the 
 non-combatant population of Germany. 
 
 These things went on, not only a whole year, but 
 
4i6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 far into the second after the sinking of the Lusitania. 
 Roosevelt never desisted from charging that the per- 
 son ultimately responsible for them was President 
 Wilson, and he believed that the President's appar- 
 ent self-satisfaction would avail him Httle when he 
 stands at the bar of History. 
 
 It may be that an entire people may lose for a 
 time its sense of logic. We have just had the most 
 awful proof that, through a long-continued and de- 
 liberate education for that purpose, the German 
 people lost its moral sense and set up diabolical 
 standards in place of those common to all civilized 
 races. We know that religious hysteria has at differ- 
 ent times, like the influenza, swept over a nation, or 
 that a society has lost its taste for generations to- 
 gether in art, and in poetry. We remember that the 
 Witchcraft Delusion obsessed our ancestors. It is 
 not impossible, therefore, that between 19 14 and 
 1918 the American people passed through a stage 
 in which it threw logic to the winds. This would 
 account at least for its infatuation for President 
 Wilson, in spite of his undisguised inconsistencies 
 and appalling blunders. A people who thought logic- 
 ally and kept certain principles steadily before it, 
 could hardly otherwise have tolerated Mr. Wilson's 
 " too-proud-to-fight " speech, and his message to 
 Germany after the sinking of the Lusitajiia. Or his 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 417 
 
 subsequent endeavor to make the Americans think 
 that there was no choice between the causes for 
 which the Allies and the Teutons were fighting. Was 
 it not he who said that Europe was war-mad, and 
 that America had better mind her own business, 
 and look the other way? Did he not declare that we 
 were forced into war, and then that we were not? 
 That a President of the United States should assert 
 or even insinuate these things during the great War 
 for Humanity — ■ and by Humanity I mean every 
 trait, ever}' advance which has lifted men above the 
 level of the beast, where they originated, to the level 
 of the human with its potential ascent to heights 
 undreamed of — is amazing now: what will it be a 
 generation hence? 
 
 Roosevelt watched impatiently while these strange 
 phases passed before him. He listened angrily at the 
 contradictory utterances. He felt the ignominy of 
 our country's being at such a depth. He knew Ger- 
 many too well to suppose that she could be deterred 
 by President W^ilson's messages. He saw something 
 comic in shaking a long fore-finger and saying, "Tut, 
 tut! I shall consider being very harsh, if you commit 
 these outrages three more times." To shake your 
 fist at all, and then to shake your finger, seemed to 
 Roosevelt almost imbecile. Cut off from serving the 
 cause of American patriotism in any public capacity, 
 
4i8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt struggled to take his part by writing. 
 Every month in the Outlook, and subsequently in 
 the Metropolitan Magazine, he gave vent to his pent- 
 up indignation. The very titles of some of his papers 
 reveal his animus: "Fear God and Take Your Own 
 Part"; "A Sword for Defense"; "America First: 
 A Phrase or a Fact?"; " Uncle Sam's Only Friend is 
 Uncle Sam"; "Dual Nationality"; "Preparedness." 
 In each of these he poured forth with unflagging 
 vehemence the fundamental verities on which our 
 American society should rest. He showed that it 
 was not a mere competition in letter-writing be- 
 tween the honey- worded Mr. Wilson and the sophis- 
 ticated Bernstorff or the Caliban-sly Bethmann- 
 Hollweg, but that God was in the crisis, and that no 
 adroitness of phrase or trick of diplomacy could get 
 rid of Him. He showed that there could not be two 
 kinds of Americans: one genuine, which believed 
 wholly and singly in the United States, and the 
 other cunning and mongrel, which swore allegiance 
 to the United States — lip service — and kept its 
 allegiance to Germany — heart service. He lost no 
 opportunity to make his illustrations clear. On re- 
 signing as Secretary of State after the sinking of the 
 Lusitania, because President Wilson insisted on 
 mildly calling Germany's attention to that crime, 
 Mr. Br}-an addressed a large audience of Germans. 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 419 
 
 Then Roosevelt held him up to the gaze of the 
 American people as a man who had no true Ameri- 
 canism, 
 
 Lest I should be suspected of misinterpreting or 
 exaggerating Roosevelt's opinion of President Wil- 
 son, during the first two years of the war, I quote 
 two or three passages, taken at random, which will 
 prove, I hope, that I have summarized him truly. 
 
 He says, for instance: 
 
 Professional pacifists of the type of Messrs. Bryan, Jordan, 
 and Ford, who in the name of peace preach doctrines that 
 would entail not merely utter infamy, but utter disaster to 
 their own country, never in practice venture to denounce 
 concrete wrong by dangerous wrongdoers. . . . 
 
 These professional pacifists, through President Wilson, 
 have forced the country into a path of shame and dishonor 
 during the past eighteen months. Thanks to President Wilson, 
 the most powerful of Democratic nations has refused to rec- 
 ognize the binding moral force of international public law. 
 Our country has shirked its clear duty. One outspoken and 
 straightforward declaration by this government against the 
 dreadful iniquities perpetrated in Belgium, Armenia, and 
 Servia would have been worth to humanity a thousand times 
 as much as all that the professional pacifists have done in 
 the past fifty years. . , . Fine phrases become sickening when 
 they represent nothing whatever but adroitness in phrase- 
 making, with no intention of putting deeds behind the 
 phrases. 
 
 After the American messages in regard to the 
 sinking of the Liisitania had brought no apology, 
 much less any suggestion of redress, Roosevelt said: 
 
420 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Apparently President Wilson has believed that the Ameri- 
 can people would permanently forget their dead and would 
 slur over the dishonor and disgrace to the United States by 
 that basest of all the base pleas of cowardly souls which finds 
 expression in the statement: "Oh, well, anyhow the President 
 kept us out of war!" The people who make this plea assert 
 with quavering voices that they "are behind the President." 
 So they are; well behind him. The farther away from the posi- 
 tion of duty and honor and hazard he has backed, the farther 
 behind him these gentry have stood — or run. 
 
 Finally, Roosevelt stated with deadly clearness 
 the position into which Wilson's vacillating policy 
 had driven us: 
 
 The United States has not a friend in the world. Its con- 
 duct, under the leadership of its official representatives, for 
 the last five years and, above all, for the last three years, has 
 deprived it of the respect and has secured for it the contempt 
 of every one of the great civilized nations of mankind. Peace 
 treaties and windy Fourth-of-July eloquence and the base 
 materialism which seeks profit as an incident to the abandon- 
 ment of duty will not help us now. For five years our rulers 
 at Washington have believed that all this people cared for 
 was easy money, absence of risk and effort, and sounding 
 platitudes which were not reduced to action. We have so 
 acted as to convince other nations that in very truth we are 
 too proud to fight; and the man who is too proud to fight is in 
 practice always treated as just proud enough to be kicked. 
 We have held our peace when our women and children were 
 slain. We have turned away our eyes from the sight of our 
 brother's woe. 
 
 " He kept us out of war," was a paradoxical battle- 
 cry for one who in a very short time thereafter wished 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 421 
 
 to pose as the winner of the greatest war in histor>\ 
 But the battle-cr>^ it turned out, was used chiefly 
 for poUtical purposes. The year 1916 was a Presiden- 
 tial year and his opponents suspected that every- 
 thing President Wilson had done at home or abroad 
 had been planned by him with a view to the effect 
 which it might have on his reelection. Politicians of 
 all parties saw that the war was the vital question 
 to be decided by the political campaign. For the 
 Democrats, Wilson was, of course, the only candi- 
 date; but the Republicans and the Progressives had 
 their own schism to settle. First of all, they must 
 attempt to reunite and to present a candidate whom 
 both factions would support; if they did not, the 
 catastrophe of 191 2 would be repeated, and Wilson 
 would again easily win against two warring Pro- 
 gressive and Republican candidates. The elections 
 in 1914 showed that the Progressive Party was dis- 
 integrating. Should its leaders strive now to revive 
 its strength or should they bow to the inevitable, 
 combine with the Republicans on a satisfactory can- 
 didate, and urge all the Progressives as a patriotic 
 duty to support him? 
 
 All depended on Roosevelt's decision. After re- 
 flection, he consented to run for nomination by the 
 Progressives. It soon became plain, however, that 
 the Republicans would not take him back. The 
 
422 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Machine did not want him on any terms: many of 
 the RepubHcans blinding themselves to the fact that, 
 as the number of votes cast in 191 2 proved, Taft 
 and not he had split the Republican Party, held 
 Roosevelt responsible for the defeat in that year. 
 One heard also of some Republicans who, for lack 
 of a better reason, opposed Roosevelt because, they 
 said, that Roosevelt having put Taft into the Presi- 
 dency, ought not to have "gone back" on him. Yet 
 these same persons, if they had taken a partner into 
 their firm to carry on a certain policy, and had found 
 him pursuing a different one, would hardly have 
 argued that they were in loyalty bound to continue 
 to support this partner as long as he chose. The con- 
 sideration which weighed with a much larger num- 
 ber, however, was that Roosevelt had so antagonized 
 the German vote and the Pacifist vote and all the 
 other anti-American votes, that he might not be a 
 winning candidate. Accordingly, the Republicans 
 sought for somebody who would please everybody, 
 and yet would have enough })ersonal strength to be a 
 leader. They pitched on Charles E. Hughes, former 
 Governor of New York State, and then a Justice of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. The un- 
 wisdom of going to the Supreme Bench for a stand- 
 ard-bearer was immediately apparent; because all 
 the proprieties prevented Justice Hughes from ex- 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND 423 
 
 pressing any opinion on political subjects until he 
 resigned from the Court. Hence, it followed that no 
 great enthusiasm could be aroused over his candi- 
 dacy for nomination since nobody knew what his 
 policy would be. 
 
 The Progressives held their Convention in Chicago 
 on June 5th, the same day that the Republicans met 
 there. Some of the original, Simon-Pure Progressives 
 disapproved of this collusion, declaring that it repre- 
 sented a "deal," and that the Progressive Party, 
 which had come into existence as a rebuke of Ma- 
 chine politics, ought never to soil itself by enter- 
 ing into a "deal." Nevertheless, the will of the 
 more worldly-minded prevailed, and they probably 
 thought that there would be a better chance to 
 have the Republicans nominate Roosevelt if he were 
 already the nominee of the Progressives. But they 
 were disappointed. They nominated Roosevelt and 
 the Republicans Justice Hughes. Suspense followed 
 as to whether Roosevelt, by accepting, would oblige 
 the Progressives to organize another campaign. He 
 sent only a conditional acceptance to the Progres- 
 sive Committee and, a few days later, he announced 
 publicly that he would support Justice Hughes, be- 
 cause he regarded the defeat of Wilson as the most 
 vital object before the American people. 
 
 I find among my correspondence from him a reply 
 
424 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 to a letter of mine in which I had quite needlessly- 
 urged this action upon him. I quote this passage 
 because it epitomizes what might be expanded over 
 many pages. The letter is dated June i6, 1916: 
 
 I agree entirely with you. I shall do all I can for Mr. Hughes. 
 But don't forget that Mr. Hughes alone can make it possible 
 for me to be efficient in his behalf. If he merely speaks like 
 Mr. Wilson, only a little more weakly, he will rob my support 
 of its effectiveness. Speeches such as those of mine, to which 
 you kindly allude, have their merit only if delivered for a 
 man who is himself speaking uncompromisingly and without 
 equivocation. I have just sent word to Hughes through one 
 of our big New York financiers to make a smashing attack on 
 Wilson for his actions, and to do it immediately, in connection 
 with this Democratic Nominating Convention. Wilson was 
 afraid of me. He never dared answer me; but if Hughes lets 
 him, he will proceed to take the offensive against Hughes. 
 I shall do everything I can for him, but don't forget that the 
 efficiency of what I do must largely depend upon Hughes. 
 
 Roosevelt was as good as his word, and made four 
 or five powerful speeches in behalf of Mr. Hughes, 
 speeches which gave a sharper edge to the Republi- 
 cans' fight. But their campaign was obviously mis- 
 managed. They put their candidate to the torture 
 of making two transcontinental journeys, in which 
 he had to speak incessantly, and they warned him 
 against uttering any downright criticism of the anti- 
 American throng, whose numbers being unknown 
 were feared. President Wilson, on the other hand, 
 unexpectedly flared up in a retort which doubtless 
 
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PROMETHEUS BOUND 425 
 
 won votes for him. Jeremiah O'Leary, an Irish agi- 
 tator in relations with the German propagandists, 
 tried to catch Mr. Wilson in a pro-British snare. 
 The President replied: " I would feel deeply mortified 
 to have you or anybody like you vote for me. Since 
 you have access to so many disloyal Americans, and 
 I have not, I will ask you to convey this message to 
 them." 
 
 The result of the election, which took place on 
 November 5th, hung in suspense for many days. 
 Then it appeared that Wilson, by capturing thirteen 
 California votes, had won by 277 electoral votes 
 to 254 for Hughes. Of the popular vote, Wilson got 
 9,128,000 and Hughes, 8,536,000. So the slogan, 
 "He kept us out of war," accomplished its purpose. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 DURING the winter of 1916-17, Roosevelt 
 never relaxed his criticism of President Wil- 
 son's dilator}' and evasive policy, or his efforts to 
 arouse the American people to a sense of their duty 
 to civilization. By this time the President himself 
 felt that it was safe for him to speak up in behalf of 
 Americanism. The year before, Roosevelt having 
 been assured that it would be dangerous to make 
 American and pro-Ally speeches in the Middle West, 
 went straight to the so-called German cities, and 
 was most enthusiastically received where it had been 
 predicted he would be hooted and even mobbed. 
 President Wilson ventured to follow him some time 
 later, and suffered no harm. By the summer of 191 6 
 he became almost reckless, as it seemed, in his utter- 
 ances. He said to the graduating cadets at West 
 Point: "My conception of America is a conception 
 of infinite dignity, along with quiet, unquestionable 
 power. I ask you, gentlemen, to join with me in that 
 conception, and let us all in our several spheres be 
 soldiers together to realize it." ^ Once he declared 
 
 » July 14, 1916. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 427 
 
 that he too came of fighting blood. Meanwhile, how- 
 ever, the German submarines went on sinking ships; 
 Bernstorff made his frequent calls of studied impu- 
 dence at the White House; German agents blew up 
 munitions factories and the warehouses where shells 
 were stored before shipment; and the process of 
 spreading Prussian gangrene throughout our country 
 went on unchecked. 
 
 Worse than this, the military situation in Europe 
 was almost disheartening. Imperial Russia had dis- 
 appeared and the Germans were preparing to carve 
 up the vast amorphous Russian carcass. Having 
 driven their w^ay through the Balkans to Constanti- 
 nople they were on the point of opening their boasted 
 direct route from Berlin to Bagdad. England, France 
 and Italy began to feel war-weary. The German sub- 
 marines threatened to cut off their supplies of food, 
 and unless the Allied countries could be succored 
 they might be starved into making peace. When 
 they looked across the Atlantic they beheld this 
 mighty Republic leaving them in the lurch, too busy 
 piling up millions of dollars drawn from the Allies in 
 their distress to heed that distress, and drugging their 
 compunctions, if they had any, by saying to them- 
 selves that a nation may be "too proud to fight," 
 and that they had the best authority for remember- 
 ing that they must remain "neutral even in thought." 
 
428 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 I need not describe in detail what Roosevelt 
 thought of this. He himself expressed his scorn for 
 making war by rhetoric. He knew that a man may 
 boast of coming of fighting blood, and come so late 
 that all the fighting quality in the blood has evapo- 
 rated. Could not many of the Pacifists trace back to 
 Revolutionary and to Puritan ancestors, who fought 
 as they prayed, without hesitation or doubt, for the 
 Lord of Hosts? They could, and their present atti- 
 tude simply made their shame the greater. The Colo- 
 nel had said very early in the conflict: " I do not be- 
 lieve that the firm assertion of our rights means war, 
 but in any event, it is well to remember there are 
 things worse than war." In 1917 he declared: "For 
 two years after the Lusitania was sunk, we continued 
 to fawn on the blood-stained murderers of our people, 
 we were false to ourselves and we were false to the 
 cause of right and of liberty and democracy through- 
 out the world." He kept hammering at our need of 
 preparation. He told a great audience at Detroit:^ 
 "We first hysterically announced that we would not 
 prepare because we were afraid that preparation 
 might make us lose our vantage-ground as a peace- 
 loving people. Then we became frightened and 
 announced loudly that we ought to prepare; that 
 the world was on fire; that our national structure 
 
 ^ May 19, 1916. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 429 
 
 was in danger of catching aflame; and that we 
 must immediately make ready. Then we turned an- 
 other somersault and abandoned all talk of pre- 
 paredness; and we never did anything more than 
 talk." 
 
 At last, at the beginning of 1917, the German truc- 
 ulence became too great even for President Wilson 
 to palliate. The Kaiser, whose atrocious submarine 
 policy had already failed, decided that it could be 
 made to succeed by increasing its horror. He pro- 
 posed to sink indiscriminately all ships, whether 
 neutral or enemy; but out of his Imperial generosity 
 he would allow the Americans to send one ship a 
 week to Falmouth, England, provided It followed 
 a certain line marked out by him on the chart, flew 
 a certain flag, and was painted a color which he 
 specified. As late as December 18, 1916, the Presi- 
 dent had put forth a message only less startling 
 than his "too-proud-to-fight" dictum, in which he 
 announced that the warring world must plan for a 
 "peace without victory" if it would hope to end 
 the war at all. " Peace without victory" would mean, 
 of course, a peace favorable to Germany. But the 
 Germans, with characteristic stupidity, instead of 
 using even a specious courtesy towards the President 
 who had been long-suffering In their favor, imme- 
 diately sent out their "Once-a-week-to-Falmouth" 
 
430 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 order. Perhaps they thought that Mr. Wilson would 
 consent even to that. 
 
 President Wilson's friends have assured us that he 
 devotes himself to finding out what the American 
 people wants and then in doing it. He soon learned 
 what the American people wanted, after it un- 
 derstood the purport of the " Once-a-week-to-Fal- 
 mouth" order; and after the interchange of two or 
 three more notes, he broke off relations with Ger- 
 many on April 6, 191 7. At last, at the eleventh hour, 
 the United States by President Wilson's consent 
 joined the great alliance of free nations in their life- 
 and-death struggle to make the world safe for De- 
 mocracy. 
 
 Now the President had to prepare for war, and pre- 
 pare in haste, which rendered careful plans and econ- 
 omy impossible. At the start, there was much debate 
 over the employment of Volunteers, the rating of 
 Regulars, and the carrying out of a selective draft. 
 
 True to his policy of timidity and evasion Presi- 
 dent Wilson did not openly declare war on Germany, 
 but allowed us to drift into a state of war; so execu- 
 tives who do not wish either to sign or veto a bill let 
 it become a law without their signatures. His Secre- 
 tary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, the only member 
 of his Cabinet who had marked ability, had resigned 
 the year before, having apparently found the official 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 431 
 
 atmosphere uncongenial. At the Plattsburg camp, 
 commanded by General Leonard Wood, Colonel 
 Roosevelt made a speech of ringing patriotism and 
 of unveiled criticism of the lack of energy in the 
 Administration. It was not a politic thing to do, 
 although there seems to have been some confusion 
 between what the Colonel said to the Volunteers in 
 camp, and what he said that same evening to a gath- 
 ering of civilians in the town. The indiscretion, how- 
 ever, gave the Administration the opportunity it had 
 been waiting for; but, being unable to punish Roose- 
 velt, it severely reprimanded General Wood, who had 
 not been aware of what the Colonel intended to say. 
 Indeed, the offensive remarks seem to have been ex- 
 temporaneous, because, as it was too dark for him to 
 read his prepared speech, he spoke impromptu. In 
 any event. Secretary Garrison had due notice that 
 Roosevelt was to speak, and if he had had any 
 doubts he should have sent word to General Wood to 
 cancel the engagement. The Administration made as 
 much as It could out of this impropriety, but the 
 public saw the humor of it, because it knew that Sec- 
 retary Garrison agreed with Roosevelt and Wood in 
 their crusade for preparedness. 
 
 Later, when Mr. Garrison resigned, President Wil- 
 son put Mr. Newton D. Baker, a Pacifist, in his 
 place, and after war came, the military preparation 
 
432 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 and direction of the United States were entrusted to 
 him. But it does not belong to this biographical 
 sketch to narrate the story of the American conduct 
 of the war under the Wilson Administration. 
 
 To Roosevelt, the vital fact was that war was at 
 hand, the great object for which he had striven dur- 
 ing two years and eight months, the participation 
 in the war which would redeem the honor of the 
 United States, call forth the courage of its citizens, 
 make Americans alone dominant in America and so 
 purge this Republic of the taints of pro-Germanism, 
 of commercial greed, and of ignoble worship of ma- 
 terial safety, that it could take its part again at the 
 head of the democracies of the world. He thanked 
 God that his country could stand out again untar- 
 nished. And then a great exultation came over him, as 
 he believed that at last he himself having put on his 
 sword, would be allowed to join the American army 
 bound overseas, share its dangers and glories in the 
 field, and, if Fate so willed it, pay with his body the 
 debt of patriotism which nothing else could pay. 
 He wTote immediately to the War Department, offer- 
 ing his services and agreeing to raise a division or 
 more of Volunteers, to be sent to the front with the 
 briefest delay. But Secretary Baker replied that 
 without authorization by Congress, he could not 
 accept such bodies of Volunteers. On being pressed 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 433 
 
 further, Mr. Baker replied that the War College Di- 
 vision of the General Staff wished the officers of the 
 Regular Army to be kept at home, in order to train 
 new men, and then to lead the first contingents which 
 might go abroad.^ 
 
 Meanwhile, at the first suggestion that Roosevelt 
 might head a body of troops himself, letters poured 
 upon him from every State in the Union, from men 
 of all classes eager to serve under him, and eager, in 
 this way, to wipe out the shame which they felt the 
 Administration, by its delays and supineness, had 
 put upon the nation. Then Congress passed the 
 Draft Law, and, on May 18, Roosevelt appealed 
 again, this time directly to President Wilson, offering 
 to raise four divisions. The President, in a public 
 statement, declared that purely military reasons 
 caused him to reject the plan. In a telegram to Colonel 
 Roosevelt he said that his action was "based entirely 
 upon imperative considerations of public policy, and 
 not upon personal or private choice." Roosevelt 
 summed up the contention with this flat contradic- 
 tion: "President Wilson's reasons for refusing my 
 offer had nothing to do either with military con- 
 siderations or with public needs." 
 
 ^ The entire correspondence between General Wood and President 
 Wilson and Secretary- Baker is given in The Foes of Our Own House- 
 hold, by Theodore Roosevelt (Doran, New York, 1917), pp. 304-47- 
 
434 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Roosevelt issued an announcement to the men who 
 had appHed for service under him — they were said 
 already to number over 300,000 — regretting that 
 they could not all go together on their country's er- 
 rand, and brushing aside the insinuation of his ene- 
 mies that he was merely seeking political and self- 
 ish ends. That is a charge, of course, to which all of 
 our statesmen, from Washington down, have been ex- 
 posed. Its final refutation comes from examining the 
 entire public career and the character of the person 
 accused. To any one who knew what Roosevelt's 
 life had been, and who knew how poignantly he felt 
 the national dangers and humiliation of the past 
 three years, the idea that he was playing politics, 
 and merely pretending to be terribly in earnest as a 
 patriot, is grotesque. And I believe that no greater 
 disappointment ever came to him than Avhcn he was 
 prohibited from going out to battle in 1917. 
 
 Mr. Wilson and the obsolescent members of the 
 General Staff had obviously a plausible reason when 
 they said that the European War was not an affair 
 for amateurs; that no troops, however brave and 
 willing, could, like the Rough Riders in the Spanish 
 War, be fitted for action in a month. Only by long 
 drill and by the coordination of all branches of the 
 service, organized on a vaster scale than the world 
 had ever seen before, and commanded by experts, 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 435 
 
 could an army enter the field with any hope of hold- 
 ing its own against the veteran armies of Europe. 
 
 We may accept this plea, but the fact remains 
 that President Wilson refused to make the very ob- 
 vious use of Roosevelt w^hich he might have made. 
 Roosevelt was know^n throughout the world as the 
 incarnation of Americanism. If he had been .sent to 
 Europe in April, 191 7, w^hen he first requested, with 
 only a corporal's guard to attend him, he would have 
 been a visible proof to the masses in England, in 
 France, and in Italy, that the United States had ac- 
 tually joined the Allies. He would have been the 
 forerunner of the armies that were to follow, and 
 his presence would have heartened immensely the 
 then sorely perplexed, if not discouraged, populations 
 which the Hun seemed sure to overwhelm. 
 
 But President Wilson had shown no desire to em- 
 ploy any American on any task where he might get 
 credit which the President coveted for himself. In 
 his Cabinet, his rule w^as to appoint only mediocre or 
 third-class persons, whose opinions he did not think 
 it necessary to consult. It w^as quite unlikely, there- 
 fore, that he would give Roosevelt any chance to 
 shine in the service of the country, for Roosevelt was 
 not only his political opponent, but his most formi- 
 dable critic, who had laid bare the weakness of the 
 Wilson regime. When Cavour was assembling all the 
 
436 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 elements in Italy to undertake the great struggle for 
 Italian liberty and independence, he adroitly se- 
 cured the cooperation of Garibaldi and his followers, 
 although Garibaldi had declared himself the personal 
 enemy of Cavour. Personal enemy or not, Cavour 
 would have him as a symbol, and Garibaldi's con- 
 currence proved of immense value to Italy. So would 
 that of Roosevelt have proved to the Allies if he had 
 been officially accredited by President Wilson. But 
 Cavour was a statesman, who looked far ahead, a 
 patriot uninfluenced by personal likes and dislikes. 
 
 Roosevelt felt his own deprivation mightily, but 
 the shutting-out of General Leonard Wood roused 
 his anger — all injustice roused his anger. As the 
 motive for General Wood's exclusion was not frankly 
 avowed, the public naturally drew its own inferences. 
 To him, more than to any other American, we owed 
 what little preparation for war existed when we en- 
 tered the war. He founded the Plattsburg Camp; he 
 preached very solemnly our needs and our dangers; 
 and he did these things at the very period when Pres- 
 ident Wilson was assuring the country that we ought 
 not to think of preparing. Doubtless, in 1 9 1 9, Mr . Wil- 
 son would be glad to have those sayings of his, and 
 many others — including the "too proud to fight," 
 the laudation of German "humanity and justice," 
 the "war-mad Europe," whose ravings did not con- 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 437 
 
 cern us, the "peace without victory" forgotten; but 
 that cannot be, and they rise to accuse him now. 
 Macbeth did not welcome the inopportune visit of 
 the Murderers and of Banquo's Ghost at his ban- 
 quet. 
 
 General Wood had to be disciplined for allowing 
 Colonel Roosevelt to make his impolitic speech to the 
 Plattsburg Volunteers; he was accordingly removed 
 from his New York headquarters to the South and 
 then to Camp Funston in Kansas. It was even pro- 
 posed to relegate him to the Philippines. When our 
 troops began to go to France, he earnestly hoped to 
 accompany them. There were whispers that he was 
 physically unfit for the stress of active war: but the 
 most diligent physical examination by Army surgeons 
 who would have overlooked no defects, showed him 
 to be a man of astonishing health and vigor, as sound 
 as hickory. On the technical side, the best military 
 experts regarded him as the best general officer in 
 the American Army. Nevertheless, in spite of his 
 physical and military qualifications. President Wil- 
 son rejected him. Why? The unsympathetic asserted 
 that Mr. Wilson took care to assign no conspicuous 
 officer to service abroad who might win laurels which 
 would bring him forward as a Presidential possibility 
 in 1920. On the other hand, cynics, remembering the 
 immemorial jealousy between the Regulars and Vol- 
 
438 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 unteers in both the Army and Navy, declared that an 
 outsider Hke General Wood, who had not come into 
 the Army through West Point, could expect no fairer 
 treatment from the Staff which his achievements and 
 irregular promotion had incensed. History may be 
 trusted to judge equitably on whom to place the 
 blame. But as Americans recede from the event, their 
 amazement will increase that any personal pique or 
 class jealousy should have deprived the United 
 States from using the soldier best equipped for war 
 at the point where war was raging.^ 
 
 While Roosevelt could not denounce the Admin- 
 istration for debarring himself from military service 
 abroad, he could, and did, attack it for its treatment 
 of General Wood, treatment which both did injustice 
 to a brave and very competent soldier and deprived 
 our Army in its need of a precious source of strength. 
 Perhaps he drew some grim amusement from the 
 banal utterances of the Honorable Newton D. Baker, 
 
 ^ In June, 1915, Colonel Paul Azan, who came to this country to 
 command the French officers who taught American Volunteers at 
 Harvard, and subsequently was commissioned by the French Govern- 
 ment to oversee the work of all the French officers in the United States, 
 told me that the Camp and Division commanded by General Wood 
 were easily the best in the country- and that General Wood was the 
 only General we had who in knowledge and efficiency came up to the 
 highest French standard. Colonel Azan added that he was suggesting 
 to the French War Department to invite the United States Govern- 
 ment to send General Wood to France, but this rec]uest, if ever made, 
 was not followed. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 439 
 
 Secretary of War, whom he frequently referred to 
 with appropriate comment. Two months after we 
 entered the war, Mr. Baker issued an official bulletin 
 in which he admitted the "difficulty, disorder, and 
 confusion in getting things started, but," he said, 
 "it is a happy confusion. I delight in the fact that 
 when we entered this war we were not, like our ad- 
 versary, ready for it, anxious for it, prepared for it, 
 and inviting it. Accustomed to peace, we were not 
 ready." ^ Could any one, except a very young child 
 at a soap-bubble party in the nursery, have spoken 
 thus? But Mr. Baker was not a very young child, he 
 was a Pacifist; he did not write from a nursery, but 
 from the War Department of the United States. In 
 the following October he announced with undisguised 
 self-satisfaction: "We are well on the way to the 
 battle-field." This was too much for Roosevelt, who 
 wrote: "For comparison with this kind of military 
 activity we must go back to the days of Tiglath- 
 Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh. The United 
 States should adopt the standard of speed in war 
 which belongs to the twentieth century a.d. ; we 
 should not be content with, and still less boast about, 
 standards which were obsolete in the seventeenth 
 century B.C." 
 
 Roosevelt had now made a contract with the 
 
 1 Official War Bulletin, June 7, 1917. 
 
440 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Metropolitan Magazine to furnish to it a monthly ar- 
 ticle on any topic he chose, and he was also writing 
 for the Kayisas City Star frequent, and often daily, 
 editorial articles. Through these he gave vent to his 
 passionate patriotism and the reader who wishes to 
 measure both the variety and the vigor of his polem- 
 ics at this time should look through the files of those 
 journals. But this work by no means limited his 
 activity. As occasion stirred him, he dispatched his 
 communications to other journals. He wrote letters, 
 which were really elaborated arguments, to chance 
 correspondents, and he made frequent addresses. 
 The necessity of hurrying on the preparation of our 
 army and of backing up our troops with undivided 
 enthusiasm were his main theme. 
 
 But he delivered himself on other subjects almost 
 equally important. He paid his respects to the " Con- 
 scientious Objector," and he insisted at all times that 
 "Murder is not debatable." "Murder is murder," 
 he wTOte Professor Felix Frankfurter, "and it is 
 rather more evil when committed in the name of a 
 professed social movement." ^ Mr, Frankfurter was 
 then acting, by appointment of President Wilson, 
 as counsel to a Mediation Commission, which was 
 dealing with recent crimes of the Industrial Workers 
 
 ^ December 19, 1917. Letter printed in full in the "Boston Herald, 
 June 4, 1919. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 441 
 
 of the World. Anarchists, when arrested, had a sus- 
 picious way of professing that they espoused anarch- 
 ism only as a "philosophical" theory. Roosevelt 
 branded several of the palliators of these — "the 
 Hearsts and La FoUettes and Bergers and Hillquits," 
 and others — as reactionaries, as the "Bolsheviki of 
 America," who really abetted the violent criminals 
 by pleading for leniency for them on the ground that 
 after all they were only "philosophical" theorists. 
 Roosevelt was not fooled by any such plea. "When 
 you," he told Mr. Frankfurter, "as representing 
 President Wilson, find yourself obliged to champion 
 men of this stamp [the "philosophical" criminals], 
 you ought by unequivocal affirmative action to make 
 it evident that you are sternly against their general 
 and habitual line of conduct." 
 
 So Roosevelt pursued, without resting, his cam- 
 paign to stimulate the patriotic zeal of his country- 
 men and to rebuke the delays and blunders of the 
 Administration. If any one had said that he was 
 making rhetoric a substitute for warfare — the accu- 
 sation with which he charged President Wilson — 
 he would have replied that Wilson condemned him 
 to use the pen instead of the sword. Forbidden to go 
 himself, he felt supreme satisfaction in the going of 
 all his four sons, and of his son-in-law. Dr. Richard 
 Derby. They did honor to the Roosevelt name. 
 
442 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 Theodore, Jr., became a Lieutenant-Colonel, Kermit 
 and Archibald became Captains; and Quentin, the 
 youngest, a Lieutenant of Aviation, was killed in an 
 air battle. 
 
 Roosevelt was prevented from fighting in France, 
 indeed, but he was gratified to learn from good 
 authority that his efforts in the spring of 1917 to 
 secure a commission and lead troops over seas were 
 the immediate cause of the sending of any American 
 troops. President Wilson, it was reported had no 
 intention, when we went to war, of risking American 
 lives over there, and the leisurely plans which he 
 made for creating and training an army seemed to 
 confirm this report. But Roosevelt's insistence and 
 the great mass of volunteers who begged to be al- 
 lowed to join his divisions, if they were organized, 
 awakened the President to the fact that the Ameri- 
 can people expected our country to give valid mili- 
 tary support to the Allies, at death-grapple with the 
 Hun, The visit in May, 191 7, of a French Mission 
 with Marshal Joffre at its head, and of an English 
 Mission under Mr. Arthur Balfour, and their plain 
 revelation of the dire distress of the French and 
 British armies, forced Mr. Wilson to promise imme- 
 diate help; for Joffre and Balfour made him under- 
 stand that unless help came soon, it would come too 
 late. So President Wilson, who hoped to go down in 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 443 
 
 history as the Peacemaker of the World War, and as 
 the organizer of an American Army, which, without 
 shedding a drop of blood, had brought peace about, 
 was compelled to send the only too willing American 
 soldiers, by the hundred thousand and the million, 
 to join the Allied veterans in France. 
 
 Persons who do not penetrate beneath the flicker- 
 ing surfaces of life, regard these last years of Roose- 
 velt's as an anticlimax which he passed in eclipse; 
 as if they were the eight lean and overshadowed 
 years, following the splendid decade in which as 
 Governor and President he had the world's admira- 
 tion and consent. But this view wholly misconceives 
 him. It takes a man who had proved himself to be 
 the greatest moral force in the public life of the world, 
 and drops him when he steps down from the seat of 
 powder. Now, of course, Theodore Roosevelt did not 
 require to walk on a high platform or to sit in the 
 equivalent of a throne in order to be Roosevelt; and 
 if we would read the true meaning of his life we must 
 understand that the years which followed 1910 were 
 the culmination and crown of all that went before. 
 
 He was a fighter from the days when, as a little 
 boy, he fought the disease which threatened to 
 make his existence puny and crippled. He was a 
 fighter, and from his vantage-ground as President, 
 
444 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he fought so vaHantly that the world took notice and 
 he brought new ideals into the hearts of the Ameri- 
 can people. He was just as brave and resourceful and 
 tenacious a fighter when he led the forlorn hope, as 
 when he marched at the head of the Nation in his 
 campaigns against corruption and the mercenaries 
 of Mammon. During these later years he gave up 
 everything — his ease, his probable restoration to 
 power, the friendships that were very dear to him, 
 even his party which no longer, as he thought, fol- 
 lowed the path of righteousness, or desired righteous 
 ends — for the Cause to which he had been dedicated 
 since youth. Analyze his acts at any period, and you 
 will find that they were determined by his loyalty 
 to that Cause. 
 
 And how could so great a soul exercise itself to the 
 full, except by grappling with adversity? The pros- 
 perous days seemed to fit him like a skin, but only 
 in these days of apparent thwarting and disappoint- 
 ment could he show himself equal to any blows of 
 Fate. At first he struggled magnificently against 
 crushing odds, asking no allowances and no favors. 
 He founded and led the Progressive Party and, in 
 1912, received the most amazing popular tribute in 
 our history. And he would have pushed on his work 
 for that party had not the coming of the World War 
 changed his perspective. Thenceforth, he devoted 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 445 
 
 himself to saving civilization from the reptilian and 
 atrocious Hun; that was a task, in comparison with 
 which the fortune of a political party sank out of 
 sight. 
 
 His work demanded of him to rouse his country- 
 men from the apathy and indifference which a timid 
 Administration breathed upon it, and from the 
 lethargic slumber into which the pro-Germans 
 drugged it. During four years, his was the one 
 voice in the United States which could not be si- 
 lenced. He was listened to every w^here. Men might 
 agree with him or not, but they listened to him, and 
 they trusted him. Never for a moment did they sus- 
 pect that he was slyly working for the enemy, or for 
 special interests here or abroad. 
 
 He, the supreme American, spoke for America 
 and for the civilization w^hich he believed America 
 fulfilled. His attacks on the delays and the incompe- 
 tence, on the faint-heartedness and contradictions 
 of the Administration had no selfish object. His 
 heart was wrenched by the humiliation into which the 
 honor of the United States had been dragged. The 
 greatest patriotic service which he could render was 
 to lift it out of that slough, and he did. The best 
 evidence that he w^as right lies in the fact that Presi- 
 dent Wilson, tardily, reluctantly, adopted, one by 
 one, Roosevelt's demands. He rejected Prepared- 
 
446 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ness, when it could have been attained with compar- 
 ative leisure; he accepted it, when it had to be driven 
 through at top speed. And so of the other vitally 
 necessary things. He ceased to w^arn Americans that 
 they must be neutral "even in thought"; he ceased 
 to comfort them by the assurance that a nation may 
 be "too proud to fight" ; he ceased to extol the "jus- 
 tice and humanity of the Germans." That he suf- 
 fered these changes was owing to the fact that 
 American public opinion, largely influenced by 
 Roosevelt's word and example, would not tolerate 
 them any more. And President Wilson, when he can, 
 follows public opinion. 
 
 Roosevelt took personal pleasure in the bridging 
 of the chasm which had opened between him and 
 his former party intimates. On neither side was there 
 recantation, but they could unite again on the ques- 
 tion of the War and America's duty towards it, which 
 swallowed up partisan grievances. Many of the old- 
 time Republicans who had broken politically from 
 Roosevelt in 1 912, remained devoted personal friends, 
 and they tried to reunite him and the discordant 
 fragments. One of these friends was Colonel Robert 
 Bacon, whom every one loved and trusted, a born 
 conciliator. He it was who brought Roosevelt and 
 Senator Root together, after more than five years' 
 estrangement. He gave a luncheon, at which they 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 447 
 
 and General Leonard Wood met, and they all soon 
 fell into the old-time famiUarity. Roosevelt urged 
 vehemently his desire to go to France, and said that 
 he would go as a private if he could not lead a regi- 
 ment; that he was willing to die in France for the 
 Cause. At which Mr. Root, with his characteristic 
 wit, said: "Theodore, if you will promise to die 
 there, Wilson will give you any commission you 
 want, tomorrow." 
 
 Roosevelt never fully recovered from the infection 
 which the fever he caught in Brazil left in his system. 
 It manifested itself in different ways and the one 
 thing certain was that it could not be cured. He paid 
 little attention to it except when it actually sent 
 him to bed. In the winter of 1918, it caused so serious 
 an inflammation of the mastoid that he was taken 
 to the hospital and had to undergo an operation. 
 For several days his life hung by a thread. But, on 
 his recovery, he went about as usual, and the public 
 was scarcely aware of his lowered condition. He 
 wrote and spoke, and seemed to be acting with his 
 customary vigor. That summer, however, on July 
 14th, his youngest son, Quentin, First Lieutenant in 
 the 95th American Aero Squadron, was killed in an 
 air battle near Chambray, France. The lost child is 
 the dearest. Roosevelt said nothing, but he never 
 got over Quentin's loss. No doubt he often asked, in 
 
448 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 silence, why he, whose sands were nearly run, had 
 not been taken and the youth, who had a lifetime to 
 look forward to, had not been spared. The day after 
 the news came, the New York State Republican 
 Convention met at Saratoga. Roosevelt was to 
 address it, and he walked up the aisle without hesi- 
 tating, and spoke from the platform as if he had no 
 thoughts in his heart, except the political and patri- 
 otic exhortation which he poured out. 
 
 He passed a part of the summer with his daughter, 
 Mrs. Derby, on the coast of Maine; and in the early 
 autumn, at Carnegie Hall, he made his last public 
 speech, in behalf of Governor Whitman's candidacy. 
 A little after this, he appeared for the last time in 
 public at a meeting in honor of a negro hospital unit. 
 In a few days another outbreak of the old infection 
 caused his removal to the Roosevelt Hospital. The 
 date was November nth, — the day when the 
 Armistice was signed. He remained at the hospital 
 until Christmas Eve, often suffering acutely from 
 inflammatory rheumatism, the name the physicians 
 gave to the new form the infection took. He saw his 
 friends for short intervals, he followed the news, and 
 even dictated letters on public subjects, but his 
 family understood that his marvelous physical 
 strength was being sadly exhausted. He longed to 
 be taken home to Sagamore Hill, and when his 
 
Coioriglit l>v \\ . >. l{iioh 
 
 A FAMILY GROUP 
 
 Roosevelt, Mrs. Archibald B. Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt, Mrs. Richard Derby (EtheJ 
 
 Roosevelt), and Three Grandchildren 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 449 
 
 doctor allowed him to go home, he was greatly 
 cheered. 
 
 To spend Christmas there, with his family, even 
 though he had to spend it very quietly, delighted 
 him. For ten days he seemed to be gaining, he read 
 much, and dictated a good deal. On January 5th, he 
 reviewed a book on pheasants and wrote also a little 
 message to be read at the meeting of the American 
 Defense Society, which he was unable to attend. 
 That evening he spent with the family, going to bed 
 at eleven o'clock. ''Put out the light, please," he 
 said to his attendant, James Amos, and no one heard 
 his voice again. A little after four o'clock the next 
 morning, Amos, noticing that he breathed strangely, 
 called the nurse, and when they reached his bedside, 
 Roosevelt was dead. A blood clot in his heart had 
 killed him. Death had unbound Prometheus. 
 
 By noon on that day, the 6th of January, 1919, 
 the whole world knew of his death, and as the news 
 sank in, the sense of an unspeakable void was felt 
 everywhere. He was buried on January 8th, on a 
 knoll in the small country graveyard, which he and 
 Mrs. Roosevelt had long before selected, overlooking 
 Oyster Bay and the waters of the Sound. His family 
 and relatives and dear friends, and a few persons 
 who represented State and Nation, the Rough Rid- 
 ers, and learned societies, attended the services in 
 
450 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the little church. Just as the coffin was being borne 
 in, the sun came out and streamed through the 
 stained-glass windows. ''The services were most im- 
 pressive in their simplicity, in their sense of intimacy, 
 in the sentiment that filled the hour and the place of 
 personal loss and of pride of possession of a priceless 
 memory." The bearers took the coffin through the 
 grove, with its bare trees and light sifting of snow, 
 to the grave; and as it was committed, there were 
 man>' sobs and tears of old and young. Rough Riders, 
 who had fought by his side, cabinet ministers who 
 had served with him, companions of his work and of 
 his playtime, were all mourners now, and some of 
 those men of affairs, who had done their utmost to 
 wreck him eight >ears before, now knew that they 
 had loved him, and they grieved as they realized 
 what America and the world had lost. "Death had 
 to take him sleeping," said Vice-President Marshall; 
 "for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have 
 been a fight." 
 
 *£>' 
 
 The evil men do lives after them ; so does the good. 
 With the passing of years, a man's name and fame 
 either drift into obli\ion, or they are seen in their 
 lasting proportions. You must sail fifty miles over 
 the Ionian Sea and look back before you can fully 
 measure the magnitude and majesty of Mount ^tna. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 451 
 
 Not otherwise, I believe, will it be with Theodore 
 Roosevelt, when the people of the future look back 
 upon him. The blemishes due to misunderstanding 
 will have faded away; the transient clouds will have 
 vanished; the world will see him as he was. 
 
 I do not mean that it will reduce him to an abstrac- 
 tion of perfection, as ill-judged worshipers of George 
 Washington attempted to do with him. Theodore 
 Roosevelt was so vastly human, that no worshiper 
 can make him abstract and retain recognizable fea- 
 tures. We have reached the time when we will not 
 suffer anybody to turn our great ones into gods or 
 demigods, and to remove them far from us to dwell, 
 like absentee deities, on a remote Olympus, or in an 
 unimaginable Paradise; we must have them near, 
 intimates whom our souls can converse with, and our 
 hearts love. Such an intimate was Roosevelt living, 
 and such an intimate will he be dead. Washington, 
 Lincoln, Roosevelt — those are the three whom 
 Americans will cherish and revere; each of them a 
 leader and representative and example in a structural 
 crisis in. our national life. 
 
 Those of us who knew him, knew him as the most 
 astonishing human expression of the Creative Spirit 
 we had ever seen. His manifold talents, his protean 
 interests, his tireless energy, his thunderbolts which 
 he did not let loose, as well as those he did, his mas- 
 
452 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 terful will sheathed in self-control like a sword in 
 its scabbard, would have rendered him superhuman, 
 had he not possessed other qualities which made him 
 the best of playmates for mortals. He had humor, 
 which raises every one to the same level. He had 
 loyalty, which bound his friends to him for life. He 
 had sympathy, and capacity for strong, deep love. 
 How tender he was with little children! How courte- 
 ous with women! No matter whether you brought 
 to him important things or trifles, he understood. 
 
 I can think of no vicissitude in life in which Roose- 
 velt's participation would not have been welcome. 
 If it were danger, there could be no more valiant 
 comrade than he; if it were sport, he was a sports- 
 man; if it were mirth, he was a fountain of mirth, 
 crystal pure and sparkling. He would have sailed 
 with Jason on the ship Argo in quest of the Golden 
 Fleece, and he would have written a vivid description 
 of the adventure. I can imagine the delight he would 
 have taken, as the comrade of Ulysses, on his voy- 
 age through the Midland Sea, looking with unjaded 
 curiosity on strange towns and into strange faces, 
 and steering fearlessly out to the Hesperides, and 
 beyond the baths of all the western stars. What a 
 Crusader he would have been! How he would have 
 smitten the Paynim with his sword, and then unvis- 
 ored and held chivalrous interview with Saladin! 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 453 
 
 Had he companioned Columbus, he would not have 
 been one of those who murmured and besought the 
 great Admiral to turn back, but would have coun- 
 seled, " On ! On ! It is of Httle matter whether any one 
 man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for 
 it is the cause of mankind." I can see him with the 
 voyageurs of New France, exploring the Canadian 
 Wilderness, and the rivers and forests of the North- 
 west. I can see him with Lasalle, beaming with exul- 
 tation as they looked on the waters of the Mississippi ; 
 and I can think of no battle for man's welfare in 
 which he would not have felt at home. But he would 
 have taken equal, perhaps greater, delight in meet- 
 ing the authors, sages, and statesmen, whose words 
 w^ere his daily joy, and W'hose deeds were his study 
 and incentive. I can hear him question Thucydides 
 for further details as to the collapse of the Athenians 
 at Syracuse; or cross-examine Herodotus for informa- 
 tion of some of his incredible but fascinating stories. 
 What hours he would have spent in confabulation 
 with Gibbon! What secrets he would have learned, 
 without asking questions, from Napoleon and 
 Cavour! 
 
 His interest embraced them all, some of them he 
 could have taught, many of them would have wel- 
 comed him as their peer. As he mixed with high and 
 low in his lifetime, so would it have been in the past; 
 
454 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 and so will it be in the future, if he has gone into 
 a world where personal identity continues, and the 
 spiritual standards and ideals of this world persist. 
 But yesterday, he seemed one who embodied Life to 
 the utmost. With the assured step of one whom noth- 
 ing can frighten or surprise, he walked our earth, 
 as on granite. Suddenly, the granite grew more un- 
 substantial than a bubble, and he dropped beyond 
 sight into the Eternal Silence. Happy we who had 
 such a friend! Happy the American Republic which 
 bore such a son! 
 
 THE END 
 
Mr. John Woodbury, Secretary of the Harvard 
 Class of 1880, in sending to his classmates a notice 
 of Theodore Roosevelt's death on January 6, 1919, 
 added this quotation from the second part of Bun- 
 yan's "Pilgrim's Progress:" 
 
 "After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant- 
 for-truth was taken with a summons by the same 
 post as the other, and had this for a token that the 
 summons was true, ' That his pitcher was broken at 
 the fountain.' When he understood it, he called for 
 his friends and told them of it. Then he said, 'I am 
 going to my Father's, and though with great diffi- 
 culty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent 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 be a witness for me that I have fought His battles 
 who now will be my rewarder.' " 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 {R. stands for the subject of the biog- 
 raphy.) 
 
 Adams, Charles Frands, 54. 
 Adams, Henry, quoted, on Hay, 173; let- 
 ters of Hay to, 156, 229. 
 Adams, John, 333. 
 Addams, Jane, 374, 375. 
 Africa, R.'s big-game-hunting expedition 
 
 to, 319/. 
 Alabama, The, 4. 
 Alaska, boundary of, 174 #., 201. 
 Albany Evening Journal, 400. 
 Aldrich, Chester H., 351. 
 Aldrich, Nelson W., 132, 194, 310, 339, 
 
 340. 
 Algeciras, Conference of, suggested by R., 
 
 202, 228. 
 Alger, Russell A., Secretary of War, offers 
 
 R. a commission, 122; 123. 
 Allen, Henry J., 368. 
 Allison, WilliamJB., 310, 311. 
 Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, 20, 21. 
 Alsace-Lorraine, 410. 
 AJverstone, Richard ^^'ebster, Baron, 175, 
 
 177. _ 
 ''America the Unready," 130. 
 American Defense Society, 449. 
 American Museum of Natural Histor>', 
 
 391- 
 Americans, the "spread-eagle" variety 
 
 of, 120. 
 Amos, James, 449. 
 Ananias Club, 204, 209. 
 Andrews, Judge (New York), 144, 145. 
 Anti-Imperialists, 170, 171, 173, 189. 
 Army, R.'s orders concerning forced 
 
 marches of, 264, 265. 
 Arthur, Chester A., 276. 
 Austria, 402. 
 Aylesworth, A. B., 175. 
 Azan, Paul, quoted, on Gen. Wood, 438 «. 
 
 Bacon, Robert, 446. 
 Bad Lands, 58. 
 
 Baker, Newton D., Secretar>' of War, 
 431. 432; dechnes R.'s ofier to raise vol- 1 
 
 unteers, 432, 433 and n.; his "banal 
 utterances," 438, 439. 
 
 Balfour, Arthur J., debt of the U.S. to, 
 218; 175, 442. 
 
 Ballinger, Richard A., Secretary of the 
 Interior, his controversy with Pinchot, 
 335; investigated and exonerated, 336. 
 
 Barnard, F. A. P., 30. 
 
 Barnes, William, Jr., sues R. for libel, 399. 
 and is beaten, 400, 401 ; 362, 363, 384. 
 
 Bass, Robert P., 351, 354. 
 
 Bayard, Thomas F., 293. 
 
 Belgium, 402. 
 
 Bell, J. F., General, U.S.A., 264. 
 
 Benton, Thomas Hart, 76, 294. 
 
 Berger, V'ictor, 441. 
 
 Bernstorff, Count Johann, German Am- 
 bassador to U.S., his pernicious activity, 
 405; and the Lusilania, 409, 411; 418, 
 427. 
 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, Herr von, German 
 Chancellor, 418. 
 
 Beveridge, Albert J , Chairman of the Pro- 
 gressive Convention of 1912, 373; 238, 
 
 ^ 311, 379- 
 
 "Big Business," influence and power of, 
 137. 138. .\nd see Interests, the. 
 
 "Big Stick, the," 202, 288. 
 
 Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 165. 
 
 Black, Frank S., 136, 137. 
 
 Black, WiUiam T., 30. 
 
 "Black-Horse Cavalry," 40, 41. 
 
 Blackmail in N.Y. PoUce Dept., 98, 99, 
 102, 103. 
 
 Blaine, James G., unsuccessful candidate 
 for Republican nomination in 1880, 47; 
 his character and political methods, 48; 
 nothing of his lives after him, 48, 49; his 
 nomination in 1884 splits the party, 
 50^.; supported by R., 52 J'., defeated, 
 55; 71. 387- 
 
 Bliss, George, 41. 
 
 "Bloody Shirt, the," 48. 
 
 Boon, Daniel, 75, 76. 
 
 Boston, alarm in, at approach of hostilities 
 
 with Spain, 119; R.'s opioioa of, 119. 
 Boston Herald, 440 n. 
 
460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Boswell, James, 89. 
 
 Boutros Pasha, 320. 
 
 Bowen, Herbert W., 220. 
 
 Brazil, and the River of Doubt, 391 f. 
 
 Brownsville (Texas), shot up by negro 
 troops, 296, 297. 
 
 Bryan, William J., renominated for Presi- 
 dent in 1900, 150, 151; again defeated, 
 152; his third candidacy (1908), 315; 
 348, 409, 418, 419- 
 
 Bryce, James [Viscount], quoted, on R., 
 
 157. 
 
 Buenz, Herr, 222. 
 
 Buffalo, McKinley assassinated at, 154. 
 
 Bullard, Willard, 30. 
 
 Bulloch, Irvine, 4, 284. 
 
 Bulloch, James, 4, 5, 205, 284. 
 
 Bulloch, Martha, R.'s mother. Sec Roose- 
 velt, Mrs. Martha. 
 
 Billow, Prince von, German Chancellor, 
 and the Moroccan dispute, 228, 229. 
 
 Bunau-Varilla, PhiUpp)e, and the Panama 
 revolution, 185. 
 
 Bunyan, John, Pilgrim's Progress, 79, 455. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 80. 
 
 Cambridge (England) University, gives R. 
 honorary degree, 327,329; R.'s. address 
 at, 328. 
 
 Campaign contributions from corpora- 
 tions, act prohibiting, 232. 
 
 Canada, relations between U.S. and, 174.^- 
 
 Cannon, Joseph G., 310, 343. 344, 348. 
 
 Capital, and Labor, opening of gulf be- 
 tween, 163,164; antagonism between, in 
 U.S., 166^., 233; arrogance of, 166; R.'s 
 attitude toward, 212; its abuse of R., 
 213. And see Interests, the. 
 
 Carey, Joseph M., 351. 
 
 Carow, Edith Kermit, marries R., 71; 10. 
 See Roosevelt, Mrs. Edith Carow. 
 
 Cattle thieves in the West, 64-66. 
 
 Cavour, Count Camillo, 38, 296, 353, 435, 
 436. 
 
 Cervera, Admiral de, 181. 
 
 Chaffee, Adna, U.S.A., 274. 
 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, 175, 176. 
 
 Cherrie, George K., 394. 
 
 Chichester, Captain R. N., 218. 
 
 Child Labor in District of Columbia, act 
 prohibiting, 231. 
 
 China, the Open Door in, 229. 
 
 Choate, Joseph H., 30, 31, 107, 108. 
 
 Christ Church, Cambridge, R. teaches in 
 Sunday School of, 22. 
 
 Cigar-makers, living conditions of, in N.Y., 
 42, 43; R.'s bill for benefit of, declared 
 unconstitutional by Court of Appeals, 
 42, 43- 
 
 Civil Service in N.Y., R. and, 137. 
 
 Civil Service Commission appointed by 
 President Harrison, 89, 90; R. directs 
 policy of, 90 f. ; attacked by Grosvenor 
 and Gorman, 91-95; tribulations of, 95, 
 96. 
 
 Civil Service Law, how enforced by R., 
 91/. 
 
 Civil Service Reform, why imperative, 
 85 ;ff.; under Cleveland, 89; under R. 
 as Commissioner, 90 £. 
 
 Civil War, the, economic effects of, 162. 
 
 Class antagonism, menace of, 233. 
 
 Classified Civil Service, extension of, by 
 R., 96. 
 
 Clayton, Powell, 49. 
 
 Clayton-Bulwcr treaty, 178, 182. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, Governor of New York, 
 39; nominated by Democrats for Presi- 
 dent in 1884, 50; supported by "Mug- 
 mumps," 51, 54; elected, 55, 56; and 
 Civil Service Reform, 89; reappoints R. 
 on Commission, 96; his second election, 
 96; his Venezuela message and its effect, 
 115, 172, 191; on the Moru-oe Doctrine, 
 172; 131, 204, 207, 208, 214, 215, 217, 
 309. 310, 313. 
 
 Coal-mine operators. See Coal strike of 
 1902. 
 
 Coal-miners. See Coal strike of 1902. 
 
 Coal strike of 1902, settled by R., 245; R. 
 quoted on settlement of, 246, 247; effect 
 of his action, 247, 248. 
 
 Colombia, United States of, and the Hay- 
 Herran treaty, 182 f.; blackmailing 
 methods of, 183, 184; and the revolu- 
 tion in Panama, 186 JT.; change of atti- 
 tude of, 186, 187; German influence in, 
 against Hay-Herran treaty, 225. 
 
 Commerce and Labor, Department of, 
 231- 
 
 Congress, important acts passed by, dur- 
 ing R.'s presidency, 231, 232; and the 
 Navy, 287. And see United States 
 Senate. 
 
 Conkling, Roscoe, 89. 
 
 Conservation, R. 's achievement in, 236^.; 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 the BaUinger-Pinchot controversy, 335, 
 336. 
 
 Consular service, reformation of, 232. 
 
 Cooper, J. Fenimore, 8. 
 
 Corporations, taxation of, in New York, 
 137, 1- 
 
 Corporations, Bureau of, 231. 
 
 Corruption in New York State, attacked 
 by R., ZAf- 
 
 Corse, John M., 97. 
 
 Cortelyou, George B., 154, 307. 
 
 Costello, Michael, 40. 
 
 Courts, R.'s attitude toward, 385, 386. 
 And see Judicial Recall. 
 
 Cowles, William S., U.S.N., 277. 
 
 Cowles, Mrs. William S., R.'s sister, 277. 
 
 Crane, W. Murray, 362, 363. 
 
 Croker, Richard, 102, 131. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 76. 
 
 Cromwell, William Nelson, 185. 
 
 Cuba, insurrection in, 115; American 
 sympathy for, 115, 116; becomes a re- 
 public, 170. And see Havana, and Span- 
 ish War. 
 
 Cullom, Shelby M., 276. 
 
 Curtis, George William, leader of the Mug- 
 mumps in 1884, 54; quoted, on R.'s 
 course, 55. 
 
 Curzon, George Nathaniel, Earl, 328, 329. 
 
 Cutler, Arthur H., 13. 
 
 Czolgosz, Leon, murders McKinley, 154. 
 
 Dana, Charles A., 50, 51, 107, 108. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 38. 
 
 Davies, Henry E., 30. 
 
 Defoe, Daniel, 80. 
 
 Democracy, progress of, 159 f.; R. the 
 chief interpreter of the highest type of 
 American, 249. 
 
 Democratic Party, nominates Cleveland 
 in 1884, 50. 
 
 Democratic platform of 1912, 382. 
 
 Democrats, control House of Represen- 
 tatives in 62d Congress, 343; and the 
 Progressive platform of 1912, 375, 376. 
 
 Derby, Mrs. Ethel, R.'s daughter, 448. 
 
 Derby, Richard, R.'s son-in-law, 441. 
 
 Dewey, George, U.S.N., R.'s instructions 
 to, at Hong Kong, 121; destroys Span- 
 ish fleet in Manila Bay, 121; and Ad- 
 miral von Diederichs, 218; 221, 222, 
 
 "Dickey," the, 19. 
 
 Diederichs, Admiral von, 218. 
 
 Dixon, Joseph M., 378. 
 Douglas, Mr., 44, 45. 
 Dow, Wilmot, 17, 58, 65, 83. 
 Dunbar, Charles F., 293. 
 Dwight, Theodore W., 30. 
 
 Edmunds, George F., 49. 
 
 Edward VII, R. special envoy at funeral 
 
 of, 325, 326. 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 72. 
 Egypt, Nationalist Party in, 320; R.'s 
 
 speech on affairs in, at London, 327, 328. 
 Elective system at Harvard, 14. 
 Eliot, Charles W., reforms instituted by, 
 
 as President of Harvard, 14, 15; 108, 293. 
 Elkhorn Ranch, R.'s life at, 59, 60, 256, 
 
 258. 
 Elkins Anti-Rebate Act, 231. 
 Emergenc>' Currency Act, 232. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 25. 
 Employers' Liability Act, 231. 
 England, and Cleveland 's Venezuela mes- 
 sage, 115; R.'s visit to, 325/.; German 
 
 propaganda against, in U.S., 406. 
 Equahty, distinction between political, 
 
 and social and industrial, 164, 165. 
 Europe, R.'s triumphal tour through, 
 
 320/. 
 Evans, Robley D., U.S.N., commands 
 
 Great Fleet on voyage round the world, 
 
 287, 288. 
 
 Fairbanks, Charles W., 323, 327. 
 
 Family, the, R. an upholder of, 280. 
 
 Fish, Mrs. Hamilton, 9. 
 
 Forbes, W. Cameron, appointed Governor- 
 General of Philippines by R., 173. 
 
 Ford, Henry, 419. 
 
 Fosdick, Frederick, 369. 
 
 France, and Germany, in Morocco, 227; 
 402. 
 
 Franchise tax bill (N.Y.), 137-139. 
 
 Francis Joseph, Emperor, 324. 
 
 Frankfurter, Feli.x, letter of R. to, 440, 441. 
 
 Frederick the Great, 410. 
 
 Frick, Henry C, 239. 
 
 Free Silver issue, in campaign of 1900, 150, 
 151; McKinley's attitude toward, 170. 
 
 French (Panama) Canal Co., suspends 
 work, 179; sells out to the U.S., 182 f.; 
 and the revolution in Panama, 184 f.; 
 190. 
 
 French Revolution, 160. 
 
462 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Garfield, James A., nomioated for Presi- 
 dent in 1880, 47. 
 
 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 124, 321, 436. 
 
 Garrison, Lindley M., Secretary of War, 
 resigns, 430; Gen. Wood reprimanded 
 
 by, 431- 
 
 Garj-, Elbert H., 239. 
 
 George, Henry, nominated for Mayor of 
 New York by United Labor Party, 69, 
 70, 71 ; Progress and Poverty, 70. 
 
 German Fleet, expansion of, 228. 
 
 German propaganda in the U.S., 216, 217, 
 224, 405, 406, 409, 411, 414, 415. 
 
 Germany, phantasm of poUtical liberty in, 
 165, 166; and the Panama Canal, 189; 
 relations of U.S. with, 216 f.; influence 
 of, in inducing Colombia to reject Hay- 
 Herran treaty, 225; vetoes limitation 
 of armaments at Hague Conference 
 of 1907, 287; menace of, 291; and the 
 Great War, 402 JJ.; her conspirators in 
 the U.S., 405, 406; attitude of Wilson 
 administration toward, criticised, 410 f. 
 And see Hay, John, Holleben, Panama 
 Canal, WiUiam H, and Wilson, Wood- 
 row. 
 
 Gilbert, J. T., 46 n. 
 
 Gladstone, William E., 5, 205. 
 
 Glasscock, William E., 351. 
 
 Godkin, Edwin L., and R.'s resignation 
 as Pohce Commissioner, 105, 106; a 
 great power for good, despite his critical 
 habit, 106, 107; and C. A. Dana, 108. 
 
 Gorman, Arthur P., agent of the Interests 
 in the Senate, 93 ; attacks Civil Service 
 Commission, 93-95; 194. 
 
 Goudy, Henrj', 329. 
 
 Gould, Jay, 34, 41. 
 
 Grandfathers' Law, the, 282. 
 
 Grant, Robert, 351, 352, 354. 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., attempt to nominate 
 for a third term in 1 880, 47; 12, 207, 321. 
 
 Great Britain. See Alaska, England, and 
 Panama Canal. 
 
 Great Fleet, the, voyage of, round the 
 worid, 286/. 
 
 Great Northern R.R., 197. 
 
 Great War, the, 402 f. 
 
 Griggs, John W., 169 n. 
 
 Grosvenor, Charles H., the "Gentle Shep- 
 herd of Ohio," and the Civil Service 
 Commission, 91, 92. 
 
 Guild, Curtis, 97, 151, 152. 
 
 Hadley, Herbert S., 351, 365, 366, 372, 373. 
 
 Hagedom, Hermaim, The Boys' Life of 
 Theodore Roosevelt, 9. 
 
 Hague Conference (1907) fails to agree 
 on limitation of armaments, 297. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, 19. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 291, 293. 
 
 Hanks, Charles S., 22, 23. 
 
 Hanks, John, 386. 
 
 Haima, Marcus A., R. and, 305; candi- 
 date for Republican nomination in 1904, 
 306; death, 307; 148. 
 
 Harriman, Edward H., the railroad czar 
 of the U.S., 234; 251, 308. 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, elected President in 
 1888, 84; appoints R. Civil Service 
 Commissioner, 84, 89; his other ap- 
 pointees, 89, 90; 97, 256, 300. 
 
 Harvard Advocate, R. editor of, 19. 
 
 Harvard College, in R.'s time, 14 #.; stand- 
 ard of scholarship, 16. 
 
 Uarvard Crimson, armual dinner of, 19, 20. 
 
 Harvard Gymnasium, R.'s boxing match 
 in, 22, 23. 
 
 Hasty Pudding Club, 19. 
 
 Havana, treatment of Americans at, in 
 1897, 117; U.S. battleship sent to, 117; 
 destruction of U.S.S. Maine in harbor 
 of, and its effect, 117, 118. 
 
 Hawaiian Islands, 172. 
 
 Hay, John, as Secretary of State, 173, 174; 
 Heruy Adams quoted on, 173; and the 
 Senate, 174, 180; relations of, with diplo- 
 matic corps, 174; and the Hay-Paunce- 
 fote treaties, 179^.; wishes to resign, 180; 
 letter of R. to, 180, 181; negotiates sec- 
 ond Panama treaty, 182; negotiates 
 Hay-Herran treaty, 182^.; not consulted 
 as to Panama revolution, 187; his death 
 not caused by remorse, 188; and the 
 Open Door in China, 229; 113, 142, 210, 
 220, 307, 314. Letters of, to Henry White, 
 148, 149; R., 150; Henry Adams, 156, 
 229; Lady Jeune, 156. 
 
 Hay-Herran treaty, 182 ^.; German in- 
 fluence in inducing Colombia to reject, 
 225. 
 
 Hay-Pauncefote treaty, first, amended by 
 Senate, fails, i8o; second, 182. 
 
 Haywood, William D., accused of murder 
 of Gov. Steunenberg of Idaho, 250, 251; 
 acquitted, 251; leader of I.W.W., 251. 
 
 Hearst, William R., 441. 
 
INDEX 
 
 463 
 
 Henry, Prince, of Prussia, his visit to the 
 U.S., and its failure, 223, 224. 
 
 Hepburn Act (Interstate Commerce 
 Amendment), 231. 
 
 Herran, Tomas, Dr., and the Hay-Herran 
 treaty, 182, 183; 186, 187, 189. 
 
 Hess, Jacob, Republican "boss" of the 
 2ist New York District, 28, 29, 30, 32, 
 33- 
 
 Hewitt, Abram S., elected Mayor of New 
 York, 69, 70, 71. 
 
 Hill, David B., Democratic "boss" of 
 New York State, 102, 131. 
 
 Hill, James J., 234. 
 
 Hillquit, Morris, 441. 
 
 Hinman, Harvey D., 399. 
 
 Hobart, Garrett, Vice-President, 144. 
 
 HoUeben, Dr. von, and the Kaiser's Vene- 
 zuela scheme, 221, 222; made a scape- 
 goat, 222-224; 210. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., letter of R. 
 to, on Alaskan boundary, 176, 177. 
 
 Hughes, Charles E., his fight for primary 
 elections, 336; nominated for President 
 by Republicans in 1916, 423; supported 
 by R., 423, 424; defeated, 425. 
 
 I.W.W., rise of, 251, 252; denounced by 
 R., 441. 
 
 Immigration into U.S., effect of, on wages, 
 161, 162; antagonism between Labor 
 and Capital largely due to, 163, 164; 
 growth of Anarchism and Nihilism due 
 to, 164. 
 
 Immigration, Bureau of, 231. 
 
 Imperialism in the Republican platform 
 of 1900, 150; meaning of, 170; opposing 
 views concerning, 170, 171; R. among 
 those who accepted it, 171; his theory 
 set forth, 171, 172. 
 
 IngersoU, Robert G., 48. 
 
 Initiative, the, 345. 352, 376, 387. 
 
 Insurgent Republicans, first appearance 
 of, 312; increasingly important part 
 played by, 342; rebel against Cannon 
 dictatorship, and defeat him, 343; novel 
 political instruments proposed by, 345; 
 La FoUette leader of, 348; majority of, 
 desire R.'s nomination in 1912, 349, 
 350, 351. And see Progressive Party. 
 
 "Interests, the," growth of, 195/-; R-'s 
 attitude toward, 199; stories about R. 
 circulated by, 203, 204; necessity of 
 
 controlling, 232, 233; and the financial 
 upheaval of 1907, 239; 383, 386, 399. 
 
 Internationalism, rise of, 161. 
 
 Interstate Commerce Act, 197, 231. 
 
 Ireland, John, Archbishop, and the Car- 
 dinalate, 298 J'. 
 
 Irish, in U.S., German attempts to se- 
 duce, 224. 
 
 Iron Ore, libel on R. published in, 397. 
 
 Italy, and the Kaiser's Venezuela scheme, 
 219, 220. 
 
 Ivins, William M., 400, 401. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 86, 207. 
 
 Japan, German attempts to cause trouble 
 between U.S. and, 224, 225; war with 
 Russia, 225-227; R.'s attitude toward, 
 226; 202, 288. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 334. 
 
 Jeffries, James, 271. 
 
 Jesup, Morris K., 30. 
 
 Jette, Sir A. L., 175. 
 
 Jeune, Lady Francis, letter of Hay to, 156. 
 
 Jew-baiting, attempted in New York, 104, 
 105. 
 
 Jews, massacre of, in Kishineff, 229, 230; 
 protests of, in U.S., 229, 230. 
 
 Jiu-jitsu, 270, 271. 
 
 Joffre, Joseph, Marshal, 442. 
 
 Johnson, Hiram W., nominated for Vice- 
 President with R. in 1912, 375; 369, 371. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 89. 
 
 Jordan, David S., 419. 
 
 Judicial Recall, misnamed "Recall of 
 Judges," 345; prevents R.'s nomination 
 in 1912, 376; attitude of public toward, 
 
 376, 377; 387- 
 Jusserand, Jules, dispatch of, quoted, on 
 
 R.'s personality, 262, 263. 
 Justice, R.'s love of, 242, 243, 253, 345, 
 
 346. 
 
 Kansas City Star, 440. 
 
 Kearsarge, the, 4. 
 
 Kiphng, Rudyard, Jungle Books, T, 3T5- 
 
 Kishineff, massacre of Jews at, 229, 230. 
 
 Klondike, discovery of gold in, 174. 
 
 Knox, Philander C, 169 n. 
 
 Ku-KIux Klan, 281. 
 
 Labor, American, largely composed of 
 foreigners 163; and Capital, antagonism 
 between, 163, 164, 166/., 233; R.'s atti- 
 
464 
 
 INDEX 
 
 tude toward, 212, 242 ff- And see Coal 
 strike of 1902. 
 
 La FoUette, Robert M., leader of Pro- 
 gressives, 348; candidate for nomina- 
 tion for President in 1912, 349; 350, 
 441. 
 
 Lambert, Alexander, 398. 
 
 Las Guasimas, skirmish at, 125. 
 
 Lee, Alice Hathaway, engaged to R., 
 24; marries R., 31. See Roosevelt, Mrs. 
 Alice H. 
 
 Leo, George C, 24. 
 
 Lesseps, Count Ferdinand de, 179. 
 
 Leupp, Francis E., Indian Commissioner, 
 The Man Roosevelt quoted, 188, 189, 284. 
 
 Lewis, Edwin H., 315, 370. 
 
 Liability of government to employees, act 
 establishing, 231. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, i, 2, 38.68, 80, no, 142, 
 151, 192, 194, 206, 207, 213, 231, 273, 
 
 284,329,346,386,451- 
 Liquor, illegal sales of, in New York. See 
 
 Minors, and New York City Police Dept. 
 Livingstone, David, Travels, 6. 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, supposed influence 
 
 of, in determining R.'s course in 1884, 
 
 54, 55; 49- 143, 180, 354, 406. 
 Loeb, William, 155, 276. 
 London, City of, freedom of, bestowed on 
 
 R-, 327- 
 Long, John D., Secretary of the Navy, his 
 
 character, 113; contrast between R. and, 
 
 113, 114; 116, 121. 
 Lusitania, sinking of, 405, 40? #•. 428. 
 Lyman, Charles, 89, 90. 
 Lynch, John R., 49. 
 
 McAllister, Ward, 327. 
 
 McGovern, Francis E., 365. 
 
 McKee, Baby, 300. 
 
 McKinley, William, appoints R. Assistant 
 Secretary of Navy, 105; and Cuba, 116; 
 renominated and reelected, 150, 152; 
 shot by Czolgosz, 154; death, 155; R. 
 promises to continue his policies, 155, 
 169; his Cabinet retained by R., 169 
 and n.; his character, 169, 170; his atti- 
 tude toward free silver, 170; 119, 128, 
 148, 149, 175. 180, 210, 211, 216, 254, 
 268, 304, 305, 306. And see Hay, John, 
 and Spanish War. 
 
 McMullen, Professor, 7. 
 
 MacVeagh, Wayne, 186, 187. 
 
 Madison, James, 334. 
 
 Maine, U.S. battleship, blown up in Ha- 
 vana Harbor, 117, ii8. 
 
 Manila, German ships at, 218. 
 
 Manila Bay, battle of, 121. 
 
 Marroquin, President of Colombia, 187. 
 
 Marshall, Thomas R., 450. 
 
 Meadowbrook Hunt, 57. 
 
 Meat Inspection Act, 231, 238, 311. 
 
 Medora. See Elkhorn Ranch. 
 
 Merit System in the Civil Service, 88, 89. 
 
 Merry del Val, Cardinal, and R.'s visit 
 to Rome, 322, 323. 
 
 Metropolitan Magazine, R.'s articles in, 
 418/., 440. 
 
 Mexico, German propaganda in, 224; 397. 
 
 Meyer, George von L., 226. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 293, 295. 
 
 Minckwitz, Herr, 13. 
 
 Minors, unlawful sale of liquors to, in New 
 York, how dealt with by R., 111-113. 
 
 Mitchell, Edward, 30. 
 
 Mitchell, John, 243. 
 
 Monetary Commission, 232. 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, and Cleveland's Vene- 
 zuela Message, 172; R.'s view of, 172; 
 and the Panama Canal, 181; 217, 224, 
 227. 
 
 Montauk Point, 129. 
 
 Mores, Marquis de, 6x, 62. 
 
 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 197, 234, 235. 
 
 Morgan, William F., 30. 
 
 Morley, John [Viscount], 266. 
 
 Morocco, trouble between France and Ger- 
 many over, 202, 227, 228. 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, 76. 
 
 Morton, Levi P., Vice-President, 144. 
 
 Moyer, , accused of murder of 
 
 Governor Steunenberg, 250, 251; ac- 
 quitted, 251. 
 
 "Mugwumps," name given by C. A. Darui 
 to anti-Blaine Republicans, 51; their in- 
 fluence in the election of 1884, 54. 
 
 Munitions of war, sale of, to Allies, 415. 
 
 Murray, Joseph, ex-Tammanyite, and R., 
 29, 32, 3Z- 
 
 Napoleon I, 38, 160. 
 Nation, The, 105. 
 Nationality, Spirit of, 161. 
 Natural History Society at Harvard, 19. 
 Naturalization of aliens, undiscriminating, 
 163. 
 
INDEX 
 
 465 
 
 Navy of the United States, in the War of 
 1812, 74; after the Civil War, 114; re- 
 construction of, pushed by R., 114, im- 
 portance of, in view of Cuban affairs, 
 in 1897, 115, 116; functions of, in 
 Spanish War, 120, 121; its prestige frit- 
 tered away after R.'s term ended, 290. 
 And see Great Fleet, the. 
 
 Navy Department, activity in, after de- 
 struction of the Maine, 118. 
 
 Negro question, the, 281 ff. 
 
 Negro suffrage, 281, 285. 
 
 Negroes, R.'s attitude toward, 282. And 
 see Washington, Booker T. 
 
 Newell, F. H., and R.'s conservation 
 policy, 236, 238. 
 
 Newett, George A., sued by R. for libel, 
 397-399; withdraws charges of drunken- 
 ness, etc., 398. 
 
 Newspaper men, R.'s relations with, 272, 
 300. 
 
 New York Assembly, R.'s candidacy for, 
 2b f.; his sponsors, 30; R.'s service in, 
 34/.; R.'s second term in, 39 f.; his 
 third term, 41 f.; and the Franchise 
 Tax bill, 138, 139. 
 
 New York City, R. on political conditions 
 in. 33; Sunday sales of liquor in, stopped 
 by R., 102, 103; welcomes R. on his 
 return from his African Expedition, 
 300. 
 
 New York City Police Department, in- 
 vestigation of, 40, 41; workings of, de- 
 scribed, 98, 99; under R., 100 ^T. 
 
 New York Elevated Railway, 40. 
 
 New York Evening Post, 105, 107, 143. 
 
 New York State, dominated by bosses, 
 131; R.'s campaign and election as 
 governor, 135 ; his administration, 137^., 
 146, 147. And see Piatt, Thomas C. 
 
 New York Sim, 50, 107, 144. 
 
 New York Times, 411. 
 
 New York Tribune, 51, 52, 133. 
 
 Nicholas II, Czar, urged by R. to make 
 peace with Japan, 226, 227; and the mas- 
 sacre of Jews in Kishineff, 229, 230; 
 letter of R. to, 230; 202. 
 
 Nile, the, ornithology of, 13. 
 
 Nobel Peace Prize, given to R., 227; 203, 
 
 324- 
 North, S. N. D., letter of R. to, 44- 
 North Dakota, R. buys ranches in, 58. 
 Northern Pacific R.R., 197. 
 
 Northern Securities Case, decision of U.S. 
 
 Supreme Court in, 197. 
 Northern Securities Co., 197. 
 
 O. K. Society, 19. 
 
 Odell, Benjamin B., 277. 
 
 Ogg, Frederic A., National Progress. 1907- 
 
 i9i7,.quoted,235. 
 O'Leary, Jeremiah, 425. 
 Obey, Richard, 180, 191. 
 O'Neil, William, 37, 40. 
 Open Door, the, 229. 
 Oregoti, U.S. battleship, 178. 
 Osborn, Chase S., 351. 
 Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 329, 391. 
 Our Young Folks, 8. 
 
 Outlook, The, R.'s articles in, 404, 418 f. 
 Oxford, gives R. honorary degree, 327; R. 
 
 delivers Romanes Lecture at, 328, 329. 
 Oyster Bay, 72, 255. And see Sagamore 
 
 HiU. 
 
 Packard, Edwin, 46 n. 
 
 Panama, revolution in, 185. 
 
 Panama Republic proclaimed and recog- 
 nized by U.S., 185, 186; grants U.S. 
 right to construct a canal, etc., 186. 
 
 Panama Canal, and the Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty, 178; necessity of, 178, 179; 
 French attempt to construct, 179; R. 
 on, 181; strip of territory for construc- 
 tion of, leased to U.S., 186; probable 
 result of completion of, 291; 288. 
 
 Pan-Germanism, 228. 
 
 Parker, Alton B., Democratic candidate 
 for President in 1904, attacks R., 307, 
 308. 
 
 Partridge, Colonel, 136. 
 
 Party, R.'s belief in fealty to, 53, 387; 
 R.'s view of party organization, 304. 
 
 Pauncefote, Sir Julian [Baron], and the 
 Hay-Pauncefote treaty, il9 f- 
 
 Payne, Henry W., appointed Postmaster- 
 General by R., 169 n. 
 
 Payne, Sereno E., 339, 340. 
 
 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, character of, 
 339. 340. 341; extolled by Taft in Win- 
 ona speech, 340, 341; public dissatis- 
 faction with, 344; 295, 376. 
 
 Pearson, Mr., Postmaster of New York, 97. 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa, R. a member of, 23. 
 
 Philippines, Spanish fJeet at, in 1898, 120, 
 121; status of, 170; R.'s views as to our 
 
466 
 
 INDEX 
 
 duty concerning, 171, 172; Forbes, Gov- 
 ernor-General of, 173; 189, 274. .\nd see 
 Manila Bay. 
 
 Pinchot, Giflford, and R.'s conservation 
 policy, 235, 236; and Ballinger, 335, 336. 
 
 Pius X, Pope, 322, 323. 
 
 Piatt, Thomas C, Republican boss of 
 New York, 131, 132, 133 and «.; opposed 
 to R.'s candidacy for governor, 133, 134; 
 R.'s attitude toward, 134; consents to 
 R.'s nomination, 135; difference with R. 
 over State offices, 135, 136; and R.'s 
 attitude toward corporations, 138, 139; 
 R. never his "man," 139, 140, 142; R.'s 
 "breakfasts" with him discussed, 139, 
 140; and R.'s appointee as Superin- 
 tendent of Insurance, 140-142; letters 
 of R. to, 143-146; wishes to be rid of 
 R. as governor, 147; decides to shelve 
 him in office of Vice-President, 147, 148, 
 and succeeds, 149. 150; 208, 277, 303. 
 
 Piatt, Orville H., 310, 311. 
 
 Plattsburg camps, 407, 436. 
 
 Plutocracy in the U.S., 193, 194, 195,301, 
 302. 
 
 Porcellian Club, 19. 
 
 Porto Rico, status of, 170. 
 
 Pound, James H., 398. 
 
 Presidential campaign, of 1876, 18, 19; 0} 
 1904, 306 /.; of 1912, 377-382; oj 1916, 
 421 1. 
 
 Primaries, direct, and the Republican Con- 
 vention of 1912, 356, 357. 
 
 Progressive Party (name adopted by In- 
 surgent Republicans), La Follette leader 
 of, 348; majority of, desire R.'s nomina- 
 tion in 1912, 349, 350, 351; at the Na- 
 tional Convention, 359^.; many dele- 
 gates of, refuse to ballot for candidates, 
 369; released from party obligation by 
 nomination of Taft, 371 : action of, after 
 nominations, 371, 372; holds convention 
 in August, 373 _ff.; nominates R., 374; 
 the platform, 375, 376; many of the 
 planks since made into law by Demo- 
 crats, 375, 376, 396; ceases to be a real 
 power in poHtics, 396; R. nominated by, 
 in 1916, but declines, 423. And see In- 
 surgent Republicans, Republican Party. 
 
 Protection Tariff, R.'s attitude on, 293/. 
 
 Public Lands R.'s work in reclaiming and 
 conserving, 236-238. 
 
 Pure Food Act, 231. 
 
 Putnam, G. P. 's Sons, 32. 
 Putnam, George Haven, 32. 
 Putnam, Rufus P., 92. 
 
 Quay, Matthew S., his reputation, 131, 
 132, 133 and «.; connives at Piatt's 
 scheme to nominate R. for Vice-Presi- 
 dent, 149; R. reconciled to, 304, 305. 
 
 Quigg, Lemuel, and R.'s candidacy for 
 governor of New York, 133, 134, 135. 
 
 Railroads, reasons for legislative control 
 of, 233, 234; war for monopoly of, and 
 the near panic of 1901, 234, 235; laws 
 regulating rates and rebates, 235. 
 
 RampoUa, Cardinal, 299. 
 
 Recall of Judges. 5ef Judicial Recall. 
 
 Reconstruction, 285. 
 
 Referendum, the, 345, 352, 376, 387. 
 
 Reid, Whitclaw, 325. 
 
 Republican Machine, R.'s relations with, 
 after he became president "in his own 
 right," 309 ^.; accepts R.'s choice of 
 Taft as his successor, 314, 315; Taft's 
 standing with, 341, 342. And see Piatt, 
 Thomas C. 
 
 Republican National Committee, R. a 
 member of, in 1884, 43; and the Conven- 
 tion of 1912, 358; controlled by Regu- 
 lars, 366. 
 
 Republican National Convention {1900), 
 nominates R. for Vice-President, 149; 
 (1904) nominates R. for President, 
 307; (/p/2), 356/.; Southern delegates 
 largely pledged to Taft, 356; delegates 
 from Northern, Western, and Pacific 
 States, largely for R., 356; great number 
 of contesting delegates, 357; sessions of, 
 357-371; R- on the outskirts of, 359 Jf-; 
 action of Credentials Committee a 
 shameless theft, 367; nominates Taft, 
 367; R.'s message to, 368. 
 
 Republican Party, history of, since the 
 Civil War, 46, 47; in the presidential 
 election of 1876, 47; nominates Garfield 
 in 1880, 47, and Blaine in 1884, 47-50; 
 split by nomination of Blaine, 49, 50; R. 
 adheres to, 52 f.; character of, in R.'s 
 day, 193, 194; upholder of privilege, 
 193; the story of R.'s conflict with, 331 
 Jff.; split between Regulars and Insur- 
 gents, 335 f.; difficulties of, in 1912, 
 349^.; in the South, 356; Insurgents re- 
 
INDEX 
 
 467 
 
 leased from obligation to, by renomina- 
 tion of Taft, 371; split by Taft faction, 
 not by R., 382, 383, 422; Regulars abuse 
 R-. 384, 385; R- used it as long as he 
 could, 386; the party of the plutocrats 
 who controlled the Interests, 386; seeks 
 to destroy R. as a political factor, 399; 
 declines him as a candidate in 1916, 421, 
 422; nominates Hughes, 422, 423. 
 
 Restoration of the Bourbons, 161. 
 
 Reyes, Rafael, 186, 187, 188. 
 
 Rhodes, James Ford, quoted, on R., 273, 
 274; 285, 286, 301, 302. 
 
 Riis, Jacob, R.'s companion on his tours of 
 inspection as Police Commissioner, 103, 
 104; How the Other Half Lives, 104; on 
 R.'s administration as governor, 137; 
 Theodore Roosevelt; the Citizen, quoted, 
 35. 70, 138, 139, 266. 
 
 River of Doubt, 81, 82, 391/. 
 
 Rixey, Surgeon-General of U.S., 265. 
 
 Robinson, Mrs. Corinne (Roosevelt), 7, 
 277,278,331,389. 
 
 Robinson, Douglas, 10 n. 
 
 Rock Creek, 261. 
 
 Romanes Lecture at Oxford, delivered by 
 R.,328. 
 
 Rome, R.'s visit to, 322-324. 
 
 Roosevelt, Mrs. Alice (Lee), death, 44, 
 58. 
 
 Roosevelt, Archibald, 441, 442. 
 
 Roosevelt, Corinne, 9, 10 and «., And see 
 Robinson, Mrs. Corinne (Roosevelt). 
 
 Roosevelt, Cornelius Van Schaack, R.'s 
 grandfather, 3. 
 
 Roosevelt, Mrs. Edith Carow, ancestry, 
 71, 72; 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 270, 283, 
 288, 300, 320, 330, 359, 361, 379, 449. 
 
 Roosevelt, Elliott, 5. 
 
 Roosevelt, Ethel, R.'s daughter, 320. .\nd 
 see Derby, Mrs. Ethel. 
 
 Roosevelt, Kermit, R.'s son, accompanies 
 R. on his African journey, 319 f., and 
 on his Brazilian trip, 391, 394; marries 
 Miss Willard, 395; 258, 441, 442. 
 
 Roosevelt, Klaes Martensen van, 2. 
 
 Roosevelt, Mrs. Martha (Bulloch). R.'s 
 mother, an unreconstructed Southerner, 
 4; death 43, 58; 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 
 
 Roosevelt, Quentin, R.'s son, killed in air- 
 battle, 442; 441, 447- 
 
 Roosevelt, Robert, 5, 31. 
 
 Roosevelt, Mrs. Robert, 6. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, R.'s father, his char- 
 acter, 3; R.'s tribute to, 3, 4; appointed 
 Commissioner to Vienna Exposition, 
 I2;death, 24,25:5, 7,9, II. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore. — 
 
 I. Early Years. — Contrast between 
 his origin, training, etc., and Lincoln's, 
 1,2; his paternal ancestry, 2, 3; his trib- 
 ute to his father, 3, 4; his mother an un- 
 reconstructed Southerner, 4; her broth- 
 ers, 4, 5; eSect of his joint Northern 
 and Southern ancestry on his non-sec- 
 tional .'Vmericanism, 5; birth and boy- 
 hood, 5 f.; learns early to read, 6; sense 
 of humor, 6; fondness for pets, 6, 7; a 
 sickly child, 7; an omnivorous reader, 8; 
 early taste for natural history, 8, 9, 12; 
 visit to Europe, 9, 10; extracts from his • 
 fliary, 9, 10; takes up g>'mnastics to 
 counteract his asthmatic habit, 11, 12; 
 "Roosevelt Museum of Natural His- 
 tory," 12; again abroad: .Algiers and the 
 Nile, 12, 13; in Vienna and Dresden, 13; 
 prepares for Harvard under A. H. Cut- 
 ler, 13; steadily improving health, 13, 14; 
 devoted to athletics, 14; enters Har\'ard 
 in 1876, 14; the College in his day, 14-16; 
 his college course, 16 /.; in the NIaine 
 Woods, 17; his devotion to Harvard, 17; 
 athletic and social life, 18, 19; editor of 
 the Advocate, 19; his maiden speech, 20; 
 his ambition to help the cause of good 
 government, 21; teaches in Sunday 
 School, 22 ; his boxing-match with Hanks, 
 22, 23; his rank at graduation, 23; mem- 
 ber of Phi Beta Kappa, 23; a happy 
 combination of the amateurish and the 
 intense, 24; his father's death, 24, 25; 
 engaged to Miss Lee, 24; married to 
 her, 32. 
 
 IL From Assemblyman to Police Com- 
 missioner. — Possessed of a competence, 
 25, 26; decides to enter politics, 26; his 
 candidacy for the New York .Assembly, 
 26 ff.; elected to 2ist District Repub- 
 lican Club, 27, 28; a "good mixer," 28; 
 and "Boss" Hess, 28; relations with 
 Murray, e.x-Tammanyite, 29; his ap- 
 peals to the voters, 29, 30; his sponsors, 
 30, 31; his law-studies, 31, 32; nms the 
 gauntlet of the saloon-keepers, 32, zy, 
 his purpose in going into politics, 33, 34; 
 the greatest idealist in American public 
 
468 
 
 INDEX 
 
 life since Lincoln, 34; attacks corruption 
 in New York 34; demands impeachment 
 of Judge VVestbrook, 35, 36; his business, 
 to uphold Right, 36; his name becomes 
 known, 37; works with Billy O'Neil, 37, 
 38; renominated for Assembly, 38; liis 
 justifiable pride in liis first year's re- 
 cord, 38; reelected, 39; his second ses- 
 sion, 39-41; his associates, 40; fights 
 Black-Horse Cavalry, 40, 41; encounter 
 with George Bliss, 41 ; his tliird term, 41- 
 43; bill for relief of cigar-makers, de- 
 clared unconstitutional, 42, 43; decUnes 
 a fourth term, 43 ; deaths of mother and 
 wife, 44; delegate to National Conven- 
 tion of 1884, 46, 50; embodies the glo- 
 rious promise of the new generation, 47; 
 opposed to nomination of Blaine, 49; 
 favors Edmunds, 49; supports Blaine, 
 52-55; his belief that party transcends 
 persons, 53, 54, 387; his decision formed 
 independently, 54, 55; takes a vigorous 
 part in the campaign, 55; a wonderful 
 example of the partnership of mind and 
 body, 56, 57; great physical strength, 57; 
 fishing and hunting, 58; decides to go 
 West, 58; buys ranches in the Bad Lands 
 in No. Dakota, 58; his life at P^lkhorn 
 Ranch, 59 Jf., 256; intercourse with law- 
 less nomads, 60, 61 ; and the Marquis de 
 Mores, 61, 62; experiences with "bad 
 men,'' 62-64, and with cattle- thieves, 64; 
 acting deputy sheriff, 65, 66; his bodily 
 frame equal to the demands of his physical 
 courage, 66; not pugnacious, 67; results 
 of his ranch-life, 68; acquires a national 
 point of view, 68; nominated by Inde- 
 pendents for Mayor of New York, 69, 70 ; 
 his letter of acceptance, 70; defeated, 
 71; marries Miss Carow in London, 72, 
 256; settles on Sagamore Hill estate, at 
 Oyster Bay, 72, 256; devotes himself to 
 literature, izf'y could do nothing com- 
 monplace, 73; as a historian, 74, 75; his 
 portrait of Daniel Boon, 75; his many 
 books on ranch-life and hunting, 77; his 
 collected essays and addresses, 77; ig- 
 nored by professional critics, 77, 78; 
 quaHty of his writings, 78^.; his "catch- 
 ing" phrases and similes, 79; the purist 
 may criticise, 79; characteristics of his 
 political essays, 80, 81; feels the charm 
 of beauty, 81; his holidays, 83, 84; sup- 
 
 ports Harrison in 1888, 84; appointed 
 Civil Service Commissioner by him, 84, 
 89; the Republican Machine glad to 
 have him shelved, 84, 85; his colleagues, 
 89, 90; shapes the policy of the Com- 
 mission, 90; enforces Civil Service Law 
 rigorously, 91; encounters with Gros- 
 venor and Gorman, 90-95 ; urges exten- 
 sion of classified service, 96; reappointed 
 by Cleveland, 96, 97; appointed Presi- 
 dent of Board of Police Commissioners 
 of New York City, 98; sets out to reform 
 the prevailing system of corruption and 
 blackmail, 100, loi; enforces the laws, 
 loi ; closes saloons on Sundays, 102, 103; 
 his visits of inspection, 103, 104; and 
 Ahlwardt, the Jew-baiter, 104, 105; re- 
 signs to become Assistant Secretary of 
 the Navy, under John D. Long, 105; 
 feeling in New York concerning liis resig- 
 nation, 105, 106; physical and mental 
 condition in 1897, 109, no; effect of his 
 training as Civil Service Commissioner, 
 no, and as Police Commissioner, in; 
 takes the law into his own hands to 
 check sale of liquor to minors, in, 112; 
 his tendency to follow short cuts to 
 justice, 113. 
 
 HL Assistant Secretary of the Navy and 
 Rough Rider. — Contrast between Sec- 
 retary Long and, 113, 114; his knowledge 
 of the Navy and interest in its problems, 
 114; pushes construction of the new navy, 
 114, 116; his premonition of a crisis, 
 IIS; Cleveland's Venezuela message, 
 115; the insurrection in Cuba, 115, 116; 
 secures appropriation for target practice, 
 116; welcomes approach of war, and 
 why, 118, 119; his opinion of Boston, 
 119; his gosjjel of military and naval 
 preparedness, 120; his dispatch to 
 Dewey at Hong Kong, 121; his status in 
 the Navy Department, 121; decides to 
 take part in the war, 122; declines offer 
 of a commission in the army, 122; with 
 Leonard Wood raises First Regiment of 
 "Volunteer Cavalry (Rough Riders), and 
 becomes lieutenant-colonel, 122^.; the 
 volunteers bound together by devotion 
 to him, 123; becomes colonel, 126; at 
 San Juan Hill, 126; life in the trenches, 
 126; his letter to Gen. Shafter, 127, 128; 
 the "Round Robin," and its effect at 
 
INDEX 
 
 469 
 
 home, 128, 129; at Montauk Point, 129; 
 lessons of the war as seen by, 130. 
 
 IV. Governor and Vice-President. — 
 His great popularity, 13: ; his candidacy 
 for governor, first opposed then ac- 
 cepted by Piatt, 133-135; his vigorous 
 campaign, 135; elected, 135; his first 
 encounter with Piatt, 135, 136; his 
 administration described by Riis, 
 137; Factory law and law regulating 
 sweat-shops, enforced, 137; struggle 
 over law to tax public-franchise cor- 
 porations, 137/.; and the profes- 
 sional critics, 139; not Piatt's "man," 
 139, 140; his breakfasts with Piatt, 139, 
 140; and the ofiSce of Superintendent 
 of Insurance, 140-142; how far he co- 
 operated with the Machine, 142; on the 
 proposal to nominate him for Vice- 
 presidency, 143, 144; desires Judge 
 Andrews to succeed him as governor, 
 144-146; "I am an organization Repub- 
 lican of a very strong type," 144; views 
 of, as to the attitude of oflBcials toward 
 the "organization," 145, 146; his inde- 
 pendence and achievement of reforms 
 increase his popularity, 146, 147; Piatt 
 and the Machine decide to shelve liim in 
 the oflice of Vice-President, 147, 149; 
 is averse to the plan, 147, 148; states 
 publicly that he is not a candidate, 149; 
 but is nominated, 149; in the campaign, 
 151; presides over the Senate, 152; 
 thinks of pursuing his law studies, 153; 
 succeeds to the Presidency on the death 
 of McKinley, 155. 
 
 V. President. — Takes the oath of 
 oflBce at Buffalo, 155; promises to con- 
 tinue McKinley's pohcies, 155, i69' 
 retains McKinley's Cabinet, 156, 169; 
 the hope of American politics, 157; 
 what sort of a world he confronted, 158- 
 168; the doctrine of Imperialism, ac-' 
 cepted by, 170, 171 ; his view of our duty 
 to the Filipinos, 171, 172; his view of 
 the Monroe Doctrine in various aspects, 
 172, 181; what Imperialism meant to 
 him, 172; convinced that the U.S. must 
 abandon policy of isolation, 172; ap- 
 points W. C. Forbes Governor-General 
 of Philippines, 173; and the Alaskan 
 Boundary dispute, I7S#; appoints new 
 High Commission, 175; his views on the 
 
 subject, 176, 177; gains a favorable de- 
 cision by a "short cut," 177, 178; the 
 Panama Canal question, 178 /.; ob- 
 jects to first Hay-Pauncefote treaty. 
 180, 181; and the revolution in 
 Panama, 185; recognizes Panama Re- 
 public, 185 /.; varying views of the 
 Panama episode, 188-190; a champion of 
 liberty, 192; his Republicanism, 193; 
 his attitude toward plutocracy and privi- 
 lege, 193, 194; relies on justice and com- 
 mon sense, 194; suggests need of legis- 
 lation to resist encroachments by cap- 
 italists, 198; urges conservation of na- 
 tional resources, 198; general nature 
 of ills reforms, 198; warfare with the 
 Interests, 199, 200; combativcness his 
 dominant trait, 201; not truculent or 
 pugnacious, 201; repels attempts of 
 William II. to gain a foothold on this 
 continent, 202; shines as a peacemaker, 
 202, 203; persuades Russian Czar to 
 make peace with Japan, 202, 226; sug- 
 gests Conference of Algeciras to settle 
 Moroccan dispute, 202, 228; the "Big 
 Stick," 202, 288; stories about him cir- 
 culated by the Interests, 203, 204; the 
 Ananias Club, 204, 209; how far the 
 charge of beingambitious is true, 206/.; 
 his habit of speaKing and writing can- 
 didly, 209, 210, 211 ; not liable to accusa- 
 tion of mendacity, 210,211; and the con- 
 flict' between Labor and Capital, 212, 
 213; the "square deal," 213, 215; two 
 contrasted views of, 213; remodels the 
 White House, 215, 275; blocks the 
 Kaiser's Venezuelan scheme, 219-224; 
 threatens war, if Kaiser will not arbi- 
 trate his claims, against Venezuela, 
 22i,222;his share in bringing about peace 
 between Russia and Japan, 226, 227; 
 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to, 227; 
 watches conditions in Germany, 228; 
 and the massacre of Jews at KishinefiF, 
 229, 230; important laws passed by Con- 
 gress during his administration, 231, 
 232; and the railroads, 233-235; orders 
 suit against Standard Oil Co. for re- 
 ceiving rebates, 235; his greatest work in 
 the fields of reclamation and conserva- 
 tion, 236 Jf.; advised by Pinchot, Newell, 
 Beveridge, and others, 238; and the Ten- 
 nessee Coal and Iron Co. episode, 239, 
 
470 
 
 INDEX 
 
 240; result of his battle for conservation, 
 240, 241; his dealings with Labor, 242i/'. ; 
 settles the coal strike of 1902 by extra- 
 legal means, 243-247; both sincere and 
 wise, 247, 248; moral of his settlement 
 of the coal strike, justice for all, 248, 
 249; the greatest of modern democrats, 
 249; the strike of the Western Federation 
 of Miners, and the murder of Governor 
 Steunenberg, 250, 251 ; undesirable citi- 
 zens, 251; his belief injustice and Equal- 
 ity as realities, 253. 
 
 His various homes between 1884 and 
 1889, 256; life in Washington as Civil 
 Service Commissioner, 256, 257; re- 
 turns to Sagamore Hill, 257; his life 
 there, 257-259, 261, 271; relations with 
 his children, 258; his life in Washington, 
 from 1901, 259^.; the "Tennis Cabi- 
 net," 260, 261; "hiking," 261, 262; M. 
 Jusserand quoted, concerning, 262, 263; 
 his order regarding forced marches for 
 troops, 264,265; dinners at the White 
 House, 265, 266; John Morley on, 266; 
 his family relations, 267, 268; the hours 
 of toil, 268, 269; his devotion to physi- 
 cal exerdse, 270, 271; loses sight of one 
 eye while boxing, 271; relations with 
 newspaper men, 272, 300; the great 
 paradox of his character, 272, 273; his 
 reverence for the great men of the past, 
 273; his method of coping with his work, 
 275; reorganizes White House service, 
 275. 276; always mindful of the dignity 
 ofjhis ofl6ce, 277; an upholder of the Fam- 
 ily, 280. 
 
 Attitude toward the negro, 282; the 
 Booker Washington incident, 282-285; 
 harshly criticised in the South, 283 ; the 
 voyage of the Great Fleet, 286-290; his 
 efforts to increase the strength of the 
 Navy, 287; purpose and result of the 
 voyage, 288-290; his attitude toward 
 war, discussed, 290 f.; his views and 
 action on the tariff unsatisfactory, 293- 
 295; the tariff a question of expediency, 
 295; colored troops at Brownsville (Tex- 
 as), 296, 297; never forgot the Oneness of 
 Society, 301 ; in what sense he was a pol- 
 itician, 303 ; his belief in the necessity of 
 party organization, 304; wins approval 
 of Quay, 304, 305; nominated in 1904, 
 307; and Judge Parker's attack, 307, 
 
 308; elected by huge majority, 308; his 
 declaration as to a third term, and what 
 it meant, 308, 309; President "inhisown 
 right," 309; first indications of the strug- 
 gle to come, 309^.; the Machine and the 
 Interests, 310, 311; his followers styled 
 "Insurgents," 312; pohcy of the "Regu- 
 lars" toward, 313; selects Taft as his 
 successor, 314; and the Republican 
 National Committee, 315; his expecta- 
 tions as to Taft's Cabinet disappointed, 
 316; leaves Washington, 317. 
 
 VI . Travels. — T)tf Canvass oj JQ12. — 
 His African expedition, 318-320; his ad- 
 dress in Cairo, 320; triumphal tour of 
 Europe, 320 X; why he did not call on 
 the Pop)e, 322-324; in Vienna and Bu- 
 dapest, 324; address at Christiania, on 
 universal peace, 324; entertained by the 
 Kaiser in Berlin, 324; his impression of 
 the Kaiser, 325, 326; in Paris, 325; his 
 reception in England, 325 f.; special 
 envoy at funeral of Edward VII, 325; 
 honors bestowed on liim by the City and 
 the universities, 327; his address on 
 Eg>'pt, 327, 328; delivers Romanes Lec- 
 ture, at Oxford, 328; his return to New 
 York, 330, 331. 
 
 His "policies" abandoned by the Re- 
 publicans during his absence, 332, 337 
 ff., 347; his mistake in attempting to 
 establish a presidential dynasty, 333, 
 334; urged by his followers to "unfurl 
 his flag " against the administration, 
 336; is attracted by the principles ac- 
 tuating the Progressive Movement, 345; 
 his Ossawatomie speech on the "New 
 Nationalism" (1910), 346, 347; Lincoln 
 would have approved the measures ad- 
 vocated in that speech, 346; becomes the 
 centre of attention, 347; resents the 
 abandormient of his policies, 347, 348; 
 relations with Taft, 347; declines to run 
 for President, 348; his zealous friends 
 urge him to reconsider, 349, 350; action 
 of the seven governors, 351; conversa- 
 tion with Judge Grant and the author, 
 351-355; announces his candidacy, 355; 
 the canvass for delegates, 356, 357; the 
 Convention of 1912, 357 J'.; goes to Chi- 
 cago and assumes direction of his forces, 
 359^.; his reception, 360; his activities 
 during the Convention, 361, 364; his 
 
INDEX 
 
 471 
 
 message to the Convention, repudiat- 
 ing its action, 368; his speech at the 
 meeting of his supporters, 371, 372; nom- 
 inated by Progressive Convention in 
 August, 373-375; effect of the pro- 
 posed Judicial Recall on his vote, 376, 
 377; his acti\'ity in the campaign, 378/.; 
 shot by Schranck, 378, 379; defeated, 
 381, 382; who split the Republican 
 Party? 382, 383, 422; personal attacks 
 on, 384; his action in entering the field 
 justified, 385 f.; his acceptance of de- 
 feat, 389; the South American journey 
 and the River of Doubt, 390 #.; effect of 
 the hardships of the journey on his 
 physique, 394; visits Madrid for his 
 son's marriage, 395; disappointed by the 
 waning of the Progressive Party, 396; his 
 libel suit against Newett, 397-399; sued 
 by Barnes for libel, 399-401 . 
 
 VII. The Great War. — Last years. At 
 first approves neutrality of U.S., 404; 
 his change of view, 406; the three tasks 
 that he set himself, 407 ; what he would 
 have done, had he been President in 
 May, 1915, 410, 411; charges President 
 Wilson with ultimate responsibility for 
 many things, 416; angered by Wilson's 
 contradictory utterances, 417; his arti- 
 cles in the Outlook and Metropolitan 
 MagazUie, quoted, 418-420; nominated 
 by Progressives in 191 6, but finally de- 
 clines to run, and supports Hughes, 421- 
 423, 424; his continued criticism of Wil- 
 son, 426, 428, 441; his speech at Platts- 
 burg causes Wood to be reprimanded, 
 431. 437; bis sentiments as to our enter- 
 ing the war, 432; offers to raise a divi- 
 sion of volunteers, 432; his offer declined, 
 433 and «.; after passage of draft law, 
 renews his offer, which is again declined, 
 433; charged with self-seeking, 434; 
 what the effect would have been of send- 
 ing him to France, 435; the President's 
 reason for refusing to employ him, 435, 
 436; resents treatment of Wood, 435, 
 437, 438; criticises Secretary Baker, 
 439; his articles in the Metropolitan and 
 Kansas City Star, 440; his efforts to se- 
 cure a commission, etc., the immediate 
 cause of sending any troops to France, 
 442; his last years not an anticlimax, 
 443; his whole career considered, 444^-; 
 
 his the one voice in the U.S. that could 
 not be silenced, 445; his demands, one 
 by one, reluctantly adopted by Wilson, 
 445. 446; his later relations with Repub- 
 lican regulars, 446, 447; he never re- 
 covered from the malarial fever with 
 which he became infected in Brazil, 
 447; death of Quentin, 447, 448; his last 
 public speech, 448; death and funeral, 
 at Sagamore Hill, 449, 450; concluding 
 reflections, 451-454. 
 
 VIII. Writings. — Letters. His Auto- 
 biography quoted, 5, 17, 33, 34, 134, 
 236, 252; History of the War of 181 2, 
 32, 74, 114; Winning of the West, 74; 
 Thomas H. Benton, 76, 294; Gouverneur 
 Morris, 76; Ohver Cromwell, 76; Through 
 the Brazilian Wilderness, 82; The 
 Rough Riders, 125. Letters to Felix 
 Frankfurter, 440, 441; John Hay, 180; 
 Oliver W. Holmes, 175; S. N. D. North, 
 44; Thomas C. Piatt, 143-146; General 
 Shafter, 127; William R. Thayer, 424; 
 Charles G. Washburn, 31. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., R.'s son, 441, 
 442. 
 
 Roosevelt family, in the U.S., 2. 
 
 Roosevelt Museum of Natural History, 12. 
 
 Root, Elihu, Secretary of State, R.'s high 
 opinion of, 314; why less eligible than 
 Taft as R.'s successor, 314; Chairman of 
 Repubhcan Convention of 1912,365,366, 
 
 369, 370; 30. 31, 145. 149. 155, 175. 176, 
 367, 401, 446, 447. 
 
 Rosewater, Victor, 365. 
 
 Rough Riders, at Chicago, in 1912, 360; 
 at R.'s funeral, 449, 450. And see Volun- 
 teer Cavalry, First Regiment of. 
 
 "Round Robin," the, 128. 
 
 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 159, 160. 
 
 Russia, Kaiser's attitude toward, in Russo- 
 Japanese War, 225; collapse of, in 1916, 
 427. 
 
 Russo-Japanese War, 225-227; R.'s share 
 in peace negotiations, 226, 227. 
 
 Ryan, Dr. 379. 
 
 Safety Appliance Act, 231. 
 
 Sagamore Hill, R.'s estate at Oyster Bay, 
 72, 73; life at, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 
 261, 267, 271 ; R.'s death at, 449- 
 
 Salisbury, Robert Cecil, Marquis of, and 
 the Panama Canal, 182. 
 
472 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Saloon-keepers of 2ist District, R. runs 
 
 the gauntlet of, 32, 33. 
 San Juan Hill, battle of, 126. 
 Santiago, surrender of, 126. 
 Saturday Evening Post, 35. 
 Schranck, John, R. shot by, 378. 
 Schurz, Carl, 54. 
 Selous, Frederick C, 319. 
 Serbia, 402. 
 Sewall, William, R.'s guide in the Maine 
 
 Woods, 17,58,65,83,265. 
 Shafter, William R., U.S.A., R.'s letter to, 
 127, 128; calls council of war, 128; and 
 the Round Robin, 129. 
 Shakespeare, William, 38. 
 Shepard, Elliott F., 30. 
 Sherman, James S., 371 . 
 Shultz, Jackson S., 30. 
 Sigsbee, Charles D., U.S.N., 117. 
 Single Tax, the, 70. 
 
 Slavery, progress of Democrac>' not ar- 
 rested by, 160; and the preser\'ation of 
 the Union, 161, 162. 
 Smith, Charles E., 169 n. 
 Smithsonian Institution, 319. 
 Sodal Justice, R.'s life-long goal, 345, 346. 
 Social Revolution, the, 161 _ff. 
 Sorbonne, the, 323. 
 
 South, the, stirred by R.'s entertaiimient of 
 Booker Washington, 283, 284; R.'s at- 
 titude toward, 284, 285, 286. 
 South America, R.'s expedition to, 390^. 
 Spaniards, in Cuba, 115, 116; and Ameri- 
 can residents at Havana, 117. 
 Spanish War of 1898, 121 ^., 150, 178, 
 
 217, 286, 287. 
 Speaker of New York Assembly, 138, 139. 
 Spoils System, the, 86 X 
 Spring-Rice, Sir Cedl, 71, 228. 
 "Square Deal," a, 213, 243 # 
 "Stand-Patters," 312, 313. And see Repub- 
 lican Party. 
 Standard Oil Co., R. orders suit against, 
 
 for accepting rebates, 235, 383. 
 Steunenberg, Governor, of Idaho, mur- 
 der of, 250. 
 Strong, William B., elected Mayor of New 
 York, 97; appoints R. President of 
 Board of j Police Conmiissioners, 97; 
 330. 
 Stubbs, Governor, of Kansas, 351. 
 Sullivan, John L., R. invited to be a pall- 
 bearer at his funeral, 271. 
 
 Taft, William H.. Secretary of War, 
 chosen by R. as his successor, 314^.; 
 elected President, 315; the first rift in 
 the lute, 316; his Cabinet made up of 
 new men, 316, 335; fails to come up to 
 R.'se-xpectations, 333/-; his desire to be 
 independent, 334; the Ballinger-Pin- 
 chot controversy, 335, 336; and the 
 Trusts, 337, 383; his sincerity in fight- 
 ing monopolies suspected, 337, 338; and 
 the Republican plank on the tariff, 339, 
 340; signs Payne- Aldrich bill, 340; his 
 Winona (Minn.) speech, 340, 341 ; public 
 opinion of his action, 340, 341; sup- 
 ported by Republican machine, 341, 342; 
 attitude of Insurgents toward, 343, 
 344; his policies resented by R., 347; 
 personal relations with R., 348; the log- 
 ical candidate of Conservatives in 1912, 
 349; and the delegates to the Convea- 
 f'on, 357; renominated, 367, 371; in- 
 active in campaign, 380; defeated, 381, 
 382; Republican Party split by him, 
 not by R., 382, 383, 422; R. charged with 
 ingratitude to, 385; 254, 318, 325. And 
 see Republican National Convention 
 of 1912. 
 Tammany Hall, 69, 102. 
 Tardieu, Andre, 262. 
 
 TarifiF, Republican platform of 1908 on, 
 338, 339. supposed to call for revision 
 downward, 339; Payne- Aldrich bill signed 
 by Taft, 339, 340. 
 "Teddy's Terrors," 125. 
 Tennessee Coal and Iron Co., R. assents 
 to proposal of Gary and Frick to pur- 
 chase control of, 239, 240. 
 Tennis Cabinet, the, 261, 270. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 78. 
 Thayer, William R., personal reminiscences 
 of R. at Harvard, 19/.; and R. in the 
 campaign of 1884, 51 ff.; conversation 
 with R., in Februarj-, 1912, 351-353; 
 letter of R. to, 424; John Hay, quoted, 
 150, 156, 176, 177, 229, 307. 
 Third term, R.'s declaration against, and 
 
 its meaning, 308, 309. 
 Thompson, Hugh, 90. 
 Trusts, the, 197 #.; the tariff and, 294; at- 
 titude of Taft administration toward, 
 337. And see Interests. 
 Tuckerman, Gustavus, 30. 
 Turner, George, 175, 176. 
 
INDEX 
 
 473 
 
 Twenty-first District Republican Associa- 
 tion of New York City, 27^. 
 
 Twenty-first District Republican Club, 
 27/. 
 
 Tyree, Mr., detective, 361. 
 
 United Labor Party, 69, 70. 
 
 United States, and Cuba, 116 f.; effect of 
 destruction of U.S.S. Maine in, 117, 
 118; effect of "Round Robin" in, 128, 
 129; progress of Democracy in, 160, 
 161; economic conditions in, after Civil 
 War, 162, 163; vast expansion of indus- 
 try, 162; unchecked immigration, 162, 
 163; ceases to be the "Land of Promise," 
 163, 164; antagonism between Labor 
 and Capital in, 163, 164, 166 jff.; seeds of 
 Anarchy and Nihilism planted by im- 
 migrants, 164; condition of working 
 classes in, 167; relations with Canada, 
 174 ff.; neutrality of, at outbreak of 
 Great War, 402 jff. ; preparations for war 
 in, 430 jf. And see Germany, William II, 
 and Wilson, Woodrow. 
 
 United States Senate, a millionaires' club, 
 87; R. presiding oflBcer of, 152; and Sec- 
 retary Hay, 174; Steering Committee 
 of, and R., 310/. 
 
 United States Steel Corporation, and the 
 Tennessee Coal and Iron Co., 239, 240; 
 197. 
 
 Utica Herald, 44. 
 
 Vanderbilt, William H., 196. 
 
 Vatican, the, and Archbishop Ireland, 
 298, 299. 
 
 Venezuela, Cleveland's message concern- 
 ing, 115, 172. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel HI, 322. 
 
 Viscaya, Spanish battleship, 120. 
 
 Volunteer Cavalry, First Regiment of 
 ("Rough Riders") raised by Wood and 
 R., 123; its personnel, 123; exploits and 
 hardships of, in Spanish War, 125 ff., 
 130. And see Rough Riders. 
 
 Wales, S. H., 30. 
 
 Walker, Dr. Mary, 276. 
 
 War, advent of, in 1898, welcomed by 
 R., 118; R.'s attitude toward, in the ab- 
 stract, 290^. 
 
 War Department, after destruction of the 
 Maine, 118; blunders and incompetence 
 
 of, in Spanish War, 126, 127, 129; and 
 the "Round Robin," 128. 
 
 War of 1812, 74. 
 
 Ward, Mary A. (Mrs. Humphr>-), 326. 
 
 Waring, George E., 97, 98. 
 
 Washburn, Charles G., quoted, 157, 231, 
 232, 278, 279; his Theodore Roosevelt, 
 43. 156; letter of R. to, 246; 21, 31. 
 
 Washington, Booker T., spokesman of negro 
 race, 282; entertained by R. at White 
 House, and the sequel, 282/.; 297. 
 
 Washington, George, 158, 205, 206, 333, 
 45I; 
 
 Washington, D.C., changes in, during 
 R.'s terms, 215, 216; R.'s life in, while 
 Civil Service Commissioner, 257. .\nd 
 see White House. 
 
 Webb, W. H.. 30. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, his Seventh of March 
 speech, 52. 
 
 West, the, R.'s description of life in, 59, 60. 
 
 Westbrook, Judge, R. demands impeach- 
 ment of, 34, 35, 36; investigated and 
 whitewashed, 37. 
 
 Western Federation of Miners, strike of, 
 250, 251; R.'s correspondence with, 251. 
 
 White, Andrew D., 46n. 
 
 White, Edward D., 153. 
 
 White, Henry, letter of Hay to, 148. 
 
 White House, remodeled by R., 215, 275; 
 R.'s life at, 259^.; service in, reorganized 
 by R., 27s ; orderliness in, introduced by 
 R., 275, 276. 
 
 Whitman, Charles S., 448. 
 
 Whittier, John G., his "Ichabod." 52. 
 
 Wickersham, George W., and the Trxists, 
 
 337, 338, 383- 
 
 Wilcox, Ansley, 155. 
 
 Willard, Joseph E., 395. 
 
 William II, German Emperor, his "mad 
 project of universal conquest," 216; 
 machinations of, in U.S., 216, 217; and 
 the Monroe Doctrine, 217; and the Span- 
 ish War, 217, 218; his real sentiment to- 
 ward the U.S., 218; and the Panama 
 Canal, 219^.; the Venezuelan scheme. 
 219-222; backs down and consents to 
 arbitrate, 222; makes HoUeben a scape- 
 goat, 222-224; his polic>- of peaceful 
 penetration, 224 /.; and the Russo- 
 Japanese War, 225, 226; invites the U.S. 
 to interfere in Morocco, 227, 228; R.'s 
 view of his designs, 228, 229; his plan to 
 
474 
 
 INDEX 
 
 cut up China, 229; entertains R. at Ber- 
 lin, 324, 325; R.'s impression of, 325, 
 326; his submarine policy, 429; 202, 210, 
 272,299,319,410,414. 
 Wilson, Woodrow, nominated for Presi- 
 dent by Democrats in 19x2, 380; and 
 elected, 381, 382; his message of August 
 18, 1914. criticised, 402, 403; his policy 
 in the early months of the war charac- 
 terized, 404, 405; R. exasperated by 
 sins of his administration, 406, 407, 417 
 f.; his attitude toward the LiisUania 
 horror, 408, 409, 410; criticism of his 
 conduct in general, 411 f.; renominated 
 and reelected in 1916, 424, 425; further 
 criticism of, 426, 427, 428, 435; his pa- 
 tience at last exhausted, 429; breaks off 
 relations with Germany, 430; his policy 
 of timidity and evasion, 430, 431; and 
 R.'s offer to raise troops, 433 and «.,434, 
 435; R. responsible for his decision to 
 send troops to France, 442, 443; follows 
 
 public opinion when he can, 446; 205, 
 206, 38s, 396. 
 
 Wine and Spiru Gazette, 102. 
 
 Winona (Minn.) Taft's speech at (1909), 
 340, 341- 
 
 Wood, Leonard, U.S.A., his history, 122; 
 raises First Regiment of Volunteer Cav- 
 alry in Spanish War, 123; R. Heu tenant- 
 colonel under, 123 /.; promoted to brig- 
 adier-general, 126; reprimanded in con- 
 nection with R.'s speech at Plattsburg, 
 430, 437; his treatment by the admin- 
 istration resented by R., 436, 437, 438, 
 439; Colonel Azan on, 438 n.; 263, 264, 
 378, 407, 447. 
 
 "Wood's Weary Walkers," 125. 
 
 Woodbury, John, 455. 
 
 Woodruff, Timothy L., 362. 
 
 Wright, Luke E., 390. 
 
 Yellow Peril, the, 226. 
 Yucatan, transport, 125. 
 
 6\ 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A