FROM THE RANCH HE WHITE HOU t'TFM?. \ 1 4r*lf ** *"f& ~ J IbJL LOG CABIN TO WHITE HOUSE SERIES FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE THEODORE ROOSEVELT AUTHOR, LEGISLATOR, FIELD SPORTSMAN, SOLDIER, REFORMER AND EXECUTIVE By Edward S. Ellis, A. M. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Log Cabin to White House Series. UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. BY WILLIAM M. THAYER : From Boyhood to Man- hoodLife of Benja- min Franklin. From Farm House to White House Life of George Washington. From Log Cabin to White House Life of James A. Garfleld, with eulogy by Hon. James G. Elaine. From Pioneer Home to White House Life of Abraham Lincoln, with eulogy by Hon. Geo. Bancroft. From Tannery to White House Life of Ulysses S. Grant. BY EDWARD S. ELLIS : From Ranch to White House Life of Theodore Roosevelt. Price Post-Paid, yjc. each, or $4.30 for the set. HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1906, by HURST & COMPANY. PREFACE. WHEN we meet a man of lofty moral and physical courage, whose conscience is his supreme master, who loves his fellow-men, is generous, charitable, and as quick to re- ward as to condemn, whose patriotism is a part of his religion, and who gives and de- mands a "square deal" every time, we are apt to think he only lacks wings to soar away as a full-fledged angel. Yet it would be fulsome and absurd to claim that Theodore Roosevelt is such a per- son. Being human, he has made errors, and will make more of them before he dies. By nature, he is impulsive, and sometimes too headlong in making and acting upon de- cisions ; he is inclined to think his way is the only way, when older and more expe- rienced men are confident it is not ; his ardent friendships have obscured at times his sense of justice ; his promotions in the army in some instances have not been fair to those who have grown gray in the service and proved their worth on many a crimson 3 v^_i..^> J V> Jt 4 PREFACE. battle-field. Other official acts have not always pleased his truest friends. But, none the less, the fact remains that Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most ad- mirable types of American manhood that ever lived. He is a patriot to the bone, his integrity is unassailable, his ability of the highest order. He has been an unrelenting foe of dishonesty and corruption from the first ; the one question respecting every meas- ure brought before him is, " Is it right ? " And that which he believes is right, that will he do, though the heavens fall. He was heavily handicapped at the begin- ning. He was born into a " blue blood " family and without the necessity of toiling for a living. But no one cares less for a name, and no laborer on the streets works harder than he. He was of weak, puny frame, yet made himself one of the sturdiest and most powerful of men ; he is clean- minded, a brave, aggressive Christian, a mighty hunter, a brilliant author, and a force- ful speaker, one who always has something to say, and says it with irrestrainable earnest- ness, while every one who hears his words admits that they are well worth hearing. President Roosevelt, therefore, is an in- spiring lesson to all American youth, upon whom the truth cannot be too deeply im- pressed that manliness, honesty, integrity, PREFACE. 5 moral and physical courage, patriotism, and the love of God and one's fellow-men, are the highest and truest ideals ; that their attainment constitutes the surest road to success, even in a worldly sense, and it is they, and they alone, that make life worth living. E. S. E. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Birth Ancestry Boyhood Strong Will of the Lad At Harvard His Marriage and Daughter Father of Roose- velt Second Marriage and Children Moral Courage A Sunday School Teacher Tour of Europe His Belief in Work Political Duties of Every Citizen Election as a Member of the New York Legislature 13 CHAPTER II. In His Element High Moral Courage Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland Successful Demand for a Scandal Investigation President Lincoln's Wonderful Tact What Roosevelt Learned Therefrom 23 CHAPTER III. A National Leader The Republican National Convention of 1884 Roosevelt at the Head of the New York Dele- gation Career of James G. Blaine Roosevelt's Candidate Nomination of Blaine Roosevelt's Decision as to His Duty in the Campaign 36 CHAPTER IV. The Nuisance of Political Removals with each Change of Administration The Problem Before the Country The Opposing Views The Right Policy " To the Victors Belong the Spoils " Numerous Removals Made by Presi- dent Jackson Spoils System Never Dead Its Intolerable Growth One of the Causes of the Death of President W. H. Harrison Appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as a Member of the Civil Service Commission His Views on Civil Service Reform The Work Accomplished Un- 7 $ CONTENTS. PAGE reasoning Opposition How it was Met and Overcome An Amusing Feature Valuable Information Concerning the Civil Service Act 45 CHAPTER V. Appointed Police Commissioner of the City of New York His Associates Demoralization of the Police Department Bad Features of a Bi-Partisan Board Formidable Power Arrayed Against the Excise Law Brave and Effective Work Done by the Commissioners When the President of the Board was Outwitted Haroun-al-Roose- velt Radical Measures of Reform Popularity of Roose- velt with the Police 63 CHAPTER VI. Cuba Intolerable Cruelty of Spanish Rule Treachery of the Spanish Authorities The Revolt of 1895 Sympathy and Aid from the Americans English Views Some of the Grievances of the Cubans " Butcher Weyler " His Fearful Policy of Reconcentration President McKinley's Forceful Words Visit to Cuba by United States Senators and Congressmen Senator Thurston's Eloquent Protest One-sixth of Cuba's Population Destroyed Congres- sional Grant for Cuban Relief The Red Cross Associa- tion Uselessness of the Spanish Grant of Funds Recall of Weyler Spain's Offer of Home Rule to the Cubans Blowing up of the Maine Unpleasant Truths Connected with the Cubans 79 CHAPTER VII. President Cleveland's Vigorous Message What Might Have Followed Our Unpreparedness at that Time and Later Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy His Tireless Energy Commodore Dewey Roosevelt's Determination to enter the Military Service Lieutenant- Colonel and Later Colonel of the Rough Riders General Alarm Caused by Admiral Cervera's Fleet Its Fate The Rough Riders at Tampa Roosevelt's Care of His Men The Landing in Cuba 93 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTER VIII. PAGE On Cuban Soil A Trying March First Encounter with the Spaniards Smokeless Powder Bravery of the Colored Troops Charge of the Rough Riders up the Hill Rout of the Enemy. Graphic Account of Sergeant Ousler Nerve and Coolness of Surgeon Church The Misfortune of a Base-Ball Pitcher Wounding of a Campaign Hat- Roosevelt's Bravery Not a Coward Among the Ameri- cans A Nervy Little Spaniard Nervousness of Brave Men Dodging Bullets The Cactus 106 CHAPTER IX. Roosevelt's Promotion to the Colonelcy of the Rough Riders The Advance Against Santiago El Caney and San Juan The March-Plan of the Attack Opening of the Battle Interception of the Flight of the Enemy Assault by the Rough Riders and the Tenth Cavalry Desperate Charge up San Juan Hill Roosevelt's Intrepid Leader- ship His Official Account of the Affair 117 CHAPTER X. Bravery Displayed by the Rough Riders Equal Bravery of All the Troops Official Reports of Colonel Roosevelt. 127 CHAPTER XI. A Greater Danger than War in Cuba Meeting of Officers Summoned by General Shatter Roosevelt's Letter to Shafter The Round Robin Its Effect Indignation of Secretary of War Alger Roosevelt's Opinion Close of the War with Spain 144 CHAPTER XII. Mixed Condition of Politics in New York Proposals to Roosevelt by the Independents Nominated for Governor by the Regular Republicans His Election " Ruling by the Ten Commandments " Nominated for the Vice- Presidency An Important Address Delivered at Chicago. 158 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. PAGE Theodore Roosevelt as Vice-President His famous Address on the " Strenuous Life." 172 CHAPTER XIV. Oration on " Manhood and Statehood." 194 CHAPTER XV. The Martyred Presidents Assassination of President McKinley Mr. Roosevelt at Mount Marcy in the Adiron- dacks The News carried to Him His Night Ride Through the Mountains Arrival at Buffalo Sworn in as President Announcement of his Intention to Continue the Policy of McKinley His First Proclamation 209 CHAPTER XVI. Indiscriminate Immigration a National Menace This Conutry the Refuge of the Most Dangerous of Criminals "Agin the Government " The Anarchistic Crime in Chicago in 1884 Maudlin Sympathy with Criminals The " Mafia " Organization Assassination of the Chief of Police of New Orleans Swift Vengeance Reaction Against Anarchism Personality of the Slayers of Presi- dents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley Anarchism Still a Menace Impressive Words of President Roosevelt 223 CHAPTER XVII. Matured But Unchanged by Advancement Tribute to Mr. Roosevelt's Character by a Political Opponent A Com- mon Mistake of Biographers Illustrative Incident The Kishenev Massacres Cleverness with which the American Protest was 'brought before the Czar The Negro a Dis- turbing Element in American Politics Policy of the President Tact Shown in the Management of the Indian- ola Affair The Indian Problem President Roosevelt's Views Their Practical Wisdom Shown by Actual Tests The President's Promptness During the Labor Strike in Arizona Anthracite Coal Strike Wide Distress and Alarm How it was Settled by the President , . 239 CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER XVIII. MM The Hague Conference President Roosevelt's Deep Interest Therein Note Sent to the Signatory Powers through Secretary Hay Favorable Responses Second Conference Assured The Late War between Russia and Japan Overwhelming Success of Japan Stubbornness of the Bel- ligerents Impossibility of Interference by other Powers Decisive Blow Delivered by Admiral Togo Universal De- mand for Stoppage of the War President Roosevelt's Effective Services in Bringing About Peace Between Japan and Russia , 259 CHAPTER XIX. The Greatest Commercial Work of the Age Folly of Co- lombiaRevolt of Panama Treaty of the United States with Colombia for the Construction of the Isthmian Ca- nal Statement by the President of the Work Done on the Canal Three Principal Subjects Named in the President's Message to Congress Presidential Election of 1904 President Roosevelt's Versatility His Literary Works His Fondness for Hunting A Prophecy Not to be a Candidate Again for the Presidency His Religious Con- victions and Love for his Family An Admirable Army Order One of the Noblest Types of a MAN 273 CHAPTER XX. President Roosevelt's Views on Religion, Patriotism, Educa- tion, Labor and Capital, and Civic Duties 285 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. CHAPTER I. BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD. THEODORE ROOSEVELT was born in the city of New York, October 27, 1858. His grandfather, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, was a member of the New York Provincial Con- gress, of the City Council, and president of a prominent bank. The father of President Roosevelt bore the same name with himself, and was a descendant of Claes Martenzoon Rosevelt, who emigrated from Holland in 1649. The twenty-fifth President has always been proud to admit the claim of the South that half of him belongs to that section. Governor Archibald Bullock, the first gov- ernor of Georgia, was a direct ancestor, and the mother of the President was a native of the same State. The Alabama, the most famous of all the Confederate privateers, was built by an uncle of President Roosevelt, and another uncle fired th last gun on that 13 ' 14 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. cruiser as she was sinking under the deadly fire of the Kearsarge. There is little in the boyhood of Theodore Roosevelt that differs from that of thousands of youthful Americans. When we recall the sturdy, vigorous physique of the man, it seems strange to know that in childhood he was weak and puny of frame. Multitudes of lads like him have grown into interesting invalids, or have died in their early teens. But young Roosevelt w r as born with an iron, indomitable will, that never recoiled before any obstacle, but became the more resolute because of such obstacle. His career is another illustration of the truth that that which a man wills to become, that he is sure to become. In other words, you can have anything in this life that you wish, provided you pay the price. Sometimes, however, the price is greater than the thing is worth. So it was that as young Roosevelt grew in years, he waxed strong, self-reliant, vigorous and courageous. He became a model ath- lete, and, more than any predecessor, he was an " out-doors " President. He is a fine boxer, swimmer, hunter, runner, leaper, and, in fact, he was the superior of his playmates in nearly every game so dear to boyhood and young manhood. He was graduated from Harvard University in 1880, and in September of the same year was married to BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD. 1 Alice Lee, of Boston, who died four years later. One daughter, Alice Lee, was born of this marriage, in 1884. She was married to the Hon. Nicholas Longworth, of Ohio, February 17, 1906. Mr. Jacob S. Riis, one of the most intimate friends of President Roosevelt, said in a sketch of the father : " There hangs in his study at Oyster Bay the picture of a man with a strong-bearded face. Passing it with Governor Roosevelt, he said, 'That is my father,' and added, ' he was the finest man I ever knew. He was a merchant, well to do, drove his four-in-hand through the park, and enjoyed life immensely. He had a good time, and with cause, for he was a good man. I remember seeing him going down Broadway, staid and respectable man that he was, with a poor little sick kitten in his coat pocket, which he had picked up in the street. "The elder Theodore Roosevelt was a man with the same sane and practical inter- est in his fellow-man that his son has shown. He was the backer of Charles Loring Brace in his work of gathering the forgotten waifs from the city's streets, and of every other sensible charity of his day. Dr. Henry Field told me once that he always, occupied as he was with the management of a suc- cessful business, on principle gave one day 16 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. of the six to visiting the poor in their homes. Apparently the analogy between father and son might be carried further, to include the famous round-robin ; for, upon the same authority, it was the elder Theodore Roose- velt who went to Washington after the first Bull Run and warned President Lincoln that he must get rid of Simon Cameron as Secretary of War, with the result that Mr. Stanton, the ' Organizer of Victory,' took his place. When the war was fairly under way, it was Theodore Roosevelt who organized the allotment plan, which saved to the fam- ilies of 80,000 soldiers of New York State more than $5,000,000 of their pay ; and when the war was over 'he protected the soldiers against the sharks that lay in wait for them, and saw to it that they got em- ployment. " That was his father. I have told you what the son is like. A man with red blood in his veins ; a healthy patriot, with no clap- trap jingoism about him, but a rugged belief in America and its mission ; an intense lover of country and flag ; a vigorous optimist, a believer in men, who looks for good in them and finds it. Practical in partisanship ; loyal, trusting, and gentle as a friend ; un- selfish, modest as a woman, clean-handed and clean-hearted, and honest to the core. In the splendid vigor of his young man- BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD. if hood he is the knightliest in American pol- itics to-day, the fittest exponent of his coun- try's ideas, and the model for its young sons who are coming to take up the task he set them." President Roosevelt was married to Edith Kermit Carew, on December 2, 1886. The five children born of this marriage are in the order of their births : Theodore J., Kermit, Ethel Carew, Archibald Bullock and Quentin. One of President Roosevelt's most ad- mirable traits is his moral courage. The first consideration that presents itself to him, when a question is under consideration, is, " What is the right thing to do ? " and that which his conscience tells him he does without thought of the consequences. " Be sure you're right, then go ahead," is his motto as it was of the famous Davy Crockett. Reared in the Dutch Reformed Church, he early identified himself with that religious organization, and what greater praise can be said than that his whole life has been that of an aggressive, brave, consistent Christian ? As such, he has always held an unutterable contempt for all sorts of meannesses. It was only natural that one of his first steps when in college, was to seek out a Sunday School in which he could do work for his Master. He did not excuse himself because there was no church of his denomination a 18 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. within reach, but offered his services in a mission school of an Episcopal church and took charge of a large class of boys and girls. One day, a lad appeared in his class with an emphatic black eye. The teacher scru- tinized him closely, and, on the first oppor- tunity, asked the youth how he received the significant mark. The lad owned up he had been in a fight with another boy. Now, teacher Roosevelt felt that it is never right to condemn a lad for fighting until after it has been proved he was in the wrong. There are always two sides to a question, and the one who has suffered the most is sometimes innocent. It was learned that a bully of the class had tormented a sister of the lad with the black eye, by continually pinching her during lesson time. As soon as school was dismissed, the tormentor was called to ac- count. A rough and tumble fight followed in which the bully received his deserts, though he left his mark upon the eye of his conqueror. Roosevelt looked earnestly into the face of the youthful knight, deliberately thrust his hand into his own pocket, took out a dollar bill and handed it to the astonished lad with the remark : " You did right." Every boy and girl, excepting the sufferer himself, felt that a more ideal punishment had never been inflicted. They were de- lighted and showed it so obviously that it BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD. 19 drew the notice of the other teachers and officers of the school. The latter could not let the incident pass unnoticed. In the in- vestigation set on foot, Roosevelt let them know that he was a member of the Dutch Reformed denomination. The authorities were sure it would never do to have such an outspoken dissenter in their Sunday School, wherefore the young man left. Instead of accepting the situation as an ex- cuse for ceasing his labors in a Sunday School, he walked over to a Congregational Church and, figuratively speaking, took off his coat and toiled away with the same ardor in that branch of his Master's vineyard, never ceasing his work until his graduation and departure from the city. A man of Roosevelt's temperament, prin- ciples and sense of duty, could no more keep out of politics, than a duck can keep out of water. Directly after his graduation, he made a tour of Europe, and came back prouder of his country than ever, though it was impossible for his patriotism to increase. As has been said, he belonged to one of the oldest and most eminent families, and had but to take a single step to become a leader in " Society." Nothing, however, could have been farther from his tastes. From his earliest years, it had been his unshakable faith that every man born into this world, is 20 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. born to work and to do his utmost to uplift his fellow-men. There is no room for slug- gards, and, though unto one may be given only the single talent, he shall be con- demned, if he wraps it in a napkin, instead of adding thereto. , No thoughtful man will deny that one of the most potent causes of the frightful cor- ruption in politics of to-day is the indiffer- ence of the better and more moral members of the community. Politics have been the ruination, body and soul, of some of the brightest and most promising men that ever lived. It is but natural that a father who has the welfare of his son at heart, should view with misgiving the entrance of that son into the dirty pool of politics. They that handle pitch shall be defiled, and how few of those that make the attempt succeed in coming out uncontaminated ! And yet if politics are ever to be purified, if the reign of "graft" is ever to be over- thrown, and if that brighter era for which we all sigh and yearn and pray, is ever to bless this fair land, the putrid stream of politics must be cleansed at the fountain-head. That fountain-head is in the primaries. Good men shun them as a pestilence and thereby give the "Bosses" the chance for their vicious work, without which they could never succeed in bringing reproach so often BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD. 21 upon our methods of government. When every good man shall feel in the uttermost depths of his conscience that his post of duty is at the primaries and shall go there and do his utmost by word and vote, the day of political regeneration will be attained. Theodore Roosevelt went into politics with all his natural enthusiasm and bound- less energy. In his district, the Twenty- first, known as the " Diamond Back," because of the number of wealthy men who lived there, a prominent aristocrat, of great wealth, William Waldorf Astor, was nominated for Congress. Mr. Astor thought, it would be pleasant diversion to become a member of the national body of lawmakers. He scat- tered money like water. The dainty young man forced himself to make the round of the saloons, but he rarely tarried longer than to leave his " wad " to the hoodlums who were waiting to whoop it up for him, after which they grinned among themselves and decided to vote for the other fellow. Sometimes the candidate could not repress his disgust over the contaminating touch of these men, but they cared nothing for that, so long as he did not forget to keep the financial stream running. The platform upon which Roosevelt was nominated was that of clean politics and clean streets. Astor made high professions. 22 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. a thing he could well afford to do, for it was as easy as the doctrine of civil service reform to which both great political parties were pledged for years, before a President ap- peared who proved by his acts that he believed in such a pledge. But who was the most likely to carry out, so far as in him lay, the high-sounding promises, the dainty aristocrat, who held himself aloof socially from the majority of his fellow-men, or the outspoken, honest candidate who had always proved himself on the side of a square deal ? The saloons were too important a factor to be ignored, and Roosevelt made a tour of some of them. His escort gave out at the beginning, and undismayed he " went it alone." Never was there a more untiring workman than he. He seemed scarcely ever to sleep or eat. Not a graceful orator, he was forceful, convincing, brave and honest. The district was naturally demo- cratic, but the personality of Roosevelt was irresistible and he won out. The defeated Astor shook the dust of his country from his feet, and sailed for Europe where he has lived ever since. To him is attributed the remark that there are no real gentlemen in America, and it is hardly ungenerous to add the belief that should he ever decide to return to his native land, the same dearth to which he referred would remain. CHAPTER II. THE POLITICIAN. IT may be said that when Roosevelt be- came a member of the lower branch of the New York Legislature, he entered his ele- ment and made the start on one of the most wonderful careers ever seen in America. Being a Republican, he belonged to the minority. But that rather pleased him than otherwise. He dearly loves a fight, and he was now in a position to secure one on the slightest possible notice. It need scarcely be added that he plunged into the conflicts like a gladiator, and enjoyed them through and through. It has been said that Roosevelt is not a graceful or really eloquent orator. In one respect, he is more than that : he is in- tensely in earnest, remarkably well informed and therefore convincing. He means what he says and his nature is such that tempta- tion to do wrong cannot touch him. His maiden speech was so loaded with facts, so overflowing with information, and accurate 23 24: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. nistorical knowledge, that it held his listeners rapt and admiring, and attracted attention throughout the Empire State. His bitterest enemy could not deny his ability and com- mand of resources. An incident of his first term in the Legis- lature showed the moral bravery of the man. Grover Cleveland was Governor of the State. Roosevelt introduced a bill reducing the fare on the elevated roads from ten to five cents. As was to be expected, the wealthy corporations strove hard to defeat the meas- ure, which if passed, would cut down their receipts one-half. They had a powerful lobby at Albany, and surely there was no dearth of the " sinews of war." But Roose- velt forced the bill through the Assembly, and the Senate agreed thereto. Going then to the Governor, he promptly vetoed it. His reason for doing so was that when the roads were built, the capitalists who had invested their money did so on the under- standing that the fare was to be ten instead of five cents, and but for such understand- ing, the roads would never have been con- structed. It therefore was not fair to wait until the completion of the roads and then step in and make this sweeping reduction. Such action was a violation of an implied obligation. This argument struck Roosevelt where he THE POLITICIAN. 25 is most vulnerable. He could never consent to anything but a " square deal." He was convinced that the companies were not re- ceiving such treatment in his bill. When the latter came up again in the Assembly, a member moved its passage over the Gov- ernor's veto. Roosevelt arose and said that in his opinion the views of Governor Cleve- land were right. Capital never would have undertaken the construction of the elevated railways, except upon the understanding that the fare was to be ten cents. It was treating them unfairly to make the reduc- tion. He had introduced the bill in good faith, but he regretted his action and should therefore vote to sustain the Governor's veto, which was sustained. It takes the highest kind of moral courage to do a thing like that. The motives of him who thus acts are sure to be assailed. There were not wanting those in the present case to declare that the young Assemblyman, like the Governor, had been " fixed " by the elevated railroad companies. The careers of the two men since then have been such that their bitterest enemies would not repeat the charge. It need hardly be added that the time was not distant when it became as clear as noonday that the necessity for ten-cent fares did not really exist, The reduction 26 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. was made, and the elevated railways are still doing a satisfactory business. It is easy to believe the common report that Governor Cleveland and Roosevelt each had a strong " pull " with the other. They possess many instincts in common, chief of which is their absolute honesty and con- scientious obedience to duty. Though they belonged to opposite political parties, both, as genuine reformers, often found common ground upon which to meet. The gain to each of these remarkable individuals was marked, and beyond a doubt had much to do with shaping their illustrious careers. Such men as Roosevelt are always re- ceived with distrust by the majority of their political associates. There is no telling what a man with a conscience will do, espe- cially if he always sets it above expediency. When Thaddeus Stevens, the great Com- moner, was driving his merciless reconstruc- tion measures through Congress, one of his frightened associates tremulously protested that his conscience would not permit him to go so far. " To hell with your conscience ! " thun- dered the old man, and his startled pro- testant let it go whither it had been ordered. The recent unearthing of graft and cor- ruption among the leading insurance com- panies, and in Albany, has shocked the THE POLITICIAN. 27 whole country, but few are foolish enough to believe that such corruption has not seethed and burned in the State capital for years, if not for generations. The startling hour is when it is brought out into the fierce light of publicity. This is generally followed by a virtuous spasm, an overturn- ing of bosses and a cleaning out of evil things generally, too often succeeded in time by as woful a lapse as before. The first session of the Legislature was no more than fairly under way, when it became apparent to every one not wilfully blind that an elevated railway ring was and had been engaged in the flagrant corruption which in- volved a judge of the Supreme Court and the Attorney-General of the State. The cit- izens indignantly protested and petitioned, but so many of the legislators were tarred with the same stick, that they declined to do anything to bring the criminals to justice. No one in New York was angrier than Roosevelt, but mixed with anger was won- der that the Legislature did nothing. He asked an explanation from the Republican leaders. They smiled indulgently, and shook their heads. Nothing could be done. " Then, by heavens ! " exclaimed Roose- velt, " I will force a public investigation ; the scandal shall be probed to the bottom." The bosses could hardly believe their ears. 28 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Why, such a course as he threatened would not only accomplish nothing, but would ruin the party. The presumption of this raw youth was intolerable ; had he no sense of propriety, or modesty ? Let him take coun- sel of his elders, and wait until years should temper his wisdom with discretion. In the words of a writer in the Saturday Evening Post : "It was obviously the counsel of ex- perienced wisdom. So far as the clearest judgment could see, it was not the moment for attack. Indeed, it looked as if attack would strengthen the hands of corruption by exposing the weakness of the opposition to it. Never did expediency put a temptation to conscience more insidiously. " It was on April 6, 1882, that young Roosevelt took the floor in the Assembly and demanded that Judge Westbrook of Newburg, 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 ideal- ism and ignorance of public affairs could not blind him to the apparently inevitable consequences. Yet he drew his sword and rushed apparently 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. THE POLITICIAN. 29 " That speech the deciding act in Roose- velt's career is not remarkable for eloquence. But it is remarkable for fearless candor. He called thieves, thieves, regardless of their millions ; he slashed savagely at the Judge and the Attorney-General ; he told the plain, unvarnished truth as his indignant eyes saw it. " When he finished, the veteran leader of the Republicans rose, and with gently con- temptuous raillery asked that the resolution to take up the charges be voted down. He said he wished to give young Mr. Roosevelt time to think about the wisdom of his course. ' I,' said he, ' have seen many repu- tations in the State broken down by loose charges made in the Legislature.' And presently the Assembly gave ' young Mr. Roosevelt time to think* by voting not to take up his ' loose charges.' " Ridicule, laughter, a ripple apparently it was all over, except the consequences to the bumptious and dangerous young man which might flow from the cross set against his name in the black books of the ring. " It was a disheartening defeat almost all of his own party voted against him ; the most earnest of those who ventured to sup- port him were Democrats ; perhaps half of those who voted with him did so merely because their votes were not needed to defeat him. 30 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. 11 That night the young man was once more urged to be * sensible/ to ' have regard to his future usefulness,' to ' cease injuring his party.' He snapped his teeth together and defied the party leaders. And the next day he again rose and again lifted his puny voice and his puny hand against smiling, contemptuous corruption. Day after day he persevered on the floor of the Assembly, in interviews for the press; a few news- papers here and there joined him ; Assem- blymen all over the State began to hear from their constituents. Within a week his name was known from Buffalo to Montauk Point, and everywhere the people were applauding him. On the eighth day of his bold, smash- ing attack the resolution to take up the charges was again voted upon at his demand. And the Assemblymen, with the eyes of the whole people upon them, did not dare longer to keep themselves on record as defenders of a judge who feared to demand an investi- gation. The opposition collapsed. Roose- velt won by 104 to 6." It was a great victory, neutralized, how- ever, by the report of the committee, which was of a flagrant whitewashing order. None the less, Roosevelt had literally driven his party into the attitude of combating wrong, no matter how high the place in which it dared to show its head. The next year, THE POLITICIAN. SI although the Republican party went down to defeat all along the line, Roosevelt was re-elected by a splendid majority and was accepted, while only twenty-four years of age, as the leader of his party on the floor of the house. Every experience of Theodore Roosevelt's life has been a means of education. While it was impossible that he should ever abate a jot or tittle of his straightforward, outspoken honesty and his insistence upon a square deal in everything, he was not long in awaking to the truth that alone and single- handed he could do precious little good for many of the objects that were dearest to him. No man can be a successful politician who 11 goes it alone." President Lincoln's great- ness was largely due to a realization of this truth, and none ever surpassed him in his knowledge of men. While he knew when to assume the initiative, he knew also how to bring others to his support. To illustrate, it is generally known that Senator Sumner of Massachusetts often proved the most irritating kind of a thorn in the sides of dif- ferent Presidents. He was one of the ablest members of the United States Senate, but he needed tactful handling. He had positive views on every public question ; he was profoundly learned, a brilliant and persua- sive orator, and a debater of such skill that 32 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. every one acknowledged his power. He and President Grant quarreled, because the latter did not know how to handle him. It was just the other way with Lincoln. More than once when he had a measure before Congress and needed the help of Sumner, he won it by his exquisite tact in treating the dogmatic, irascible Massachusetts Sen- ator, who remained an ardent admirer of the great President through life. One of Sumner's pet fads was the brewing of tea for himself and intimate friends. None ever surpassed him in that art. Perhaps, when he was sitting in his rooms, glum and resentful over some bill of the President, the latter would drop in upon him in the course of the evening, after Congress had adjourned. Following the mutual courteous greetings, Lincoln would remark : " Senator, I'm worn out ; I must have some tonic that will soothe and brace my nerves, and there's only one thing in the world that will do it : that's one of your cups of tea. May I have it ? " Who could resist such an appeal ? Sumner was flattered, and it did not take him long to produce the nectar, which cheered the cockles of the President's heart. While sipping it he was loud in his praises, and begged the Senator sometime to impart the ' lost art ' to him. It was the most delicate THE POLITICIAN. kind of flattery, and the Senator beamed with pleasure to know that his skill was ap- preciated. Then it was just like Lincoln to insist that he must have a second cup, whose praises he sung as ardently as in the first instance. "Well," he would add with a sigh of con- tent, as his ungainly form settled back in his chair, " I know where to come for the one indispensable panacea ; Senator, you don't know how much good you have done me." By and by, after a little pleasing gossip, the caller would bring up the measure in which he was interested. He would ask the Senator's views, and no man had a better listener than the dictatorial Senator, who represented Massachusetts so long and honorably in the highest branch of our law- making body. Lincoln would present his own views ; they would discuss the points upon which they differed, the deference on the part of the President being so marked that it was impossible for his friend to take of- fense. The Senator began to feel that it would be very pleasant to himself, if he could agree with his appreciative caller, and in the end he did agree with him. The friendship of these two illustrious men con- tinued unbroken, and it is not too much to say that more than many measures of far 3 34 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. reaching importance to the nation were car- ried to successful completion by the supreme tact of one of the greatest Presidents who ever ruled our country. In studying the character of the admirable man who was Roosevelt's model, the latter learned to understand the tact, skill and finesse displayed by him from the days when he was a comparatively unknown lawyer in the West. The man who won Senator Sumner by asking him to brew him a cup of tea, who defied the merciless radicals, who compelled agreement by his exalted, wise and self-sacrificing patriotism, was a politician in the highest sense. It was he who when the defeat of one of his schemes was threatened, broke up a quorum by leap- ing out of a window, and who never failed in his knowledge of the best method of handling friends and foes. Roosevelt knew that all good men would yield respect to his unswerving integrity and straightforward- ness of purpose, but what substantial, lasting good could he hope to accomplish so long as he stood and fought alone ? Leonidas won undying glory at Thermopylae, but he failed to turn back the tide of Persian inva- sion. So the brilliant young knight might assail windmills as long as he lived, and the world be none the better therefor. Accordingly, Roosevelt applied the lesson THE POLITICIAN. 35 taught by Lincoln, and indeed by all sue- cessful politicians. He would never sacrifice his own principles, and when he and others differed, he would not only acknowledge that many of them were as conscientious as he, yet if they were really good men, there were many points in common between him and them. They could agree upon certain measures whose wisdom was beyond ques- tion. By uniting their forces, such measures could be carried through to success. It would not do to ignore at all times the ques- tion of expediency. If it became necessary to strike a crushing blow, it might be made more crushing by striking at the psycholo- gical moment. And that is what Theodore Roosevelt learned to do. He made his political combinations, and, without the sacrifice or yielding of a single principle in- herent in his nature, he became a living, vital force in the politics of his country. CHAPTER III. THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CONVEN- TION OF 1884. THEODORE ROOSEVELT served three terms as a member of the Assembly of his native State. He was re-elected each time by an emphatic majority, and also helped by the votes of those who sent William Waldorf Astor into exile, from a district where the predominant party was that upon whose ticket the aristocrat had been nominated. By this time the aggressive knight had be- come a national figure in politics, and was appointed at the age of twenty-six, the leader of the New York Republican delega- tion to the National Convention, which was to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. The assemblage of no public body of men creates such intense though short-lived in- terest throughout the country as that which names the standard-bearer of one of the great political parties. As a rule (though exceptions are not wanting), it is not known who will be the candidate. A number of 36 THE PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION OF 1884. 3? prominent leaders are rivals for the nomina- tion and their friends have long urged their claims with all possible earnestness. Each one goes before the convention with a number of votes pledged, and each is hope- ful that, as the voting progresses, deals and combinations may be made by which he will carry off the prize. It is a great day for " favorite sons." The National Republican Convention of 1884 will always hold a prominent place in the political history of our country, and it calls for attention because of the peculiar position in which it placed Theodore Roose- velt. For months before the day set for the assembling, the current had been setting strongly in favor of James G. Elaine, and it was quite certain that, barring the unex- pected, that gifted statesman would be chosen. No man ever had more devoted friends, and, it may be added, none ever had more bitter enemies. There seemed to be no common ground upon which adherents and opponents could meet. Born in Pennsylvania, in 1830, Elaine removed when a ) r oung man to Augusta, Maine, where he was editor for a time and served four years as a member of the State Legislature. He entered Congress in 1862 and remained continuously for seven terms, during three years of which he was Speaker 38 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. He was the leading presidential candidate at the Convention of 1876, his vote on the first ballot being more than four times as great as that of R. B. Hayes and more than double that of any other candidate. But through one of those combinations referred to, Hayes in the end was successful. In 1880, Blaine was again a prominent candidate, but failed to secure enough votes and the nomination went to Garfield, who was elected and made Blaine his Secretary of State. Among the adherents of Blaine, it was felt that the honor now belonged to him. The trouble, however, was that a great many people believed Elaine's public career was tainted by corruption. The investiga- tion had not cleared his garments of the smell of fire. Thousands declared that, in the event of his nomination, they would cast their votes for Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee. Some of those who thus threatened were among the foremost members of the Republican party. Roosevelt went to Chicago as an ardent advocate of Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont. He was placed in nomination by Governor Long, of Massachusetts, who, in the course of an eloquent tribute, said : " Calumny dare not assail him ; or, if it dared, recoils as from a galvanic shock. THE PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION OF 1884. 39 Against no other candidate can less be said than against him. For no other candidate can more be said. . . . His name is presented by an intelligent press from Maine to Cali- fornia, representing a healthy public senti- ment and an advanced public demand. It is the name which in itself is a guarantee of inflexible honesty in government, and of the best and wisest Cabinet the country can afford, with no man in it greater than its head. It is the guarantee of appointment to office, fit, clean, and disinterested all the way through ; a guarantee of an administra- tion which I believe, and which in your hearts you know, will realize, not only at home but abroad, the very highest concep- tion of American citizenship." In second- ing the nomination, George William Curtis, of New York, was equally eloquent. The number of votes necessary to a choice was 411. The first ballot gave Elaine 334, Arthur, 278; Edmunds, 93 ; John Sherman, 30, and William T. Sherman, 2. Murat Hal- stead says that Elaine had communicated to several friends on the floor, among them Mr. Halstead himself, that he did not wish the nomination, and did not believe he could win if nominated, especially as he knew the vote of New York would be cast against him. " Nominate William Tecumseh Sher- man," said Elaine, and Robert Todd Lin- 40 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. coin for Vice-President, and they will be elected by the singing of a song." Changes naturally occurred, without bring- ing success to any candidate until the fourth and final ballot. On this ballot New York east 30 votes for Arthur, 29 for Elaine, 9 for Edmunds, one for Hawley, and one for Lincoln. Mr. Roosevelt had spoken several times during the proceedings, mainly on questions of order, but made no speech in favor of Edmunds, for whom he voted to the end. On the last ballot, John B. Fora- ker, of Ohio, withdrew the name of John Sherman, and cast the 46 votes of his State for Elaine. This made his total 541, and of course brought his nomination, which was speedily made unanimous. The campaign of 1884 was one of the most remarkable in our political history. Many of those who declared that in no cir- cumstances would they support Elaine, made these threats good. Curtis of New York, Carl Schurz, and other noted Repub- licans, wrote and spoke against his candi- dacy. They claimed that his election would give the lie to the Republican professions of reform, purity, and the elevation of politics. Aiming to be consistent, they advocated the election of Cleveland. And where stood Theodore Roosevelt on this burning question ? THE PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION OF 1884. 41 His principles would not permit him to go over to the Democracy, but all his politi- cal labors for the past years and, to quote his favorite word they had been " stren- uous " years, had been given heart and soul to reform. Having learned well the lesson of Abraham Lincoln's tactful wisdom, he effected much by wise combinations with others, without which he never would have accomplished much. Should he turn his back upon his own record, and ally himself with the forces against which he had fought ? Moreover, it must be remembered that some of the principles of the Republican party did not command Roosevelt's full sup- port. At Harvard he was reared in the doctrine of free trade. The distinguishing policy of the Republicans was high protec- tion. He might come to that, however, in time, but he could never agree that the South should be eternally punished because of her mistaken act of secession. He be- lieved it was the principles of that party which had carried the country safely through the stupendous struggle for the Union, and he could do better work within its ranks than elsewhere. One of the favorite recourses of the dis- gruntled politician is to " go a-fishing " as the election day approaches, keeping out of view until the question is settled. Roose- 42 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. velt went to his Dakota ranch, not, however, to sulk or to hold aloof from politics. He was keenly disappointed over the nomina- tion, but he meant to take full time for re- flection before deciding upon the right course for him to follow. That decision once reached, he could be depended upon to follow it bravely to the end, without any thought of consequences to himself. He always found stirring times on his Western ranch, but was sure of many hours under the moon and stars, and in the quiet of his log cabin, when he could meditate unvexed by the petty annoyances of life from which he was never free when in the East. Finally, an authoritative declaration came from him : " I intend to vote the Republican presi- dential ticket. A man cannot act both with- out and within his party ; he can do either, but he cannot possibly do both. Each course has its advantages, and one cannot take the advantages or the disadvantages separately. I went in with my eyes open to do what I could within the party ; I did my best and got beaten, and I propose to stand by the result. It is impossible to com- bine the functions of the guerrilla chief with those of a colonel in the regular army ; one has greater independence of action, the THE PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION OF 1884. 43 other is able to make what action he does take vastly more effective. In certain con- tingencies the one can do most good, in certain contingencies the other ; but there is no use in accepting a commission and then trying to play the game out on a lone hand. During the entire canvass for the nomination, Mr. Elaine received but two checks. I had a hand in both, and I could have had a hand in neither had not those Republicans who elected me the head of the New York State delegation supposed that I would in good faith support the man who was fairly made the Republican nominee. I am by inheritance and by education a Repub- lican ; whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public life, has been accom- plished through the Republican party ; I have acted with it in the past, and I wish to act with it in the future." As evidence of the bitter spirit of some of the Republican leaders, an expression of Senator Conkling may be quoted. He and Elaine quarreled in the Senate, and had long been personal enemies. When Conk- ling was asked to make some speeches dur- ing the campaign for the ticket, he replied with biting sarcasm : "I have given up criminal practice." Roosevelt returned to the East and made several speeches, based on his belief in the 44: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. principles of the Republican party, and the conviction that the country would be more prosperous under its rule than under that of its opponents. He left no doubt of his earnestness in fact he never does and did all, and more than could have been expected from him, for the success of the party which had already shown its bad faith in him. He was sharply criticised by the Independents, who accused him of inconsistency, and the abandonment of his avowed principles. To these charges he replied that it had always been his fortune to displease some wing of his party, and he could no more consent to being controlled by the Independents than by the so-called machine. We all remember by what a narrow mar- gin Elaine was defeated in 1884, his defeat being due to the untactful remark of a New York clergyman at a prominent social gathering. CHAPTER IV. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. OUR system of government and politics has been accompanied for a long time by one of the most vexing of all conditions : that is, the changes in office which, to a greater or less degree have attended nearly every shift of administration for nearly a century past. Thousands of those who 11 whoop it up " for a candidate, do so in the hope that, if successful, they will be paid therefor, when their party comes into power. Since there are never enough offices to go to a fractional part of the way round, a multitude are sure to be disap- pointed ; they sulk, and are ready to believe the country is going to the dogs. The few successful applicants are correspondingly elated, and are equally certain that our glori- ous Union is on the high-road to prosperity. Here, then, is the simple problem : Should the incumbents of offices be removed for no other reason than that their politics differ from those of the administration under which they are serving ? Those who main- 45 46 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. tain the affirmative do so on the seemingly reasonable ground that the President should reward those who do the most to bring about his election. Without their labors he never would have attained his high office ; it follows, therefore, that he is under obli- gation to acknowledge such labor to the extent of his ability. This argument, we repeat, sounds reason- able, but it is specious, and the essence of selfishness. He who believes it thinks only of his own personal interests alone, and cares nothing for those of his country. Patriotism demands that one's country should hold first place in the regard of her citizens. They should consider what is best for it, and place personal consideration last. Exactly the opposite is done by those who clamor for political reward. Nothing is clearer than that an educated man of experience in any office is better qualified to perform its duties than another, who, possessing equal education, has had no experience in such office. The true welfare of the country therefore demands that the experienced incumbent should be retained, so long as he does his work acceptably. Moreover, no person should be appointed who has not proved his fitness, so far as it can be proved, by a rigid test, and when once appointed, he should be secure against CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONED. 4.7 removal, with the proviso just stated, no matter what his politics may be. Sueh is the gist of civil service reform, a policy long advocated, when many of those who advo- cated it were insincere, and made sure that it lay inoperative when it could be used against their interests. In 1851, Senator William L. Marcy, of New York, in a speech enunciated the doc- trine, "To the victors belong the spoils." It struck fire in the hearts of responsive thousands, and was enthusiastically adopted by them. President Andrew Jackson was the most remarkable exemplar ot this policy. During his first year as Chief Executive, he made two thousand changes in office, while the whole number effected by his predeces- sors was only seventy-four. Madison , before his election, often declared that no removal should ever take place without cause, and the younger Adams and Monroe held the same view. A potent cause for the few early removals, however, was the long con- tinuance of the same party in power. Jack- son merely put into operation a practice that had slumbered, but was never really dead. We are in the habit of dating the spoils system from his day, whereas it has virtually existed from the formation of the govern- ment itself, and its displacement is o* modern date. 48 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. The spoils system grew to appalling pro- portions. It was criminal folly that the time of a President, which belonged to his coun- try, should be stolen from him by the eter- nal demands of office-seekers. The clamor of these people nearly drove President W. H, Harrison frantic, and was one of the causes of his early death. The nuisance was an intolerable burden to his successors, until it became absolutely necessary that something should be done to remove the torment. President Benjamin Harrison and Cleve- land were urgent advocates of the change, and the former in May, 1889, appointed Theodore Roosevelt a member of the Na- tional Civil Service Commission, the only other commissioner being Charles Lyman, of Connecticut. Hugh S. Thompson, ex- Governor of South Carolina, took the office at the same time with Roosevelt, resigning after three years' service. His successor was George D. Johnston, of Louisiana, re- moved in 1893, and succeeded by John R. Proctor, who had been State Geologist of Kentucky. Roosevelt served for six years, during most of which time his forceful character made him the virtual head of the Commission. The policy had bitter enemies from the be- ginning. Some of these opponents were leaders in both parties, from whom support CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 4$ had been expected. In the Century Magazine of February, 1900, Mr. Roosevelt gave the following clear statement of his views on this important question : "If a party victory meant that all the offices already filled by the most competent members of the defeated party were to be thereafter rilled by the most competent mem- bers of the victorious party, the system would still be absurd, but would not be par- ticularly baneful. In reality, however, this is not what the system of partisan appoint- ments means at all. Wherever it is adopted it is inevitable that the degree of party service, or more often of service to some particular leader, and not merit, shall ulti- mately determine the appointment, even as among the different party candidates them- selves. Once admit that it is proper to turn out an efficient Republican clerk in order to replace him by an efficient Democratic clerk, or vice versa, and the inevitable next step is to consider solely Republicanism or Democ- racy, and not efficiency, in making the ap- pointment ; while the equally inevitable third step is to consider that peculiar species of Republicanism or Democracy which is implied in adroit and unscrupulous service rendered to the most influential local boss." One year later, Commissioner Roosevelt in the Atlantic Monthly said : " We have sue 4 50 FROM THE fcANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. ceeded in getting such a number of applica- tions from the Southern States to enter our examinations that these States have now re- ceived their full share of appointments in the departmental service at Washington ; and the most gratifying feature about this is that the great bulk of the men and women thus appointed to position in the Govern- ment service from these States are politically opposed to the party in power." He named the chief difficulties that had to be met. " Facing the intense and interested hos- tility of the great mass of the self-seeking politicians, and of the much larger mass of office-seekers, whose only hope of acquiring office rests in political influence, and is immediately cut off by the application of any, even the most modest, merit test. 11 We have to overcome popular indif- ference or ignorance, and do constant battle with that spirit of mean and vicious cyn- icism which so many men, respectable enough in their private life, assume as their attitude in public affairs. " The slowness with which the popular mind takes to any new theory, and from its inability, by no means wholly unnatural, tc discriminate between the branches of the service where the law applies and those where it does not." CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 51 Roosevelt and his brother Commissioners toiled all the harder to meet and overcome these obstacles. Their success was greater than most of their ardent friends expected, but not greater than the Commissioners looked for. They knew the task before them, and they applied not only vigor, but patience and brains. In July, Louisiana was the farthest behind in its apportionment, hav- ing had only about one-half of the number to which she was entitled. Four months later she had two more than her quota, and the South was about equal to the North. All applicants were examined and marked with strict impartiality, and in nine cases out of ten the appointing officers chose the men in the order of their standing. Commissioner Roosevelt called attention to the fact that one-fourth of the Southern appointees were colored, most of them being graduates of colleges established for their race. Two-thirds were native born South- ern whites. Only in rare instances was the objectionable African politician successful in securing an appointment. With very few exceptions, the whites were Democrats. The most beneficent policy cannot escape abuse, and some of the hardest blows given to civil service reform were inflicted by its friends. A newspaper said that none but Republicans would receive favors during a 52 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Republican administration. Mr. Roosevelt called the representatives of the leading Southern journals before him, and said : " I am going to ask you to help me dispel this illusion, and at the same time aid your own people. I have been looking over the list of appointments from our regis- ters, and, whereas the Northern and West- ern States have their quotas full, and some of them overflowing, the South is short of its share. I wish that each of you would publish in the most emphatic manner the statement that it is my desire that the young men of the South should come forward, irre- spective of politics, and take our examina- tions. I assume, on general principles, that most of your educated young men are Demo- crats ; but you may give them my absolute guaranty that they will receive the same con- sideration in every respect as the young men in other parts of the country, that no one will inquire what their politics are, and that they will be appointed according to their deserts and in the regular order of appor- tionment. This is an institution not for Re- publicans, and not for Democrats, but for the whole American people. It belongs to them, and will be administered, as long as I stay here, in their interest without dis- crimination." The inevitable effect followed, and, as has CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 53 been intimated, the ardent response of the South speedily filled up her quota of ap- pointments. Roosevelt was subjected to all sorts of petty annoyances. Attempts would be made in the House of Representatives to cut off the appropriation. When that failed, perhaps it would be reduced, so as to make it impossible for the Commissioners fully to carry out their plans. Roosevelt cleverly checkmated one of these persecutions. Find- ing that the paring down of the appropria- tion would compel him to abandon certain portions of the country, he cut out the dis- tricts represented by the members who had voted for the reduction. He explained to these gentlemen that, inasmuch as some of the districts had to be left out, they must admit the justice of omitting those that had chosen Representatives who were opposed to civil service reform. Then these same gentlemen heard from their constituents, and though threats were made of the re- moval of the daring Commissioner, he was not disturbed, nor did the Commission fail to get its full appropriation thereafter. One day Senator Gorman, of Maryland, in a sarcastic speech said that a bright young man in Baltimore applied for a situa- tion as letter-carrier. Among the questions asked him on his examination was as to the most direct route from Baltimore to Japan. 54 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Failing to answer that and several other absurd questions, he was rejected. Mr. Roosevelt sent a request to the Senator for the date and place of the examination re- ferred to, accompanied by an invitation of the Senator to inspect all the examination papers for letter-carriers, and to point out the question which had been quoted. The dignified Senator paid no attention to the impudent request, even when it was re- peated, whereupon Mr. Roosevelt took his turn in the press in the following fashion : " High-minded, sensitive Mr. Gorman ! Clinging, trustful Mr. Gorman ! Nothing could shake his belief in that ' bright young man.' Apparently, he did not even try to find out his name if he had a name ; in fact, his name, like everything else about him, remains to this day wrapped in the Stygian mantle of an abyssmal mystery. Still less has Mr. Gorman tried to verify the statements made to him. It is enough for him that they were made. No harsh sus- picion, no stern demand for evidence or proof, appeals to his artless and unspoiled soul. He believes whatever he is told, even when he has forgotten the name of the teller, or never knew it. It would indeed be difficult to find an instance of a more abiding confidence in human nature even in anonymous human nature. And this is CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 55 the end of the tale of Arcadian Mr. Gorman and his elusive friend, the bright young man without a name." One of the cleverest things done by Roose- velt, which proved an efficient means of quenching the unreasoning opposition, was his order that the examinations for depart- mental situations should be held in the dif- ferent States instead of at the Capital. When a Congressman whose politics were opposed to the administration came to Washington and met a young man from home who had secured a government appointment, the Con* gressman glowed with delight and made up his mind that a policy which worked in such a gratifying fashion wasn't such a bad policy after all. Wherefore he became an ardent friend and supporter of civil service reform. There is always an amusing side to the most serious measures. In his testimony, Commissioner Roosevelt gave examples of the replies to some of the questions asked during the examinations. Ten candidates said Abraham Lincoln was President of the Southern Confederacy ; one said he was assassinated by Thomas Jefferson, two by Jefferson Davis, one by Garfield, three by Guiteau, and one by Ballington Booth. This was the gravest charge ever brought against the great evangelist. Another candidate, 56 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. when asked to name several States that be- longed to the Southern Confederacy, men- tioned Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Among the replies for a list of the New England States, two deserve special notice. The first named New York, Albany, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware ; and the other, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Cork. When some one remarked to Roosevelt that he doubted whether he could success- fully pass a successful civil service examina- tion, he replied that he had no doubt what- ever on the point : he knew he couldn't, but, all the same, he knew how to conduct the examination, which was all that was re- quired of him. It should be borne in mind that two of the men who thought that Presi- dent Lincoln had been at the head of the Southern Confederacy, did so well with the other questions that they passed and ranked among the very best officers on the police force of New York. The correct position held by the examiners was that the tests were aimed to demonstrate the intelligence of the candidates. They might make absurd answers to some questions, and yet display a brightness otherwise that entitled them to appointment. As proof of the common sense used by Roosevelt and his associates, the rule adopted CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 57 for the examination of customs inspectors on the Texas border may be cited. A man might obtain a perfect percentage in scholar- ship and yet be perfectly unfit for the office. " You want," said Roosevelt, " to have a man who is a first-rate horseman, who knows about brands, who is a good shot, and is able to write a clear report. First of all, you have to get recommendations of character, of course. Then I wanted to have enough of a written examination to test the candi- date's handwriting, his arithmetic and his capacity to write a good letter, and then to test his revolver shooting, exactly as they do on the range. On a range, as you know, the results of the competition are put down numerically. Such and such a man gets 87 out of a possible hundred, another 67, another 93, the bull's-eye being marked 5, the next line 4, the next line 3, the next 2, and the outer line i. That lent itself very readily to competitive tests. " Then for the brand reading you have to trust a little bit to good fortune, but in order to show knowledge of horsemanship and cattle, it was only necessary to have what is a favorite test of cow-punchers on the round-up. Let each man take any horse he wishes, and if a man has not a good horse he will get one, turn loose a steer for each man, and test him according 58 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. to the rapidity with which he can overtake, rope, throw, and tie down the steer. It was not deemed practicable at that moment to put that competitive test in, especially as I could not get down there to oversee it myself. But it was adopted to a certain extent." The interest in civil service is so general throughout the country, that it is well to close this chapter with some information for the guidance of those who have ambitions in that direction. The purpose of course is to " regulate and improve the civil service of the United States." The board consists of three Commissioners, a chief Examiner, a Secretary and other employes, whose ad- dress is Washington, D. C. They arrange for practical examinations for testing the fit- ness of applicants for the classified service ; for the filling of all vacancies by selections from among those graded the highest ; for the apportionment of appointments at Wash- ington among the States upon the basis of population ; for a period of probation before absolute appointment ; that no person in the public service shall be obliged to contribute service or money for political purposes ; and that no person in said service has any right to use his official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any person or body. The number of situations in the Execu- CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 59 tive Civil Service is about 310,000, of which 171,807 are subject to competitive examina- tion. The combined salaries of these is about $200,000,000 yearly. The exceptions from the operations of the Civil Service Act are the persons appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate ; persons em- ployed merely as laborers, or workmen, in addition to a considerable number exempted for various reasons. Of these the largest single class are fourth-class postmasters, of which there are 60,000. Applicants for examination must be cit- izens of the United States, of proper age, not users of intoxicants to excess, and no discrimination is made on account of sex, color, or political or religious opinions. The limitations of age vary with different serv- ices, but do not apply to any person hon- orably discharged from the military or naval service of the United States by reason of dis- ability resulting from wounds or sickness incurred in the line of duty. The examinations are open to every one qualified in respect to age, citizenship, legal residence, character, and health. As evi- dence of the practical work done by the Commission, it may be stated that during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1905, 114,553 persons were examined, 83,440 passed, and 28,189 were appointed. Of these 10,62.7 60 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. were rural letter-carriers. Besides these, mechanics and workmen at navy yards are appointed on registration tests of fitness given by a board of labor employment at each yard. During the year named, 23,500 applications were made ; 28,301 were regis- tered, and 10,956 were appointed. Some 600 examinations were held, each of which involved different tests. Over two hundred of these examinations included educational tests, the others being for mechanical trades or skilled occupations, and consisting of certificates of employers or fellow-workmen. Examinations are held twice a year in each State and Territory, places and dates of which are publicly announced. Where a vacancy is not filled by promo- tion, reduction, transfer, or reinstatement, the highest three of the sex called for on the appropriate register are certified for ap- pointment, the apportionment being con- sidered in appointments at Washington. If there are no eligibles, or if the work is of short duration, temporary appointments, without examination, are allowable. The number of women who apply for ordinary clerical places, is always greatly in excess of the calls of appointing officers. The best chances for appointments are teachers, ma- trons, seamstresses, and physicians in the Indian service, for male stenographers and CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONER. 61 typewriters, draughtsmen, patent examiners, civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers, and for technical and scientific experts. Certain preferences are given to persons who served in the military or naval service of the United States, and were discharged by reason of disabilities resulting from wounds or sickness incurred in the line of duty. They are freed from all maximum age limita- tions, are eligible for appointment at a grade of 65, while all others must obtain a grade of 70, and are certified to appointing officers before all others. While subject to the other conditions of the rules, a veteran of the Civil War, or of the war with Spain, or the widow of any such person, or any army nurse of either war, may be reinstated with- out regard to the length of time he or she has been separated from the service. Examinations are held for places in the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Hawaii, and for the Isthmian Canal service. By an execu- tive order, unclassified laborers are ap- pointed after open, competitive examination upon their physical condition. The Com- mission distribute gratuitously, manuals of examinations, giving places and dates of ex- aminations, rules by which papers are rated, specimens of questions and other general in- formation ; the Civil Service Act and Rules, and the Annual Reports of the Commission, 62 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. which summarize the work done. More than a score of the annual reports have been published and are found in most of the public libraries. CHAPTER V. POLICE COMMISSIONER. THEODORE ROOSEVELT was Civil Service Commissioner, when Grover Cleveland be- came President of the United States. It is not necessary to say that the Commissioner was kept in place. President Cleveland had long before learned to know his man. On May 6, 1895, Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick D. Grant, and Andrew Parker were made Police Commissioners of the city of New York. Avery D. Andrews had been appointed about three months previous. He now became Treasurer ; Grant was placed on the Committee on Rules and Discipline, while Roosevelt was chosen President of the Board. It was inevitable that a shaking among the dry bones should follow, and that right speedily. The Police Department was thoroughly demoralized. Corruption prevailed more or less everywhere ; " graft " was king and dis- honesty cut to the bone. As a result of in- vestigations by an extraordinary Grand Jury, 63 64 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. indictments had been found against many officers. There were 268 vacancies in the Department, and among the twenty-six offi- cers under suspension on account of indict- ments for crime, were five captains and one inspector. Legislative changes impended, and the feeling among the force was that ot uncertainty, and distrust. The situation was such that a number of months were employed in getting ready for the new order of things. A resolute effort to enforce discipline and impartiality brought about the retirement of a large number of officers of various grades. The new police law was meant to prevent radical changes of any kind, and it caused more delay. In the course of two months the vacancies had grown to 355, including a chief, three inspectors, eleven captains and eleven sergeants. By the close of the year, 206 patrolmen had been appointed and 58 more placed on probation. The Legislature added 800 men to the force, such addition being imperatively necessary in order to keep pace, even to a partial extent, with the growth of the metropolis. President Roosevelt saw that radical steps must be taken at once, in order to preserve discipline among the force. Gross derelic- tions in the performance of duty had been punished so lightly that the deterrent effect was lost. The penalties must be sufficient POLICE COMMISSIONER. 65 to make the offenders wince. As a conse- quence, the dismissals were quadrupled. While stern punishment, however, was in- flicted, rewards and promotions were be- stowed with the same impartiality. When deserved, honorable mention was made, medals of honor given, and extra bars added to those previously bestowed. A grizzled veteran of the Civil War had received two medals from Congress for valor, bore the life-saving medal, had saved twenty-eight lives at the risk of his own, and not once had his name appeared on the complaint book. The Police Board rewarded him for his splendid record by allowing him to pay for the uniform with which he had to replace the one ruined in the performance of duty. Roosevelt carried through a reso- lution by which the Board declared that clothes destroyed in risking one's life in the line of duty were a badge of honor, which the Board would be only too glad to replace. Many believed the bi-partisan form of the Board would bring about the best re- sults, but the opposite proved the fact. It divided power and responsibility. " Not only have these two Legislatures refused to pass any bill," said President Roose- velt, " which would give us the power to rid the Department of bad officers, and to administer it with proper vigor and effi- 5 6(5 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. ciency, but they have actually made the law very much worse than it formerly was, weak- ening our powers to do good work, and ren- dering it more difficult to check evil and to center responsibility. If no other change is possible, then at least it would be well to repeal the present law and re-enact the old law, which was in force when the present Board took office, in May, 1895. The old law was far preferable to the present one." Among the most difficult of the problems which the Board of Police is called upon to tackle is the enforcement of the excise law. Many believe that it is impossible to do so thoroughly and continuously. We are all familiar with the spasms of virtue on the part of the authorities, and the claim with some show of reason that the saloons are closed in accordance with law, the disorderly houses shut up, and gambling effectually checked. In other words, the " lid " is on good and tight. But these paroxysmal outbursts rarely last long ; the lid is lifted and the town becomes wide open as aforetime. President Roosevelt determined that so long as the laws remained on the statute books, they should be enforced. President Grant once said that the quickest way to bring about the repeal of an obnoxious law is to enforce it. The excise law held all the dignity and force of that against burglary POLICE COMMISSIONER. 67 and murder, and, under Roosevelt, could never be allowed to become a dead letter. No one unacquainted with the facts can comprehend the tremendous difficulty of enforcing the excise, and gambling laws. The thousands of saloons in New York rep- resent millions of dollars of invested cap- ital, and many of these capitalists are among the foremost politicians, and stand high in the counsels of the leading party c They contribute immense sums for its success, and in every sense of the word are the powers behind the throne. The saloons, the gambling and the disorderly houses paid reg- ular tribute to the policemen on the respec- tive beats, the latter passed a percentage to those above them, until the head received his share. The sums thus paid out by law- breakers, for the privilege of being left free to carry on their unlawful business, amounted in the aggregate to millions. One day, a sergeant was stricken with sudden death. In his desk was found a hundred thousand dollars in bank bills, which he had not had time to divide among the officers for whom the money was intended. The saloons whose owners had the temerity to refuse contributions, or who were too poor to meet the demands, were " pulled" without mercy, while the wealthy contributors made slight pretence of obeying the law. 68 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Roosevelt and his associates set to work to enforce the Act with vigor and imparti- ality. He said : " The result was that, for the first time in its history, the Excise law was thoroughly and honestly administered in New York. The means employed by the Board were perfectly simple, and consisted merely in insisting that the wealthy liquor sellers and those who possessed great politi- cal influence should be treated precisely as their weaker brethren were treated. When we took office, there were hundreds of saloons that were closed on Sunday, while thousands more were open, only those being closed which did not pay blackmail, or whose owners, for some reason or other, were under the protection of the higher police officers, or of influential politicians who had power with these officials. We enforced the law with rigid equity upon all alike. In consequence, we made all alike close. Yet, though we shut the saloons on Sunday, we actually made fewer arrests than had been made before. In the year previous to our term of office, over 10,000 persons were arrested for violation of the Sunday law. During the first twelve months of our ad- ministration but 5,700 were arrested. Yet, while making 4,300 fewer arrests, we en- forced obedience to a law which never had been obeyed, because for the first time we POLICE COMMISSIONER. arrested everybody, without regard to their wealth or political backing, and allowed no arrests to be made for purposes of blackmail or political intimidation. The figures for the arrests show, by the way, that while the num- ber of excise arrests fell off, the number of arrests for more important crimes increased ; a proof that the police, while wearing upon vice, have also warred more efficiently than ever before against violent criminality. We pursued the same tactics with gambling houses and disorderly houses, and with much the same success, in spite of the scant help we received from a few of the executive and judicial officers of the government, and of the obstacles thrown in our way by the Comptroller." One of the pests of New York had been for a long time the tramp lodging houses. Those frowsy, unclean vagabonds, who lived by begging and stealing, because they were too lazy to work, herded like cattle in these lodging houses, filthy, vicious and demoraliz- ing to the last degree. The places were breeding pools of crime. Some people thought the police board was cruel when it stamped out these pest houses, because a poor man was thereby deprived of a place to sleep. The common sense answer to this was that by providing comforts for these nuisances, they were encouraged in beggary YO FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. and thievery. They should be compelled to go to places where they could be properly dealt with. Meanwhile, the honest work- ing man and woman, who was in temporary need, would be directed to charitable re- sorts that would always welcome them. The extirpation of the tramp lodging houses was trifling compared with the wiping out of the blackmailing and protecting vice system. This was done effectively. Could it but have continued indefinitely, the ave- rage New Yorker might well have suspected, if he did not believe, that the millennium had actually arrived. Mr. Jacob A. Riis, who was a warm coadjutor with Roosevelt in the work among the slums and who has written a loving tribute to the man, gives a graphic picture of the experience of his chief in the line of reform. Grim as was the work, and alert as was Roosevelt, he made his mis- takes, and occasionally was outwitted. One of the patrolmen became such a chronic offender that patience was exhausted. Roose- velt sternly shook his head, when again ap- pealed to and declared that the man had already received too much leniency, which was thrown away upon him. He was to be dismissed, and all appeals against the dis- missal were useless. The next morning after this announce- ment, when the Commissioner reached his POLICE COMMISSIONER. 71 office in Mulberry Street, the patrolman was summoned before him. Sad, grief smitten and despairing, he walked slowly into the dreaded presence, bringing with him eleven children of as many sizes and ages. Several of the youngest were sniffling, all were poorly dressed and the picture they made with the sighing father was pitiful indeed. He introduced them to the Commissioner. "Are they all yours?" asked the as- tonished President. " Yes, your Honor," replied the patrolman, swallowing a big lump in his throat, " and their blessed mother God rest her soul ! was taken to heaven only a few months ago ; what will become of the poor orphans now when their father loses his job ?" The Commissioner could not resist such an appeal. A man with eleven motherless children, most of whom were of a tender age, was entitled to the fullest charity. " I'll give you one more chance, but you mustn't offend again," said the Commis- sioner, whose voice was a trifle uncertain. " God bless you ! God bless you ! " re- plied the father, as he steered the wondering little ones out of the room and down stairs. Those who were looking closely at the face of the patrolman as he came out of the awe- some room may have noticed a significant grimace on his face. It was fully justified, 72 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. for of those eleven sniffling youngsters, nine were borrowed from his neighbors, only two being his own, and their mother, we believe, was never in better health. Roosevelt had been beautifully taken in, but who shall blame him therefore ? Riis says : " Haroun-al-Roosevelt the newspapers nicknamed the President of the New York City Police Board, in good-natured banter at his fashion of disciplining his men by going about at night to see for himself what they are doing. In point of fact, there is much in the methods of the Reform Board to suggest the beneficent rule of the mythi- cal Caliph. Mayor Strong's method of solv- ing the most difficult problem with which his administration had to deal point to his possessing the faculty that made King William Emperor of a united Germany that of chosing his advisers well, which is the very genius of leadership. It would be difficult to get four men together better fitted to do the great work they have to do than Commissioners Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew D. Parker, Avery D. Andrews and Frederick D. Grant. (A rather curious co- incidence that the middle letter of each of the last three names is the same). In four short weeks they have succeeded in impress- ing their purpose on a demoralized force to an extent which the timid citizens who POLICE COMMISSIONER. 73 saw the old order of things upset with mis- giving must have thought incredible. Prac- tically, their work is done already. What remains to be done is important, but not nearly so much so as the demonstration to the force, and to the citizens, that the thing was possible, that in the struggle between moral force and political ' pull,' the former might win, must win, however uneven the apparent odds. "This was the issue from the first, and to the demonstration of it the new Board promptly directed its efforts. It found a force, misnamed the Finest, stricken through and through with the dry rot of politics. The blackmail, brutality, shirking, and all the rest were mere symptoms of the general disorder. The very first act of the Board- viz., to extend civil service rule to the depart- ments still left open in the department was at once an answer and a challenge to the politicians who swarmed in Mulberry Street, confident of being able to ' make a line ' on the new men and the new order of things. This effort they have not abandoned in the face of many discouragements. ' The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness com- prehended it not.' " * You will yield too. You are but human,' said the oldest and wariest of the politicians, as he left Mulberry Street, a beaten man. 74 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Mr. Roosevelt's answer was to send to the Board his proposition, which is promptly adopted to close the last avenue of the pol- itician to police patronage. " ' We want the civil service law applied to appointments here,' he said in explana- tion, ' not because it is the ideal way, but because it is the only way you can knock the politicians out, and you have to do that to get anywhere.' The speech sufficiently described Mr. Roosevelt. It is in keeping with all that has ever been known of him as a public man. Force and courage are his conspicuous characteristics. To the suggestion that the retirement of the old heads of the force might invite ruffianism and disorder, he responded curtly ' there shall be order ; ' and there is order. In the Board his rest- less energy is admirably supplemented by the cool head of Mr. Parker who with the training of a lawyer combines a keen intel- ligence and a breadth of view which make the two men, in everything so different, approach their task by different paths, yet in the same spirit and by the untiring zeal and labors of Mayor Andrews, the Treasurer, and Colonel Grant. Both of these latter officials possess the genius for and the pa- tience with details, without which effectual reforms of so great a body as the police force POLICE COMMISSIONER. 75 would be impossible. Already Colonel Grant's overhauling of the Department's supply accounts has disclosed some of the numerous small leaks through which the city's revenues were wasted under a cor- rupt regime, and has succeeded in stopping them. " That the Board had no cut and dried theories of police management, so far from being the hindrance to it which its early critics suggested, has proved instead its strongest point. It had no traditions to break from. ' We have no patent cure all for the Department,' said Mr. Roosevelt, speaking for his colleagues. ' Some things are plain. We want honesty, plain, common honesty, in the force, and politics out of it. For the rest, we are willing to fit our theories to the facts as we make them out.' Already, in pursuance of this plan, drunkards have been made to understand that the police force is no place for them ; party managers, that the day of the ignorant, bullying elec- tion officer is past. Promotions are made on probation, not for ' influence.' Police- men have been made to resign membership in political clubs. Reward follows as swiftly upon the brave act as punishment on misconduct. The clubber knows that he runs the certain risk of prompt dismissal. And this is the work of one short month." 76 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. It has been said that when Mr. Roosevelt set out to learn whether the city was prop- erly policed, he chose the most effective hours for doing so. It is not during day- light or the early evening that violent crime is rampant, and that persons and property are in the most need of protection, but it is in the small hours of morning, when the temptation of the officer to shirk his duty is strongest. Naturally, therefore, Mr. Roose- velt selected that time to play the role of the good and great Caliph of Bagdad. The sturdy figure appeared here, there, every- where at the most unexpected times. The result even to Roosevelt was astounding. Out of every twelve policemen, two were loafing, and the most persistent search failed to find all. Those that were brought to light, were found asleep or drinking in some Saloon, which itself was breaking the law. It is not necessary to say what followed, but very soon the streets of New York were better policed than ever before. The problem of rightly dealing with poverty is one that promises always to be with us. The cure for poverty has been, as it will probably be, the problem of the ages. It has been said that if any man could really know the sufferings, miseries and heart breaking of half the world, he would never smile again. All great cities contain multi- POLICE COMMISSIONER. 77 tudes of deserving, homeless poor, who, without assistance, cannot secure the barest necessities of life. Boards of charity are formed, and what seems to be the most practical means are adopted for their relief. Wealthy citizens give largely, and a vast deal is done toward helping not merely the impoverished, but those who are suffering from illness and disease. One of the most beneficent features of life in the metropolis is the number of hospitals, where treatment is given free. None the less, there remain thousands upon whom the burden of life bears heavily. Reference has been made to the hordes of tramps, whose presence is a menace to the community, and who are found in every part of the country. Among them are hulking, able-bodied men, afflicted w r ith ravenous appetites and an eternal thirst, who beg, steal and sometimes commit shocking crimes. For years, the herding of these pests in the cellars or over the prisons of police stations and turning them loose in the morning to beg and steal, was not only inhuman but dangerous to the community. The foul nuisance was attacked by grand juries, academies of medicine, and philan- thropic committees, but without success. It has been said that the unspeakable abom- inations of the outlet of the Ganges have made it the breeding spot of the world's 78 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. pestilences. The same may be said in a lesser degree of the tramp lodging houses of New York. There was but a single way of abating the nuisance : that was to stamp them out and Roosevelt stamped them out. In the notorious " barracks " inMott Street, the death rate quickly dropped from 39.56 in the thousand to 16.28. It may seem strange, and yet it was not strange, that no Police Commissioner was as popular among the police, as Theodore Roosevelt. A good man commands the re- spect of bad men, and though the offender against law may wince under its blow, yet he knows it is deserved and that the hand which smites is just as quick to reward merit, wherever and whenever it is met. In other words, every real man loves him who gives him a square deal. CHAPTER VI. THE WAR WITH SPAIN. THE history of the world does not contain the record of a more righteous war than that which was waged by the United States for the liberation of Cuba from Spanish rule. From the day that the Spaniard first set foot on American soil, his career has been marked by outrage, spoil, treachery, cruelty and blood. The early explorers who tramped through the wilderness and across rivers and streams, slew the poor natives in mere wantonness. Their lust for blood led them to commit crimes, when they could have gained their ends much better by humanity. As an illustration, Balboa, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, crossed the Isthmus of Panama under the guidance of natives, with- out whose help he and his companions never would have been able to discover the Pacific Ocean. When the Indians had finished their work, and were not likely to be of more help, Balboa and his men massacred them all. So it was all through the years that they had a foothold on the cantinent. 79 80 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. The major part of South America fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who, at the time to which we refer, were the greatest maritime nation in the world. But, as civilization progressed, the South American countries began their wars for independence from the tyranny of the kingdom across the ocean. They were uniformly successful, and before the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Spain was driven from the soil which had been cursed so long by her presence. Now, while this long and desperate struggle was under way, many of the loyalists who clung to Spain through good and evil report, and who found themselves forced to leave the countries which had been their home, went to Cuba. Thus the fertile island became the refuge of loyalists ; it was Span- ish to the core, and all that Spain had to do to retain that ardent loyalty was to treat the Cubans not with one-half, but one-tenth of a degree of justice. The " Ever Faithful Isle " yearned to remain faithful, and for weary years, its people submitted to be ground into the dust, and to suffer miseries that made life a burden so grievous that no other people would have borne it. But Spain continued to play the idiot, in addition to her unspeakable cruelty. She taxed the natives far beyond their ability to THE WAR WITH SPAIN. gl pay ; her officers robbed them right and left ; the plantations were plundered, the hacien- das burned, and tens of thousands died of exposure and starvation. There were always a few restless spirits in Cuba, who kept alive the dream of independence. They started incipient revolts, but they had no organiza- tion and the Spanish soldiery crushed the uprisings with merciless rigor. When these revolts began to look formidable, the author- ities fell back upon their characteristic treachery. They gave their solemn pledge that the reforms for which the Cubans were righting should be granted. The insurgents would lay down their arms, and when they w r ere powerless, Spain would repudiate every promise and resume her frightful cruelty. The last state of Cuba was worse than the first. In the month of February, 1895, when the patience of the Cubans was worn out, they declared themselves independent of the mother country. They soon brought about a better organization than before, though of course it could bear no comparison to the military strength of Spain. The latter had established her government in the island centuries before, and had never loosened her grip upon the throat of her victim. She held the cities and ports, against which the in- surgents might pound with no more effect 6 82 FROM THE: RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. than the waves of the ocean beating upon the rocks. The strength of the patriots of ne- cessity lay in the interior. They were able to cut off detached bodies of troops some of them of considerable numbers and now and then to strike effective blows. They fought as Francis Marion the Swamp Fox of the Revolution fought in the thickets and swamps of the Carolinas. They dashed here, there and everywhere, and kept the fires of insurrection steadily burning. By the suc- ceeding October, the revolutionists had 30,- ooo men under arms. The Spanish army was more than twice as numerous and far better armed, though many of the troops were unavailable. The pitiful condition of the Cubans and the brave fight they were putting up for free- dom won the ardent sympathy of the United States, which gave much secret help. Ves- sels loaded with munitions of war and volun- teers, stole out from different ports and landed in Cuba, where they eagerly aided the in- surgents. It is a safe guess that in more than one instance, our authorities winked at these expeditions, which technically were illegal, since we were at peace with Spain. Many public meetings were held, at which glowing tributes were paid to the patriotism and gallantry of the Cubans, and large sums of money were sent to them. The real head- THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 83 quarters of the Cuban revolutionary party was in this country, where it became a great power. Many members of Congress de- manded that our government should recog- nize that of Cuba and resolutions to that effect were offered. But international law rigidly demands that no government can be formally recognized until it succeeds in es- tablishing a semblance of a government. The Cubans had failed to do this, and much as the United States would have liked to ex- tend the helping hand in the manner named, it could not do so. But the wail of the tortured island grew louder and the sufferings of the starving people horrified the civilized world. Here were a people at our very doors, as may be said, and it was beyond belief that they should be wiped from the face of the earth, without the great and mighty American nation raising her mailed hand to strike down the oppressor. A prominent English authority gave the reasons for Cuba's revolt in 1868: " Spain governs the island of Cuba with an iron and blood-stained hand. The former holds the latter deprived of political, civil, and religious liberties. Hence the un- fortunate Cubans being illegally prosecuted and sent into exile, or executed by military commissions in times of peace ; hence their 84 FROM THE RAJfCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. being kept from public meetings, and for- bidden to speak or write of affairs of state ; hence their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being looked upon as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are obliged to keep silence and obey ; hence the never-ending plague of hungry officials from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor ; hence their ex- clusion from the art of government ; hence the restrictions to which public instruction with them is subjected in order to keep them so ignorant as not to be able to know and en- force their rights in any shape or form what- ever ; hence the navy and the standing army, which are kept in their country at an enormous expenditure from their own wealth, to make them bend their knees and submit their necks to the iron yoke that disgraces them ; hence the grinding taxation under which they labor, and which would make them all perish in misery but for the mar- vellous fertility of their soil." The salary of the captain-general was $50,000 with " perquisites " ; of the six provincial governors, $12,000 each, also with valuable perquisites, of the two archbishops, $18,000 each, with the same valuable addi- tion. Every one of these officials was a Spaniard. The duty on flour was so exces- sive that only the wealthy could eat bread ; THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 85 every Cuban who received a prepaid letter had to pay 37! cents additional postage ; he had to pay $6.39 annually as interest on the national debt, while each Spaniard was re- quired to pay less than one-half that sum. The grievances which caused the American colonies to revolt were but a trifle compared to these. And yet Spain took steps to add to the exactions. The culmination atrocity was reached when the humane Captain-General, Field- Marshal Campos was recalled from Cuba and succeeded by Valeriano Weyler, one of the most bloody miscreants who blacken the pages of history. He arrived in Cuba in February, 1896, and by his ferocities soon appalled the world. He made no secret of his policy the extermination of the rebels, root and branch. He believed that the only way to stamp out rebellion was to leave no one to rebel. " Butcher Weyler " gained some successes at first, and he kept the cable hot with mes- sages to his government of the pacification of the different provinces. After a time these became a jest at court, and the Liberal- ists protested against the fiendishness of the Governor-General. Finding it impossible to check the re- bellion, Weyler, as a last resort, adopted his fearful policy of " reconcentration." The 86 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. people in the county districts sympathized with and to some extent aided the revolu- tionists, often because they could not help it. From them were obtained the crops and food which enabled the rebels to maintain themselves in the field. Weyler ordered that these people should come into the cities, and they were driven thither in droves. They could not raise any food for the insurgents, nor for themselves : all that remained for them was starvation, and they starved by hundreds and thousands. The message of President McKinley to Congress, April u, 1898, summed up the situation in these forceful words : " The efforts of Spain added to the horrors of the strife a new and inhuman phase, hap- pily unprecedented in the modern history of civilized Christian people. The policy of devastation and concentration, inaugurated by Captain-General Pando on October 21, 1896, in the province of Pinar del Rio, was thence extended to embrace all of the island to which the power of the Spanish arms was able to reach by military occupation or by military operations. The peasantry, includ- ing all dwellers in the open agricultural interior, were driven into the garrisoned towns or isolated places held by troops. The raising and movement of provisions of all kinds were interdicted. The fields were THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 87 laid waste, dwellings unroofed or fired, mills destroyed, and, in short, everything that could desolate the land and render it unfit for human habitation or support, was com- manded by one or other of the contending parties, and executed by all the powers at their disposal. By the time the present administration took office, a year ago, recon- centration, so-called, had been made effective over the better part of the four central and western provinces, Santa Clara, Matanzas, Havana, and Pinar del Rio. The agricultu- ral population, to the estimated number of 300,000 or more, was herded within the towns and their immediate vicinage, deprived of the means of support, rendered destitute of shelter, left poorly clad, and exposed to the most unsanitary conditions. "As the scarcity of food increased with the devastation of the depopulated areas of production, destitution and want became misery and starvation. Month by month the death rate increased in alarming ratio. By March, 1897, according to conservative estimates, from official Spanish sources, the mortality among the reconcentrados from starvation and the diseases thereto incident exceeded fifty per cent, of their total num- ber. No practical relief was accorded to the destitute. The overburdened towns, already suffering from the general dearth, could give FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. no aid. So-called zones of cultivation that were established within the immediate area of effective military control about the cities and fortified camps, proved illusory as a remedy for the suffering. The unfortunates, being for the most part women and children, or aged and helpless men, enfeebled by disease and hunger, could not have tilled the soil, without tool, seed or shelter, to pro- vide for their own support or for the supply of the cities. Reconcentration worked its predestined result. As I said in my message of last December, it was not civilized war- fare ; it was extermination. The only peace it could beget was that of the wilderness and the grave." When the fearful news came to our shores, most people shook their heads and refused to believe. It was impossible that such things could be in the closing years of the nineteenth century. Yet the horrifying tid- ings was repeated so often and upon such authority that men were compelled to credit it. The condition of Cuba cried to the heavens for vengeance, and the United States could not stand idle while this crime of the ages was consummated on her threshold. A party of United States Senators and Con- gressmen visited Cuba in March, 1898, to see with their own eyes what was to be seen. Senator Thurston, of Nebraska, took his THE WAR WITH SPAIN. g9 invalid wife with him. She was so overcome by what she saw that she died of the shock. The Senator, impressed to the very depths of his soul, said : " I shall refer to these horrible things no further. They are there ; God pity me, I have seen them ; they will remain in my mind forever, and this is almost the twen- tieth century. "Christ died nineteen hundred years ago, and Spain is a Christian nation. She has set up more crosses in more lands, beneath more skies, and under them has butchered more people than all the other nations of the earth combined. " God grant that before another Christmas morning the last vestige of Spanish tyranny and oppression will have vanished from the Western hemisphere." When a quarter of a million of victims had perished, our government protested. Spain had deliberately tortured to death one-sixth of the population of Cuba. This assertion staggers belief, and yet it is an awful truth. Incredible as it may sound, too, the laws of nations provided no remedy ; for these human beings were not prisoners of war, for whom Spain would have been compelled to provide. In answer to our protest, the Spanish authorities made a pretence of assisting the 90 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. dying swarms, of Cubans, but the efforts amounted to very little, and the sufferings and deaths went on at the same appalling rate. President McKinley was so moved by the reports of Consul-General Lee at Ha- vana that, soon after his inauguration, he asked Congress for a grant of $50,000 for the relief of the reconcentrados and the re- turn to the United States of all Americans who wished to leave the island. The grant was promptly made and the Red Cross Association undertook to minister relief to the perishing ones. In addition, independ- ent movements were set on foot, and an enormous amount of supplies was forwarded to the sufferers. The authorities in Madrid, from very shame, voted $600,000 for the re- lief of the reconcentrados. When General Lee was asked by the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, how much of that appropriation would be expended for the sufferers, he replied : " Not one dollar ; every penny will be divided among the officials themselves." General Lee knew whereof he spoke, for such has been the unvarying law among Spaniards. It may as well be added that the same thing was done with the funds that were appropriated for target practice. The harvest was reaped at Manilla and off Santiago, as Russia whose leaders enriched THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 91 themselves in the same manner, reaped her harvest, when she encountered the fleets of Japan. One excellent result of our protests was the recall of Weyler in October, 1897. The Liberal Party in Spain denounced his un- speakable brutality, and as soon as his suc- cessor arrived in Cuba, he rescinded the re- concentrado order. The new cabinet which was formed promised to grant home rule in Cuba and meanwhile to push the war with the utmost vigor. This was Spain's old trick over again. The Cubans were righting for home rule and could they have felt any faith in the pledges at Madrid, they would have gladly laid down their arms and closed hostilities. But were they such fools as to trust the authorities again ? How long shall one believe a man who, times without number, has proved him- self a liar ? The Cubans spurned the offer. Blanco, the successor of Weyler did his best to end the horrible condition of things, but all his humane efforts were so hampered at home that he was powerless. The re- sentment against the Madrid government in- tensified on the part of Americans with the deepening of their sympathy for the strug- gling Cubans, until the climax came on the night of February 15, 1898, when the Ameri- can battleship Maine was blown up in Ha- 92 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. vana harbor. The wrath of ourc ountryrnen could be restrained no longer, and war came. It is not our province to give the history of that struggle, but we have aimed to pave the way for an understanding of the part taken therein by Theodore Roosevelt. Truth, how- ever, compels us to say two things in this place. First, in the prosecution of the Ten Years War, as it is called, the Cubans often displayed as much ferocity as the Spaniards themselves. Second, many of the Cubans were unworthy of the independence which we won for them. Hundreds of those who had been the most blatant for war, stayed in the United States until it was over, and few of those in Cuba did much more than devour the rations with which our armies furnished them. None the less, we may re- peat, no more righteous, unselfish war was ever waged by any nation. CHAPTER VII. LANDING IN CUBA. ON the i7th of December, 1895, the American nation was electrified by a special message of President Cleveland to Congress, recommending the creation of a commission to determine and report upon "the true divisional line between Venezuela and British Guiana," adding that when such report should be made, it would, in his judgment, be the duty of the United States " to resist by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appro- priation by Great Britain of any lands, or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Ven- ezuela." This bold avowal of the Monroe Doctrine so dear to all Americans, was ardently sup- ported by both branches of Congress and by the whole country. The incidents are so recent that we all remember what followed. The world calamity of the two greatest Eng- lish-speaking nations going to war, over the miserable country known as Venezuela 93 94 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. (though of course it was the principle that was at stake), sent a shudder throughout the civilized world. Venezuela has since repaid our intercession by an ingratitude that more than once deserved stern punishment. The point that we are making is that the greatest piece of good fortune that ever be- fell the United States was the restraint of England, by which war with us was averted. A generation had passed since the great struggle for the Union, and we were so un- prepared for hostilities, that for months we should have been at the mercy of the in- vincible fleet of Great Britain. She could have bombarded or laid under contribution every port from Maine to Mexico. " Had she called our bluff," said one of the greatest soldiers in our service, to the writer, " we should have been taught a lesson never to be forgotten to the end of time. We were utterly unprepared for war, while England was, as she alwavs is, on edge. I am ready at any time to give my life for my country, but I don't wish to see her plunge headlong to destruction." For months before the declaration of war between Spain and the United States, every intelligent person saw that it was as certain to come as the sun is to rise each morning. Spain, corrupt, decayed and doddering, had still a formidable army and navy. Her sol- LANDING IN CUBA. 95 diers would fight well, and the probability was that she would strike hard blows before we brought her to her knees, as was in- evitable, sooner or later. That she must succumb was as sure as that a pigmy must collapse before a Hercules. All the same, we were in a state of un- preparedness. There were many weak joints in our armor that needed mending, and the formation of a powerful armed force, with all necessary supplies, accoutrements and muni- tions the transportation of troops to Cuba, and the moulding of army and navy into a compact effective machine, was a task of titanic proportions. Nothing but judgment, skill, knowledge, foresight and prodigious in- dustry could accomplish the feat, and even all these factors might fall a long way short of complete success. When McKinley became President," he asked Theodore Roosevelt to be his Assist- ant-Secretary in the Navy Department. He obeyed and threw his irrepressible energy into the labor thus taken upon himself. He knew that war was near at hand, and did all that could be done to make his country ready. No clerk in Washington worked harder or more hours than he. As president of the Strategic Board, he seemed scarcely ever to sleep. Repairs on ships were pushed night and day ; he dashed to the different 96 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Naval Reserves throughout the country, in- spected them quickly and thoroughly, urged the Personnel Bill, and made the whole Navy Department throb and thrill with his tireless activity. When nature clamored for rest, he strode for a dozen miles through the country, regardless of wind, snow or storm, or leaped into the saddle and galloped at headlong speed over leagues of hill and valley. Then, refreshed like a giant with new wine, he was at his desk again, toiling harder than ever. In short, to him, more than to any other one person belonged the preparation of our country for the fight when it did come. It was due to him that Com- modore George Dewey was retained in command in the Asian waters. When some of the timid ones remonstrated, calling Dewey a " dude," because he was faultless in his attire, Roosevelt replied : "I don't care how he dresses: he will fight and that's what we want." Moreover, the history of all our wars has proved over and over again, that many of the men who were sneered at as dandies and fops were made of the best stuff, and were heroes to the core. It was Roosevelt who sent the famous order to Dewey at Hong Kong to steam with all haste to Manila and smash the Spanish fleet there, and Dewey did it. LANDING IN CUBA. 97 Having set everything in order and done all that was possible, the next question with Roosevelt was what he himself should do. He had proved invaluable in the Navy Department, and the general wish of the country at large, in addition to that of his own superiors, was that he would stay there, at least until the war closed. But he had no such thought. Well founded rumors were heard that he was planning to enter the military service. His friends and the leading journals remonstrated. One of the most prominent papers devoted a long editorial to proving that as a patriot his duty was to remain in Washington. He could serve his country there better than in the field. He would surely listen to reason and give up any such wild ideas, if they had really entered his head. " It's no use, gentlemen," he said in his crisp, snappy fashion to his friends, who gathered round him ; " I thank you for in- terest and counsel, which I know is well meant, but I'm going to get into the fight." He had scant knowledge of seamanship, and therefore did not think of entering the navy. He had had some military experience as captain in the Eighth Regiment of the National Guard of New York. He was a superb horseman, a good shot and possessed dauntless personal courage. He knew where 7 98 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. to get the men after his own heart. Strange as it may seem at first thought, his sources were the two antipodes of society : the cow- DOVS and ranchmen of the West, and the wealthy young aristocrats of the East. But they were all men, in the truest sense of the word. Nine-tenths of the Rough Riders came from the plains and mountains, and one-tenth from the homes of luxury and wealth, and neither division was made of better stuff than the other. The young millionaires despite their handicap of birth, were trained athletes, brave, patriotic and gentlemen, through and through. The call- ing of the plainsmen made them ideal horse- men, and experts with short arms. They loved a fight as dearly as their leader, and would shrink from no danger more than would the blue bloods who bunked with them. When the regiment of Rough Riders was organized, Roosevelt was offered the colo- nelcy. He showed his sense by declining and asking that Dr. Leonard Wood, who had had considerable experience in campaigning in the Southwest, should be made colonel, while he would become lieutenant-colonel. This was the situation from May 6 to July 8, when Roosevelt became colonel and for about a month, beginning in August, was Second Brigade Commander of the Cavalry LANDING IN CUBA. 99 Division. He joined the regiment at San Antonio, and from the first devoted every spare moment to familiarizing himself with his duties. It need not be said that he learned fast. Beside his natural aptitude, his heart was in his work. One of the best officers in the service, himself a graduate of West Point, said to the writer : "The Rough Riders were not original with our war with Spain. They played a big part in the Revolution. But for them, King's Mountain would have been a bad defeat for our forefathers, instead of the brilliant victory it was. They figured in the War of 1812, though we did not hear much of them from '61 to '65. One of the pecul- iarities of the organization is that it is the only one in military service where the best course is not to discipline too strictly. In all other branches we cannot draw the reins too tight. The Rough Riders are ready to obey orders at the dropping of a handker- chief ; they are brave through and through ; they will respect their officers, if they deserve respect, but a certain liberty must be allowed them. The soldier who can be counted upon never to shirk duty, no matter what the circumstances, is entitled to privileges, which it would never do to concede to volunteers or regulars." 100 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. It must be remembered that the military situation was peculiar, at the date of the organization of the Rough Riders. The only way by which an effective blow could be struck for the liberation of Cuba was through landing a force on the island power- ful enough to drive out the Spaniards. Since the distance to Cuba is so slight, this would seem to be an easy task, but an im- portant factor had to be taken into account. The fleet of the enemy in the Philippines had been destroyed, but there was a larger and more formidable one that had sailed from Spain under the command of Admiral Cervera. No one knew what it would be able to accomplish, nor where it would begin its work of destruction. It was re- ported at different ports and on high seas and was believed to be capable of inflicting fearful damage unless it was met and defeated by our battleships. These were on the alert, but days and weeks passed during which the country was anxious and alarmed. Hurried defences were thrown up below Washington and to guard the approaches to the different seaports along the Atlantic coast. The general fear was shown by the fact that thousands who had been in the practice of spending their summers at the ocean resorts, now took their families to the mountains where they knew they were safe LANDING IN CUBA. 101 from the big guns of the enemy. One ener- getic citizen of Brooklyn mounted a cannon in his front yard, with a view of making suitable reply to the Spanish bombardment when it should open. We all know that Cervera's proud squad- ron met its doom off Santiago on the 3d of July, 1898. As a consequence, our land forces were left free to push the conquest of Cuba. Previous to this date, a consider- able force had been landed on the island, where the military operations were under charge of General William R. Shafter. On June 10, six hundred marines went ashore from the transport Panther, near the entrance to Guantanamo harbor. They were attacked the next day and two officers and two men killed, but the enemy were repulsed. Ten days later a large body of troops began land- ing at Baiquiri, seventeen miles east of Santiago, where the Spanish fleet was bot- tled up. Then the advance against the city was begun. This military movement brought the Rough Riders upon the stage of action. In his testimony, Colonel Roosevelt said that before leaving San Antonio, tents and blankets were provided for nearly all the men, though quite a number were unable to get shoes. The rough riders were armed with Krag-Jorgensen carbines and six- 102 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. shooters of forty-five calibre, but had no sabres. They had been promised machetes the effective Cuban weapon but the wea- pons did not arrive in time. On the last of May, the regiment left San Antonio and were flung into circumstances of almost inextricable confusion. The trains were congested and there was no intelligent supervision over anything. It took four days to reach Tampa, where, if possible, the confusion was still worse. Many of the troops were disembarked miles out of town, or left to look out for themselves. Roose- velt brought his six troops into Tampa, where he quickly saw that if anything was done, it would have to be done by himself. He was not the one to hesitate, and took hold with such energy that in a day or two something like order was established with his command. Food for the troopers was obtained by his buying it. Fortunately, he possessed the means, and, still more fortunate, his greatest pleasure has always been to help others. When asked afterward whether he was repaid for the considerable amount thus expended, he replied : " Heavens ! Of course not : that was a personal matter." One of the sweetest attributes of charity is the modesty that accompanies it. Roose- velt never referred to what he did for his men in this respect, and is always displeased LANDING IN CUBA. 103 when anything is said of it in his hearing, but it is only the commonest justice to say that his kindly help went far beyond what is generally supposed. The Rough Riders have told how ready he was to furnish them money when they had none ; how, if there was a human possibility of getting food, he got it for them ; how he saw that they were provided with writing materials and the little conveniences, which in such circumstances, become necessities ; how he never tasted a mouthful that was a particle better than that eaten by his men ; how he lost hours of sleep in seeing that they had necessary rest ; how no mother could have been more thoughtful in caring for a child than he was in caring for them. The young men some of whom were ac- customed to the luxuries of wealth, never murmured at the hardships. When notified that if they did not get aboard the train at a certain hour, they would be left, they found no train to take them away, but there was a lot of empty coal cars, into which they scrambled and thus got to the shore in time. But there again everything was topsy-turvy. Ten thousand men were swarming on the quay, and the transports were waiting, but no one could tell upon which the troops were to embark. Roosevelt made a dash for General Shatter and he advised them to 104: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. hunt up the Quartermaster, Colonel Hum- phrey. He was not in his place, and had not been for hours. Colonel Wood and Colonel Roosevelt took different directions and finally ran him down. He directed them to a transport that was just coming in at the dock. Roosevelt ran to it and found it had been allotted to the Second Infantry and the Seventy-First, New York. He hurriedly gathered his men, placed a guard at the gang plank, and held it against all comers until the Rough Riders were aboard. The other troops, as a consequence had to spend two nights in the cars. It was rough on them, but those who had outwitted the fellows did not feel any compunctions of conscience. The regiments took nearly two weeks' rations with them. The food would have been good except for the canned fresh beef, which was so vile and nauseating that the hardiest digestion could not stand it. Who- ever swallowed a few mouthfuls was sickened, and there was no salt or onions with which to smother its repulsiveness. Ice was absent, and no horses were taken. Another trans- port carried the animals of the field officers. The sleeping accommodations were so poor that the luckiest ones were those who slept on deck. Having embarked, the transport lay off LANDING IN CUBA. 105 Port Tampa for five days before sailing for Cuba, which was not reached until the end of a week, when two more days passed be- fore they disembarked. Even then they would have been kept aboard indefinitely, had not a friend of Roosevelt, in a converted yacht, come alongside and loaned him a Cuban pilot. He guided the transport a mile and a half nearer land than any other boat lay, and a dynamite gun and two Colt's automatic guns were carried ashore, but there were not enough boats to take the baggage and food. By this time hardly three days' rations remained. Roosevelt says that his baggage consisted of a light mackintosh and a toothbrush. One of his horses was drowned, but he got another. CHAPTER VIII. THE FIGHT AT SIBONEY. So at last the Rough Riders were on Cuban soil, with the certainty of righting be- fore them. They started at once on a hard march. Clothed in thick winter uniforms, the men suffered much from the heat of the jungles, and Roosevelt counted himself for- tunate that he had a mount, which made it easy for him. None the less, all were in high spirits, for they were in advance of the other troops. That evening they reached Siboney, and had hardly gone into camp, when a furious rainstorm drenched them, without, however, dampening the spirits of any of the men. Colonel Wood came up about midnight with orders that the march should be taken up at daybreak. They were to follow a hill trail to the left, while other troops took the valley trail to the right. At the junction of these two paths, a fight with the Spaniards was expected. The next day's march was of the most trying nature. The sun shone with tropic fervor, and the baggage became so exhaust- 106 THE FIGHT AT SIBONEY. IQ? ing that over a hundred men dropped down utterly overcome. Most of them flung away their blankets and packs, the burden of which became unbearable. The jungle was too dense to permit flankers to be thrown out, and the men marched in single file, the advance guard being under charge of Captain Capron. The forenoon was not half gone, when a halt was ordered, for word had come back from the advance that the Spanish outposts had been discovered. The troops were or- dered to cease talking and to see that their magazines were loaded. Colonel Roosevelt was directed to deploy with two troops to the right. Major Brody deployed to the left, under a brisk fire. In this first encounter with the enemy, the latter possessed a great advantage in their smokeless powder. Their guns were well aimed, but it was almost impossible to tell whence the shots came. Roosevelt says he felt that in such circumstances the one rule to follow is to push ahead and make sure you are going toward the guns. Finally, the hats of the Spaniards were de- tected on an elevation across the ravine, and he ordered his men to open upon them with volleys. They did so with such effect that the Spaniards retreated to their re- serves, but the Americans soon had them all 108 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. on the run. Just then a number of troops were discovered on the right flank across the ravine, and were recognized as United States regulars. A sergeant was sent to climb a tree and wave a guidon to prevent their firing on the volunteers. It was said, though it is not known whether such was the fact, that a number of shots had been fired through mistake at the Rough Riders, though, if so, no damage was done. Upon the establishment of the right wing, Roosevelt moved to the centre of the regi- ment. About this time, Major Brody was wounded and taken to the rear. Roosevelt was sent to the left wing, where With his three troops, he was out of touch for a time with the right wing. The Tenth Cavalry (colored) had dashed forward when the firing began, and they fought with the skill and cool courage learned in many a hot campaign against the Indians on the plains. They cared nothing for the suffocating climate that was so try- ing to the Anglo-Saxon. But for their help, it would have gone hard with the Rough Riders. At the beginning of the Siboney fight, Captain Capron was mortally wounded and Hamilton Fish instantly killed. It is said that in his last moments Fish shot two Spaniards with his revolver. Of Capron and THE FIGHT AT SIBONEY. 1Q9 Fish, Roosevelt says they were two as gallant men as ever wore a uniform. It was exas- perating to the Americans that while the smoke of their own guns invariably betrayed their position, the smokeless powder effect- ually hid the Mauser rifles of the enemy. Some of the cowboys gave vigorous expres- sick to their anger. " Don't curse," called out Colonel Wood, but " fight ! " The men laughed and obeyed. The final achievement of the Rough Riders was a headlong charge up the hill which scattered the Spaniards in a panic. Roosevelt led this charge and kept in advance all the way. When he was complimented on his bravery by a number of clergymen, he replied : " I had to run like the devil or my men would have run over me." In the ardor of the moment, he did more yelling than he ever did before in a whole day. Snatching up a rifle as he ran at head- long speed, he fired shot after shot at the blockhouse at the top of the hill, which was aflame with the belching Mausers, and was the destination of the charging Rough Riders. Here was a species of fighting which the Spaniards had never seen before. Invariably when they fired upon the Cubans, the latter fell back ; but no matter how galling the HO FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. volleys sent into the American ranks, they came on all the faster. The enemy had no wish to meet hand-to-hand such fighters, and scrambled pell-mell out of the block- houses, and made as good speed beyond as did the yelling Rough Riders coming up the hill. The enemy left seventeen dead bodies behind them. The Tenth and the First Cavalry com- pleted the rout on the right and in the front. When the panting fugitives reached the reserves, they explained their defeat by de- claring they had been fighting the whole American army. Our troops in this battle numbered about 1,500, and that of the enemy fully double, if not more. Sergeant Ousler, of the Regulars, who helped carry Hamilton Fish to the rear, gives the following graphic account of what he saw in the fight : " That story about Assistant Surgeon Church, the young Washington medico of the Rough Riders, who dressed a fallen man's wound away out ahead of the line amid a hail of Mauser bullets, has been published, I see, but the coolness of that young fellow wasn't even half described. While he was making an examination of his wounded comrade, paying no attention to the whistle of the bullets, a young private of the Rough Riders, who had been a college mate of Church at Princeton, yelled over THE FIGHT AT SIBONEY. HJ to him from a distance of about twenty feet he was in with half a dozen fellows doing sharpshooters' work from behind a cluster of bushes to ask how badly the patient was hurt. The young surgeon looked over his shoulder in the direction whence the private's voice proceeded, and he saw his former chum grinning in the bushes. " ' Why, you whelp ! ' said Church, with a comical grin on his face, 'how dare you be around here and not be killed ! ' "Then he went on fixing the wounded man, and he remained right there with him until the arrival of the litter that he had sent to the rear for. " In my cavalry outfit there was a fellow with whom I soldiered out West four or five years ago. He was a crack baseball pitcher, and he would rather play ball than eat any time. He got a Mauser ball plumb through the biceps of his right arm early in the engagement. I never saw a man so mad over a thing in my life. The wound pained him a good deal, but it wasn't the pain that hurt him so much. I met him at the rear after the scrap was over. He had tried to go on shooting with his carbine, but he couldn't make it go with his left hand and arm alone, and so he had to drop back. He was alternately rubbing his arm and scratch- ing his head when I came across him. 112 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. " ' Hurt much?' I asked him. " ' Hurt notning,' said he, scowling like a savage ; ' but did you ever hear of such luck as this, to get plugged right in my pitching arm ? Why didn't they get me in the neck or somewhere else, anyhow ? I'll never be able to pitch another game, for these muscles are going to contract when the hole heals up,' and he \vent on complaining because the Spaniards hadn't hit him ' in the neck or somewhere else.' "One of the fellows in the Rough Riders, an Oklahoma boy, got a ball clean through his campaign hat, which was whirled off his head and fell about five feet away from him. He picked up the hat, examined it carefully, and said : " ' I'll have to patch that up with sticking plaster, or I'll get my hair sunburnt.' The fun of it was, that his hair was about the reddest I ever saw. " Roosevelt was some place ahead of the line during the whole scrap, moving up and down with a word here and there to the company and troop commanders. One of the Rough Riders from New York rubber- necked after Roosevelt a good deal, and watched him narrowly, and then he turned to one of the men alongside of him and said: " 'And yet, by jing, a couple o' years ago THE FIGHT AT SIBONEY. H$ we people in New York didn't think Teddy knew enough to review a parade of cops ! ' " There wasn't a single case of the yel- lows during the entire fracas. There wasn't a man that tried to edge behind a fellow in front of him ; and it's a good thing the skir- mish was executed in extended order by direct command, for column formation wouldn't have done at all. The men would have made it extended order anyhow. They all wanted to be in front, the farther in front the better. We had to do a good deal of firing for general results, on account of the screen from the shelter of which the Span- iards fought ; but there were some very brave and chesty ones on the other side, who stood right out in the open and blazed away at men in our line that they picked out deliberately. These nervy Spaniards got plenty of credit from our men for their gameness, too. One of them, a young, small-looking fellow, stood on a little level plateau, within dead easy range, letting us have it as fast as he could load for fully five minutes before he went down. If he wasn't simply crazy with the excitement he surely was about as game as they make 'em. " He was noticed by about a dozen men near me, and one of them said : " ' That little fellow's too good, and I guess I'll just let him have one or two.' H4: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. " 'Ah, let him alone,' said another fellow; 'there's so few like him in that bunch on the other side, he ought to have a show.' "The nervy little Spaniard's work became altogether too accurate and vicious, how- ever, and he got a volley from about a dozen of our men, and he went down in a heap, and rolled down the hillside from his little rock-table like a log. "While there wasn't a single case of the yellows on our side, it would be idle to say that none of us was nervous. I was a heap nervous, for one, and I've been in the outfit a long while ; and I heard a lot of the roughies say, after the scrap was over, that they felt the same. One of them, an Illi- nois fellow that had simply to be pushed back two or three times, he was so eager to break out of the line all by himself and go 'em single-handed, was talking with one of his friends after the firing had ceased. " ' I never felt so wabbly in my life,' he said, ' and it was nothing but pure hysterics that kept me going. I had to keep saying to myself all the time, " steady, there, old fellow, and see to it that you don't welch," and then I made a jump forward and got out of the line.' " I have often read about men in action dodging bullets out of nervousness, but I never believed those stories until this fight. THE FIGHT AT SIBONEY. H5 Then I found out it was true. Men do dodge bullets. I caught myself doing it half a dozen times, and nearly all the other fellows did it. They didn't dodge all the time, but only when the Spaniards were en- gaging in volley-firing. When the sound of the volley reached them, although the vol- ley's bullets had long passed, they involun- tarily gave little ducks of the head, like a man does in a boxing-match. They didn't know they were doing it. I called the attention of one of my comrades, who fought alongside of me, to his imbecile action, and he turning to me said : " ' Why, I've been watching you do the same thing for the last fifteen minutes,' and he was right. 11 There's a mean kind of squat cactus growing around the woods down here, and the digs of the cactus-point fooled a lot of the men into believing they had been pinked in the legs. I saw one of the regulars, a corporal, sit down suddenly and rub his left leg down near his foot. " ' Been nipped ? ' asked one. " ' Yes, in the ankle,' was the reply. " Then he pulled up his trouser leg, ow- ered his sock, and saw nothing but a little abrasion of the skin, from which the blood was trickling. He had struck his ankle against a cactus-point, He got up sud- 116 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. denly, looked at the cactus for a second, and then trampled it into the ground. " ' I won't get fooled that way again/ he said. He got a ball in his left shoulder later on. CHAPTER IX. SAN JUAN HILL. GENERAL S. B. M. YOUNG, now retired Lieutenant-General, one of the finest officers in the service, and commanding a brigade of General Wheeler's corps, became so seri- ously ill, that he was obliged to withdraw. He was succeeded by Colonel Leonard Wood, and on the 8th of July, Roosevelt be- came Colonel of the Rough Riders. " I was very much pleased at that," he said ; " I shouldn't have wanted the command until I had had a little experience, but having been through that skirmish, I felt I could handle the regiment." Word was received on the 3oth of June that the advance was to be begun against Santiago the next morning. This city is six miles from the sea, is inclosed by high mountains, and lies between the first and second ridges. On the crest of a hill south- east of Santiago is San Juan ; three miles northeast is El Caney. The defences of Santiago were so formidable, that General Shafter believed it best to resort to regular 117 118 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. siege operations, but yielded to the argu- ments for a joint assault on Aguadores, and a military attack alone on El Caney and San Juan hill. The latter is east of the elevation on which the little town of San Juan stands. General Lawton (afterward killed in the Philippines), moved north with his troops to attack El Caney. General Wheeler (who died in January, 1906) was ill. The cavalry under Sumner led the center of the line up the valley below San Juan. Duffield re- mained at the seashore to join the fleet and the Michigan volunteers in the attack on the town of Aguadores. The reserve con- sisted of the Rough Riders, the Seventy-first New York and Colonel Wheeler's Massa- chusetts volunteers. At the earliest streakings of light, on the morning of July i, General Lawton was on the El Caney road, General Duffield at the railway near the summit, and General Wheeler, though still suffering from illness, rode up the valley in an ambulance, and planted Grimes' battery of four pieces within half a mile of the Santiago forts. Major Capron (father of Captain Capron killed at Siboney), took position with his battery within little more than a mile of El Caney. At six o'clock he fired the first gun and opened the battle. Shot after shot was discharged without bringing any reply. Believing the SAN JUAN HILL. 119 enemy were retreating, a thousand Cubans, under Garcia and Castillo, marched hur- riedly along the road from El Poso to El Caney to head them off. They did so after a brisk fight, and the Spaniards returned to El Caney. Not until Major Capron had fired twenty rounds, did he receive any answer. The enemy so improved in markmanship that during the duel, which lasted an hour, they wounded a number of Cuban and American soldiers. Meanwhile, Grimes' battery was hammering away from the hill behind San Juan. It succeeded in silencing the enemy's battery. Then the Tenth and First Regi- ments and the Rough Riders were ordered to make a detour and capture the hill. Al- though the Spaniards were not in sight, they were known to be there in great numbers. Moving through the ravine, the Rough Riders were met by a withering fire from the blockhouse, while the sharpshooters, in- visible because of their smokeless powder, and green-colored suits, kept up such an un- remitting fusillade that many a brave soldier was brought down. In this advance, Roose- velt was at the head of his men, the colored Tenth Cavalry keeping range alongside. The fire quickly became so deadly that the Rough Riders were compelled to dodge behind trees, to escape the storm of bullets. This 120 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. screen had soon to be left behind, and when the men reached the open hillside, they were without any protection whatever. It looked as if the entire command would be annihi- lated. The air was full of whistling bullets and shrieking shells, but there was no falter- ing on the part of a single man. In the midst of the fearful tempest, Roosevelt shouted in a voice that rose above the din, " Forward, charge ! " He was waving his sword above his head, and galloping across the open space up the hill, where it seemed that a man could not live for a dozen seconds. Next to him dashed the colored troops, in- spired by his intrepid example. Again the Spaniards were astounded. They had never seen anything like it. They came out from their shelter in order to take more effective aim. The colored men, who displayed wonderful markmanship, picked them off with amazing skill and rapidity, but when one man went down, several appeared to leap up in his place. While shouting and waving his sword, Roosevelt felt his horse lunging ,and knew he had been mortally struck. Down he went, but his rider landed on his feet, and on foot continued running up the hill, with the colored men at his heels, and toppling over the Spaniards like so many ten pins. The summit was reached at last. Even then the Spaniards in the SAN JUAN HILL. 121 trenches could have killed every man, but they were terrified by the resistless daring of the Americans, and skurried off like a frightened covey, the colored men dropping them as they ran. Thus the blockhouse was captured and San Juan won, but the cost was dear. One- half the Rough Riders had been killed or wounded, and the place was still dangerous because of the sharpshooters. It is appro- priate in this place to quote the words of Colonel Roosevelt, in describing what was certainly one of the most gallant achieve- ments of the whole war : " My regiment went first, the Second Brig- ade following the First Brigade along the road to join on General Lawton's left. That was the order we received. General Lawton was attacking El Caney. We marched out behind the First Brigade until we came to the San Juan River, which we forded, and then turned to the right. I got my regiment across just as the captive balloon was coming along down to the ford. There was a good deal of firing going on, and I knew when that balloon got down there would be hot work at the ford, so I hurried my men along as quickly as I could, and my regiment marched at the head of the Second Brigade to the right alongside San Juan River, with the First Cavalry Brigade to our left, between 122 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. us and the blockhouses and intrenchments on the hills, and the firing got heavier and heavier, and we finally received word to halt and await orders. " There was a kind of sunken lane going up from the river where we halted, and I made the men all lie down and get under cover as much as they could, and we lay there for, I should judge, certainly an hour. Finally we got the welcome order to advance. I received instructions to move forward and support the regular cavalry in the assault on the hills in front, and we moved forward, and then we took Kettle Hill, as we called it. I never heard the term San Juan Hill until two or three days later. After we went up Kettle Hill, Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Carroll were both shot, and that left me in command on the hill until General Sumner got there. I got my men together and got them volley firing across at the San Juan blockhouse on the hill which the infantry of Kent and Hawkins were attacking. We kept up firing for some time, and I recollect we heard Parker's Catlings begin shooting on the left and our men cheered them, and we kept up our fire until the infantry got so near the top of the hill that I was afraid of hitting them, and in another minute we saw the infantry swarm over the intrenchments and the Spaniards run out; and then we SAN JUAN HILL. 123 charged from Kettle Hill across at the next line of hills which was in the rear where there were Spanish trenches and another block- house. General Sumner was on Kettle Hill before this ; he had been riding along the lines of the cavalry seeing that they went forward. He had command of the cavalry division at that time. Then we took the next line of intrenchments. The Spaniards were still firing at us, and we formed and went to the left, and got on the crest of the chain of hills overlooking Santiago. By that time I was the highest officer in com- mand on the extreme front, and I had six regiments under me. Major Wessels had been wounded, and Captains Morton and Boughton came up and reported to me, and Captains Stevens and McNamee of the Ninth reported to me. I received orders, then, from Captain Howze, of General Sumner's staff, not to advance but to hold that hill at at all hazards. Captain Howze was always at the front when he could be. We held the hill until nightfall, when we received orders to intrench. " We had captured in the blockhouse the Spanish officers' mess, and an extremely good officers' mess it was, better than any- thing we had had ; a big kettle of beef, a kettle of rice, and peas, and a big demijohn of rum, and a lot of rice flour loaves, and so 124 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. I fed those out to my men ; and we also got a lot of Spanish intrenching tools, and we threw up some very aboriginal intrench- ments. So that night we had a mild feast on the Spaniards' food. "We intrenched there. As I have seen talk about a retreat being considered from that hill, it is only justice to say that the officers on the extreme front of that line, at least on my part of the line, never dreamed of the Spaniards driving us ; they were all perfectly horrified at the idea of retreating. Captains Morton and Boughton came over to me in the afternoon to say that someone had spoken of retreating, and to beg me to protest. I had not heard of it, and did not believe it was true. I knew we could hold that line against anything that could come up in the front." The next day and night the regiment was under fire all day, and about nine o'clock at night there was heavy volley firing, and numbers of Spanish skirmishers came out ; but though they used smokeless powder, so that in the daytime no smoke was seen, yet at night little spurts of flame, helped to be- tray their whereabouts. " I saw, for instance, the guns on our left open fire, and in a half-minute after the first shot there would be this thick cloud of smoke hanging, and apparently every Spanish SAN JUAN HILL. 125 gun and every Spanish rifle within a radius of a mile of us would be all turned on that one point, and the gun would be driven out ; so that our men I mean the dismounted cavalry would say, ' There go the artillery ; they will be driven out.' And they were. They were placed back in the rear on the following day, but they were driven oft the firing line where the infantry were. On the other hand, the Catlings, which were man- aged by Captain Parker, were fought on the extreme front of the skirmish line ; he fought his Catlings right up on the extreme front, just as far as anybody could go. He did magnificently. He was on the right of our regiment. We had our two Colts, and he came and helped us put our two Colts in position. We didn't think we had put our works out quite far enough, and we zig- zagged an approach and made a kind of bastion some two hundred yards out on the hill, so that we could fire right into the Spanish works. He helped us dig the ap- proach, and helped us get our Colt automatic guns fixed just right. He not only fought his own guns, but he rendered us every assistance. If he had not had smokeless powder, we would not have allowed him in the trenches unless he could have stayed there in spite of us. I would say that some of the Seventy-first New York came up in 126 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the trenches right by some of the cavalry of the First Brigade, and the cavalrymen ordered them out, saying that they would not have them in the trenches ; they would rather fight without support than with the black powder, insuring their being the one point at which the enemy were firing." CHAPTER A. OFFICIAL REPORTS. No just man can withhold praise of the bravery displayed by the Rough Riders and their dauntless leaders. Too many proofs of these qualities were given in the hot flame of battle for anyone to dispute them. There have been a few who sneered at these heroes of San Juan Hill, but they are not among those who took part in that des- perate fight. The Rough Riders formed only a part of the victorious force, but their comrades of other commands give full credit to the cowboys and " dudes," for what they did on that memorable day. We have spoken more fully of the Rough Riders, because Colonel Theodore Roose- velt was their leader, and we are writing a biography of him. Were we giving a full history of the Spanish American war, or of our military operations in Cuba, we should have a good deal to say about other leaders and other troops. To avoid all possibility of misunderstanding, we must emphasize the truth that the Rough Riders were no braver 127 128 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. than the regulars and the other volunteers, nor could any of the white soldiers surpass in that respect the colored cavalry, every man of whom proved himself a hero. But for their aid at critical moments, it is not improbable that the Rough Riders would have been wiped off the earth. The just course is to give full praise to all the officers and troops without distinction, though it cannot be denied that some of the officers of one of the white regiments have been persistently accused of shirking in the mo- ment of trial. From colonial days down to the present, the American soldier has proved his unflinching heroism on the battlefield and on the ocean, and, when we read of some specially daring charge, or of some thrilling achievement, our hearts glow with pride, but we add : " It is no more than we expected, for they are Americans." The historian looking for cold, unques- tioned facts, does not seek them in the ardent stories of participants, whose chances for observation are always limited, but rather in the careful official statements of the officers, whose business it is to sift out the facts and give them to the authorities. Let us, therefore, turn to the reports of Colonel Roosevelt, written with the sole purpose of telling " the truth, the whole truth and noth- ing but the truth." OFFICIAL REPORTS. 129 TRENCHES OUTSIDE SANTIAGO, July 4, 1898. " Col. LEONARD WOOD, " Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade. " SIR : On luly i the regiment, with my- self in command, was moved out by your orders directly following the First Brigade. Before leaving the camping ground several of our men were wounded by shrapnel. After crossing the river at the ford we were moved along and up its right bank under fire and were held in reserve at a sunken road. Here we lost a good many men, including Captain O'Neil, killed, and Lieutenant Has- kell, wounded. We then received your order to advance and support the regular cavalry in the attack on the intrenchments and blockhouses on the hills to the left. The regiment was deployed on both sides of the road, and moved forward until we came to the rearmost lines of the regulars. We continued to move forward until I ordered a charge, and the men rushed the blockhouse and rifle pits on the hill to the right of our advance. They did the work in fine shape, though suffering severely. The guidons of Troops E and G were first planted on the summit, though the first men up were some A and B troopers, who were with me. "We then opened fire on the intrench- ments on a hill to our left which some of 9 130 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the other regiments were assailing and which they carried a few minutes later. Mean- while we were under a heavy rifle fire from the intrenchments along the hills to our front, from whence they also shelled us with a piece of field artillery until some of our marksmen silenced it. When the men got their wind we charged again and carried the second line of entrenchments with a rush. Swinging to the left, we then drove the Spaniards over the brow of the chain of hills fronting Santiago. By this time the regi- ments were much mixed, and we were under a very heavy fire, both of shrapnel and from rifles from the batteries, intrenchments, and forts immediately in front of the city. On the extreme front I now found myself in command with fragments of the six cavalry regiments of the two brigades under me. The Spaniards made one or two efforts to retake the line, but were promptly driven back. " Both General Sumner and you sent me word to hold the line at all hazards, and that night we dug a line of intrenchments across our front, using the captured Spaniards' in- trenching tools. We had nothing to eat except what we captured from the Spaz>- iards ; but their dinners had fortunately been cooked, and we ate them with relish, having been fighting all day. We had no blankets OFFICIAL REPORTS. 131 and coats, and lay by the trenches all night. The Spaniards attacked us once in the night, and at dawn they opposed a heavy artillery and rifle fire. Very great assistance was rendered us by Lieutenant Parker's Catling battery at critical moments ; he fought his guns at the extreme front of the firing line in a way that repeatedly called forth the cheers of my men. One of the Spanish batteries which was used against us was directly in front of the hospital so that the Red Cross flag flew over the battery, saving it from our fire for a considerable period. The Spanish Mauser bullets made clean wounds ; but they also used a copper- jacketed or brass-jacketed bullet which exploded, making very bad wounds in- deed. " Since then we have continued to hold the ground ; the food has been short ; and until to-day we could not get our blankets, coats, or shelter tents, while the men lay all day under the fire from the Spanish batteries, intrenchments, and guerrillas in trees, and worked all night in the trenches, never even taking off their shoes. But they are in ex- cellent spirits, and ready and anxious to carry out any orders they receive. At the end of the first day the eight troops were commanded, two by captains, three by first lieutenants, two by second lieutenants, and 132 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. one by the sergeant whom you made acting lieutenant. " We went into the fight about 490 strong, 86 were killed or wounded, and there are about half a dozen missing. The great heat prostrated nearly 40 men, some of them among the best in the regiment. Besides Captain O'Neil and Lieutenant Haskell, Lieutenants Leahy, Devereux, and Carr were wounded. All behaved with great gallantry. As for Captain O'Neil, his loss is one of the severest that could have befallen the regi- ment. He was a man of cool head, great executive capacity, and literally dauntless courage. " The guerrillas in trees not only fired at our troops, but seemed to devote themselves especially to shooting at the surgeons, the hospital assistants with Red Cross bandages on their arms, the wounded who were being carried in litters, and the burying parties. Many of the guerrillas were dressed in green uniforms. We sent out a detail of sharp- shooters among those in our rear, along the line where they had been shooting the wounded, and killed thirteen. " To attempt to give a list of the men who showed signal valor would necessitate send- ing in an almost complete roster of the regi- ment. Many of the cases which I mention stand merely as examples, pf the rest, not as, OFFICIAL REPORTS. 133 exceptions. Captain Jenkins acted as major, and showed such conspicuous gallantry and efficiency that I earnestly hope he may be promoted to major as soon as a vacancy oc- curs. Captains Lewellen, Muller, and Luna led their troops throughout the charges, handling them admirably. At the end of the battle Lieutenants Kane, Greenwood, and Goodrich were in charge of their troops, immediately under my eye, and I wish par- ticularly to commend their conduct through- out. Lieutenant Franz, who commanded his troop, also did well. " Corporals Waller and Fortesque and Trooper McKinley, of Troop E; Corporal Rhoads, of troop D ; Troopers Allerton, Winter, MacGregor, and Ray Clark, of Troop F ; Troopers Bugbee, Jackson, and Waller, of Troop A ; Trumpeter Macdonald, of Troop L ; Sergeant Hughes, of Troop B, and Trooper Geiven, of Troop G, all continued to fight after being wounded, some very severely. Most of them fought until the end of the day. " Trooper Oliver B. Norton, of B, with his brother, was by my side throughout the charging, was killed while fighting with marked gallantry. Sergeant Ferguson, Cor- poral Lee, and Troopers Bell and Carrol, of Troop K ; Sergeant Daine, of Troop E ; Troopers Goodwin, Campbell, and Dudley 134: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Dean, and Trumpeter Foster, of B, and Troopers Greenwald and Bardelas, of A, are all worthy of special mention for coolness and gallantry. They merit promotion when the opportunity comes. But the most con- spicuous gallantry was shown by Trooper Rowland. He was wounded in the side in our first fight, but kept in the firing line. He was sent to the hospital next day, but left it and marched out to us, overtaking us, and fought all through this battle with such indifference to danger that I was forced again and again to rate and threaten him for running needless risk. " Great gallantry was also shown by four troopers whom I cannot identify, and by Trooper Winslow Clark, of G. It was after we had taken the first hill I had called out to rush the second, and, having by that time lost my horse, climbed a wire fence and started toward it. After going a couple of hundred yards, under a heavy fire, I found that no one else had come ; as I discovered later, it was simply because in the confusion, with men shooting and being shot, they had not noticed me start. I told the five men to wait a moment, as it might be misunder- stood if we all ran back, while I ran back and started the regiment ; and as soon as I did so the regiment came with a rush. But meanwhile the five men coolly lay down in OFFICIAL REPORTS. 135 the open, returning the fire from the trenches. It is to be wondered at that only Clark was seriously wounded, and he called out, as we parted again, to lay his canteen where he could reach it, but to continue the charge and leave him where he was. All the wounded had to be left until after the fight, for we could spare no men from the firing line. Very respectfully, "THEODORE ROOSEVELT. " Lieutenant-Colonel, First United States Volunteer Cavalry." "CAMP HAMILTON, NEAR SANTIAGO DE CUBA, July 20, 1898. " Brig.-Gen. LEONARD WOOD, " Commanding Second Brigade Cavalry Division. " SIR : In obedience to your directions, I herewith report on the operations of my regiment from the ist to the iyth instant, inclusive. " As I have already made you two reports about the first day's operations, I shall pass them over rather briefly. On the morning of the ist my regiment was formed at the head of the Second Brigade, by the El Poso sugar mill. .When the batteries opened, the Spaniards replied to us with shrapnel, which killed and wounded several of the men of 136 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. my regiment. We then marched toward the right, and my regiment crossed the ford before the balloon came down there and attracted the fire of the enemy, so that at that point we lost no one. My orders had been to march forward until I joined General Lawton's left wing, but after going about three-quarters of a mile I was halted and told to remain in reserve near the creek by a deep lane. The bullets dropped thick among us for the next hour while we lay there, and many of my men were killed or wounded. Among the former was Captain O'Neil, whose loss was a very heavy blow to the regiment, for he was a singularly gal- lant and efficient officer. Acting Lieutenant Haskell was also shot at this time. He showed the utmost courage, and had been of great use during the fighting and march- ing. It seems to me some action should be taken about him. "You then sent me word to move for- ward in support of the regular cavalry, and I advanced the regiment in columns of com- panies, each company deployed as skirmish- ers. We moved through several skirmish lines of the regiment ahead of us, as it seemed to me that our only chance was in rushing the intrenchments in front instead of firing at them from a distance. Accord- ingly we charged the blockhouse and in- OFFICIAL REPORTS. 137 trenchments on the hill to our right against a heavy fire. It was taken in good style, the men of my regiment thus being the first to capture any fortified position and to break through the Spanish lines. The guidons of G and E troops were first at this point, but some of the men of A and B troops who were with me personally got in ahead of them. At the last wire fence up this hill I was obliged to abandon my horse, and after that went on foot. After capturing this hill we first of all directed a heavy fire upon the San Juan hill to our left, which was at the time being assailed by the regular infantry and cavalry, supported by Captain Parker's Catling guns. By the time San Juan was taken a large force had assembled on the hill we had previously captured, consisting not only of my own regiment but of the Ninth and of portions of other cavalry regiments. We then charged forward under a heavy fire across the valley against the Spanish in- trenchments on the hill in the rear of San Juan hill. This we also took, capturing sev- eral prisoners. We then formed in what order we could and moved forward, driving the Spaniards before us to the crest of the hills in our front, which were immediately opposite the city of Santiago itself. Here I received orders to halt and hold the line of the hill crest. I had at that time fragments 138 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. of the six cavalry regiments and an occa- sional infantryman under me three or four hundred men all told. As I was the highest there, I took command of all of them, and so continued until next morning. " The Spanish attempted a counter attack that afternoon, but were easily driven back, and then and until dark we remained under a heavy fire from their rifles and great guns, lying flat on our faces on the gentle slope just behind the crest. Captain Par- ker's Catling Battery was run up to the right of my regiment, and did most excellent and gallant service. In order to charge, the men had, of course, been obliged to throw away their packs, and we had nothing to sleep in and nothing to eat. We were lucky enough, however, to find in the last blockhouse captured, the Spanish dinner still cooking, which we ate with relish. It consisted chiefly of rice and peas, with a big pot containing a stew of fresh meat, probably for the officers. We also dis- tributed the captured Spanish blankets as far as they would go among our men, and gathered a good deal of the Mauser ammu- nition for use in the Colt's rapid-fire guns which were being brought up. That night we dug intrenchments across our front. At three o'clock in the morning the Spaniards made another attack upon us, which was OFFICIAL REPORTS. 139 easily repelled, and at four they opened the day with a heavy rifle and shrapnel fire. All day long we lay under this, replying when- ever we got the chance. In the evening, at about eight o'clock, the Spaniards fired their guns, and then a heavy rifle fire, their skirmishers coming well forward. I got all my men down into the trenches, as did the other commands near me, and we opened a heavy return fire. The Spanish advance was at once stopped, and after an hour their fire died away. This night we completed most of our trenches, and began to build bombproofs. The protection afforded to our men was good, and next morning had but one man wounded from the rifle and shell fire until twelve o'clock, when the truce came. "I do not mention the officers and men who particularly distinguished themselves, as I have nothing to add in this respect to what was contained in my two former let- ters. There were numerous Red Cross flags flying in various parts of the city, two of them so arranged that they directly covered batteries in our front, and for some time were the cause of our not firing at them. The Spanish guerrillas were very active, especially in our rear, where they seemed by preference to attack the wounded men who were being carried on litters, the doc- 140 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. tors and medical attendants with Red Cross bandages on their arms, and the burial parties. I organized a detail of sharpshoot- ers and sent them out after the guerrillas, of whom they killed thirteen. Two of the men thus killed were shot several hours after the truce had been in operation, because, in spite of this fact, they kept firing upon our men as they went to draw water. They were stationed in trees (as guerrillas were generally), and owing to the density of the foliage and to the use of smokeless-powder rifles, it was an exceedingly difficult matter to locate them. For the next seven days, until the loth, we lay in our lines, while the truce continued. We had continually to work at additional bombproofs and at the trenches, and as we had no proper supply of food and utterly inadequate medical facil- ities, the men suffered a good deal. The officers clubbed together to purchase beans, tomatoes, and sugar for the men, so that they might have some relief from the bacon and hard-tack. With a great deal of diffi- culty we got them coffee. " As for the sick and wounded, they suf- fered so in the hospitals when sent to the rear from lack of food and attention that we found it best to keep them at the front and give them such care as our own doctors could. As I mentioned in my previous letter OFFICIAL REPORTS. Hi thirteen of our wounded men continued to fight through the battle in spite of their wounds, and of those sent to the rear many, both of the sick and wounded, came up to rejoin us as soon as their condition allowed them to walk. Most of the worst cases were ultimately sent to the States. On the tenth the truce was at an end, and the bombardment reopened. As far as our lines were concerned, it was on the Spanish part very feeble. We suffered no losses, and speedily got the fire from their trenches in our front completely under. On the nth we were moved three-quarters of a mile to the right, the truce again being on. Noth- ing happened here except we continued to watch and do our best to get the men, espe- cially the sick, properly fed ; and having no transportation and being unable to get hardly any through the regular channels, we used anything we could find captured Spanish cavalry horses, abandoned mules, which had been shot, but which our men took and cured, diminutive skinny ponies purchased from the Cubans, etc. By these means and by the exertions of the officers we were able from time to time to get sup- plies of beans, sugar, tomatoes, and even oatmeal, while from the Red Cross people we got one invaluable load of rice, corn meal ? etc. All of this was of the utmost 142 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. consequence, not only for the sick nor- mically well, as the lack of proper food was telling terribly on the men. It was utterly impossible to get them clothes and shoes ; those they had were, in many cases, literally dropping to pieces. " On the 1 7th the city surrendered. On the 1 8th we shifted camp to here, the best camp we have had ; but the march hither under the noonday sun told very heavily on our men, weakened by underfeeding and overwork, and next morning one hundred and twenty-three cases were reported to the doctors, and I now have but half the six hundred men with which I landed four weeks ago, fit for duty, and these are not fit to do an}'thing like the work they could do then. As we had but one wagon, the change necessitated leaving much of the stuff behind, with a night of discomfort, with scanty shelter and scanty food, for most of the officers and many of the men. Only the possession of the improvised pack train alluded to above saved this from being worse. Yesterday I sent in a detail of six officers and men to see if they could not purchase or make arrangements for a supply of proper food and proper clothing for the men, even if we had to pay for it out of our own pockets. Our suffering has been due primarily to lack of transportation, and of OFFICIAL REPORTS. 143 proper food, and sufficient clothing, and of medical supplies. We should now have wagon sheets for tentage. " Very respectfully, " THEODORE ROOSEVELT." CHAPTER XI. THE ROUND ROBIN. THE surrender of the city and province of Santiago took place on July 17, but the island was not yet conquered. The end was nearer, however, than was generally sup- posed. The Spanish fleets had been de- stroyed and it was known that Porto Rico would be taken without serious difficulty. Havana, the capital of Cuba, was strongly fortified and undoubtedly would prove a hard nut to crack. The plan, therefore, was that our military forces, not needed else- where, should remain on the island until the capital was taken. This scheme involved a peril more appall- ing than that of war, a peril that no human bravery could overcome. It is useless to deny that the grossest mismanagement marked about every phase of our war with Spain, except the single one of fighting, where the heroism of men and officers over- came every obstacle. The transportation of troops, the provisions and medical supplies, THE ROUND ROBIN. 145 the care of the sick and wounded, the camp equipments, everything, in fact, was as bad as it could be. Japan in the late war with Russia gave the world a needed lesson, one that was never given before by any nation. She reduced the deaths from disease to hardly one per cent, of those slain in battle. During our Civil War, the death rate in the hospitals was vastly greater than in the field. It has been the same always with us, with England, with France, and other leading Powers, and it was the same in Cuba. That rich, fertile land is the home and breeding- place of yellow fever, one of the most dreaded scourges of humanity. With the approach of summer, it was certain to de- velop among our troops and do ten times more damage than the Spanish guns could inflict. The plan was to defer active opera- tions until the coming of cool weather, when nothing was to be feared from yellow fever. Meanwhile, what was to be done with the troops already in Cuba ? The government thought that by sending them into camps in the interior, the danger from yellow fever would be escaped, but those on the ground knew better. Hundreds of men were already suffering from malaria, and several cases of sporadic yellow fever had appeared. With the best sanitary regulations that could be 10 146 FROM THE EANCIi TO THE WHITE HOUSE. provided, and the best would be poor the destructive disease would pursue them, so long as they remained anywhere on the island. Therefore, there was but one thing to do withdraw from Cuba until the danger- ous season had passed, and the troops, rugged, healthy and ardent for the work, would return in the autumn. Colonel Roosevelt thus refers to the grave peril and the steps taken to avert it : " Santiago de Cuba, August 4, 1898. Summoned by Major General Shafter, a meeting was held here this morning at head- quarters, and in the presence of every com- manding and medical officer of the Fifth Corps, General Shafter read a cable message from Secretary Alger, ordering him, at the recommendation of Surgeon General Stern- berg, to move the army into the interior of San Luis, where it is supposed to be more healthful. "As a result of the conference, General Shafter will insist upon the immediate with- drawal of the army north, or within two weeks. As an explanation of the situation, the following letter from Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, commanding the First Volunteer Cavalry, to General Shafter, was handed by the latter to the correspondent of the Asso- ciated Press for publication ; THE ROUND ROBIN. 14.7 " ' Major General Shafter, Sir : In a meet- ing of the general and medical officers called by you at the Palace this morning, we were all, as you know, unanimous as to what should be done with the army. To keep us here, in the opinion of every officer com- manding a division or brigade, will simply involve the destruction of thousands. There is no possible reason for not shipping prac- tically the entire command North at once. Yellow fever cases are very few in the cavalry division where I command one of the two brigades, and not one true case of yellow fever has occurred in this division, except among the men sent to the hospital at Si- boney, where they have, I believe, contracted it. But in this division there have been fif- teen hundred cases of malarial fever. Not a man has died from it, but the whole com- mand has been so weakened and shattered as to be ripe for dying like rotten sheep, when a real yellow fever epidemic, instead of a fake epidemic like the present, strikes us, as it is bound to if we stay. here at the height of the sickness season, August, and the beginning of September. Quarantine against malarial fever is like quarantine against the toothache, all of us are certain, as soon as the authorities fully appreciate the conditions of the army, they will order us to be sent home, 248 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. " ' If we are kept here, it will in all human possibility mean an appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate that over half the army, if kept here during the sickly season, will die. This is not only terrible from the stand- point of the individual lives lost, but it means ruin from the standpoint of the military effi- ciency of the flower of the American Army, for the great bulk of the regulars are here with you. The sick list, large although it is, exceeding four thousand, affords but a faint index of the debilities of the army. Not ten per cent are fit for active work. " ' Six weeks on the North Maine coast, for instance, or elsewhere, where the yellow fever germ can not possibly propagate, would make us all as fit as fighting cocks, able as we are, and eager to take a leading part in the great campaign against Havana in the Fall, even if we are not allowed to try Puerto Rico. " ' We can be moved North, if moved at once, with absolute safety to the country, although, of course, it would have been in- finitely better if we had been moved North or to Puerto Rico two weeks ago. If there were any object in keeping us here, we would face yellow fever with as much indif- ference as we face bullets. But there is no object in it. The fever immune regiments ordered here are sufficient to garrison thQ THE ROUND ROBIN. 149 city and surrounding towns, and there is ab- solutely nothing for us to do here, and there has not been since the city surrendered. It is impossible to move into the interior. Every shifting of camp doubles the sick rate in our present weakened condition, and, any- how, the interior is rather worse than the coast, as I have found by actual reconnois- sance. Our present camps are as healthy as any camps at this end of the island can be. " ' I write only because I can not see our men, who have fought so bravely and who have endured extreme hardship and danger so uncomplainingly, go to destruction with- out striving, so far as lies in me, to avert a doom as fearful as it is unnecessary and un- deserved. 11 ' Yours respectfully, '"THEODORE ROOSEVELT, " ' Colonel Commanding First Brigade." All the general officers united in the fol- lowing communication to General Shafter : " We, the undersigned officers, command- ing the various brigades, divisions, etc., of the army of occupation in Cuba, are of the unanimous opinion that this army should be at once taken out of the Island of Cuba, and 150 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. sent to some point on the seacoast of the United States ; that it can be done without danger to the people of the United States ; that yellow fever in the army is not now epidemic ; that there are only a few sporadic cases ; but that the army is disabled by malarial fever to the extent that its efficiency is destroyed, and that it is in a condition to be practically entirely destroyed by an epi- demic of yellow fever which is sure to come in the near future. " We know from the reports of competent officers and from personal observations, that the army is unable to move into the in- terior, and that there are no facilities for such a move if attempted, and that it could not be attempted until too late. Moreover, the best authorities of the island say that with our present equipment we could not live in the interior during the rainy season without losses from malarial fever, which is almost as deadly as yellow fever. " 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 un- necessary loss of many thousands of lives. Our opinions are the result of careful per- sonal observation and they are also based on the unanimous opinion of our medical THE ROUND ROBIN. 151 officers with the army, who understand the situation absolutely. "J. FORD KENT, " Major General Volunteers, Commanding First Division 5th Corps. " J. C. BATES, "Major General Volunteers, Commanding Provisional Division. "ADNA R. CHAFFEE, " Major General, Commanding Third Brigade, Second Division. " SAMUEL S. SUMNER, " Brigadier General Volunteers, Commanding First Brigade Cavalry. "ADELBERT AMES, " Brigadier General Volunteers, Commanding Third Brigade, 2nd Division. " LEONARD WOOD, " Brigadier General Volunteers, Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade. "THEODORE ROOSEVELT, " Colonel Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade." This was the famous Round Robin, which attracted so much attention throughout the country. (The term originated in France and comes from the words rond, round, and ruban, ribbon). President McKinley 152 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. first learned of it through the newspapers. He was annoyed, while Secretary of War Alger became indignant. The paper was published August 4. The Secretary cabled a sharp reproof to General Shafter, for giv- ing out the document without permission from the War Department. General Shafter replied saying that the paper was furnished the press before it reached him. Alger made every effort to learn who was re- sponsible for the publication, but failed. On the same date, the Secretary of War ordered General Shafter's troops relieved from further duty in Santiago as fast as transportation could be provided, and the transfer of Spanish prisoners would admit of reduction of the garrison. Montauk Point was selected as the place where the troops would rest and prepare for the campaign against Havana later in the season. Referring to the Round Robin, General Alger said that its mischievous and wicked effects could not be exaggerated. " It afflicted the country with a plague of anguish and apprehension. There are martyrs in all wars, but the most piteous of these are the silent, helpless, heartbroken ones who stay at home to weep and pray and wait the mother, the sister, wife and sweetheart. To their natural suspense and suffering these publications added the pangs of imaginary THE ROUND ROBIN. 153 terrors. They had endured, through sympa- thy, the battle-field, the wasting hardships of the camp, the campaign in the tropics, the fever-stricken trench. They might at least have been spared this wanton torture, this impalpable and formless yet overwhelm- ing blow." There could be no mistaking the opinion of Colonel Roosevelt, as he has given it in his history of the Rough Riders : "We should have probably spent the summer in our sick camps, losing half the men and hopelessly shattering the health of the remainder, if General Shafter had not summoned a council of officers, hoping by united action of a more or less public charac- ter, to wake up the Washington authorities to the actual condition of things. As all the Spanish forces in the province of Santiago had surrendered, and as so-called immune regi- ments were coming to garrison the conquered territory, there was literally not one thing of any kind whatsoever for the army to do, and no purpose to serve by keeping it at Santiago. We did not suppose that peace was at hand, being ignorant of the negotia- tions. We were anxious to take part in the Porto Rico campaign, and would have been more than willing to suffer any amount of sickness, if by so doing we could get into action. But if we were not to take part in 154 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the Porto Rico campaign, then we knew it was absolutely indispensable to get our com- mands north immediately, if they were to be in trim for the great campaign against Havana, which would surely be the main event of the winter if peace were not declared in advance. " Our army included the great majority of the Regulars, and was, therefore, the flower of the American force. It was on every account imperative to keep it in good trim ; and to keep it in Santiago meant its entirely purposeless destruction. As soon as the surrender was an accomplished fact, the tak- ing away of the army to the north should have begun. " Every officer, from the highest to the lowest, especially among the regulars, re- alized all of this, and about the last day of July, General Shatter called a conference, in the Palace, of all the division and brigade commanders. By this time, owing to Wood's having been made Governor-Gen- eral, I was in command of my brigade ; so I went to the conference too, riding in with Generals Summer and Wheeler, who were the other representatives of the cavalry division. Besides the line officers, all the chief medical officers were present at the conference. The telegrams from the Secre- tary stating the position of himself and the Surgeon-General were read, and then almost THE ROUND EOBIN. 155 every line and medical officer present ex- pressed his views in turn. They were almost all Regulars and had been brought up to life-long habits of obedience without protest. They were ready to obey still, but they felt, quite rightly, that it was their duty to protest rather than to see the flower of the United States forces destroyed as the culminating act of a campaign in which the blunders that had been committed had been retrieved only by the valor and splendid soldierly qualities of the officers and enlisted men of the infantry and dismounted cavalry. There was not a dissenting voice, for there could not be. There was but one side to the question. To talk of continually shift- ing camp or of moving up the mountains into the interior was idle, for not one of the plans could be carried out with our utterly insufficient transportation, and at that season and in that climate they would merely have resulted in aggravating the sickliness of the soldiers. It was deemed best to make some record of our opinion, in the shape of a letter or report, which would show that to keep the army in Santiago meant its absolute and objectless ruin, and that it should at once be recalled. At first, there was naturally some hesitation on the part of the Regular officers to take the initiative, for their entire future career might be sacrificed. So I wrote a 156 FROM THE RANCH TO TUB WH/TE HOUSE, letter to General Shatter, reading over the rough draft to the various Generals and adopting their corrections. Before I had finished making these corrections, it was determined that we should send a circular on behalf of all of us to General Shatter, and when I returned from presenting him mine, I found this circular letter already prepared and we all of us signed it. Both letters were made public. The result was immediate. Within three days the army was ordered to be ready to sail for home. As soon as it was known that we were to sail for home the spirits of the men changed for the better. In my regiment the officers began to plan methods of drilling the men on horseback, so as to fit them for use against the Spanish cavalry, if we should go against Havana in December. We had, all of us, eyed the cap- tured Spanish cavalry with particular interest. The men were small, and the horses, though well trained and well built, were diminutive ponies, very much smaller than cow ponies. We were certain that if we ever got a chance to try shock tactics against them they would go down like ninepins, provided only that our men could be trained to charge in any kind of line, and we made up our minds to devote our time to this. Dismounted work with the rifle we already felt thoroughly competent to perform." THE ROUND ROBIN. 157 Before the date of the Round Robin letter, Spain had awakened to the folly of continu- ing the war. Her fleets had been captured or destroyed and the history of her land oper- ations was one series of defeats. Through the French Ambassador, she asked President McKinley, July 26, to name the terms upon which the United States would grant peace. The reply was that Spain must immediately yield all claims to sovereignty in Cuba, cede Porto Rico, but not Cuba, to the United States, which would hold Manila City and Bay pending the settlement by Commis- sioners of the future disposition of the Phil- ippines, and the cession of an island in the Ladrones. These terms were accepted, and the protocol providing for peace between the two countries was signed in Washing- ton, August 12, 1898. The war had lasted 1 14 days, and the con- quest of Spain was decisive and complete. As we have stated, there never was a juster war nor one more popular throughout the United States. It was unselfish and solely in the interests of humanity. Cuba could have fallen like ripe fruit into our lap, but we had disavowed all such purpose, and so soon as it was safe to do so, our flag was hauled down and that of Cuba took its place. Her future is now in her own hands and she certainly has the best wishes of all peoples for her prosperity and happiness. CHAPTER XII. GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. THE war with Spain was over, and another era in the life of Theodore Roosevelt came to him. He held no political office, but as Colonel of the famous Rough Riders, he filled a large space in the eye of the public. He had demonstrated his moral courage, his brilliant ability and his uncompromising op- position toward all that was wrong, unpatri- otic and contrary to the best principles of government. Moreover, there was no ques- tioning his popularity with his countrymen. He was a consistent Republican and must certainly be " available " for some high office. Politics in New York were in a mixed condition. There was much dissatisfaction, among the supporters of Governor Black. The masses of people then, as more than one since, felt that they were too much under the rule of bosses and they were rest- less to the edge of revolt. It is natural that intelligent men should be disgusted over the fact that one, or two, or a few more directed their political destinies, distributed patron- 158 GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 150 age and controlled the policy of one of ths mighty parties of the country. It was in the air that unless something more than usual was done, the Democrats would make a clean sweep at the polls. The only means of averting an overthrow was to nominate a man whose personality would draw the needed number of votes to him. Instinct- ively, thousands turned to Roosevelt. He was the one to awaken unbounded enthusi- asm, to carry all before him by a whirlwind campaign, and to bring success with red fire, the booming of cannon and with hurrahs that would split the skies. Unless such a canvas was carried through with an irre- strainable rush, defeat was as certain as the rising of the sun. To none was the situation clearer than to the Independent wing of the Republican party. Its members were dead against the chief boss of the State, and believed that with such an ideal candidate as Roosevelt they could bring about his overthrow and drive him out of business in the Empire State. Their plan was to nominate Roose- velt, and with the powerful support he was sure to have, they believed the regulars would be forced into accepting him as their candidate. Thus, in the event of success, which seemed assured, the new Governor would take his seat unhampered by any 160 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. pledges. Still further, the indorsement of the Independent candidate for Governor, would leave the remainder of the Republi- can ticket with only the strict party vote be- hind it. It must follow that a large number of the " machine" nominees would be swept under and the machine itself come pretty close to a smashup. Could a finer opportu- nity be offered Roosevelt for a fight against graft and corruption in high places ? Negotiations were opened with him, while he was in camp with his men at Montauk Point. In the latter part of September, the Independent leaders publicly stated that Roosevelt approved the plan, with the reser- vation that if it "should so far fail that he should not receive the Republican nomina- tion, he must then be free to accept or de- cline the Independent nomination." The situation became so peculiar that he notified them that it was impossible and he withdrew from further negotiations. The explanation as given by Roosevelt was that at the time the Independents made their proposition, he did not understand that it involved the desertion of the fortunes of any candidates who might be associated with him on the Republican State ticket. He explained his position in these words : "The Independent nomination has not been formally offered me, but I am now re- GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 161 ceiving so many questions as to my inten- tions in this matter that I am not willing to wait longer. " My name will probably be presented to the Republican State Convention at Sara- toga on the 27th. If I am nominated, then it will be on the same ticket with those who are named for the other State offices. The Republican party will also have Congres- sional and legislative tickets in the field. National issues are paramount this year ; very few municipal officers are to be elected. The candidates will be my associates in the general effort to elect a Republican Governor, Republican Congressman to support Presi- dent McKinley and the cause of sound money, and a Legislature which will send to the Senate a Republican United States Senate. " It seems to me that I would not be act- ing in good faith toward my fellow candidates if I permitted my name to head a ticket de- signed for their overthrow ; a ticket, more- over, which cannot be put up because of objections to the character or fitness of any candidates, inasmuch as no candidates have yet been nominated. "I write this with great reluctance, for I wish the support of every Independent. It elected Governor, I would strive to serve the State as a whole, and to serve my party xx 162 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. by helping to serve the State. I should greatly like the aid of the Independents, and I appreciate the importance of the Inde- pendent vote, but I cannot accept a nomi- nation on terms that would make me dis- loyal to the principles for which I stand, or at the cost of acting with what seems to me bad faith toward my associates." The result of the negotations was that the Independents put their own candidate in the field, and Roosevelt became the regular Republican nominee. This took place with- out exacting any pledge from him, which was all that the Independents had demanded. One commendable feature of the hurri- cane campaign that followed was the agree- ment on the part of Roosevelt and the party leaders, that "San Juan Hill " should be cut out from all appeals to the people for sup- port. That their standard-bearer had done finely was admitted by every one, but he had done no better than hundreds of others and was entitled to no more glory. More- over, the Spanish-American war, compared with the mighty struggle for the Union was only a country picnic. There were a great many veterans still living, and, as one of them remarked, " Often before breakfast, we killed more men than the whole number who lost their lives in Cuba." When the votes were counted it was found GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 163 that Roosevelt had won by a plurality of less than 20,000. That was not much in a total of a million and a half, but the effect was the same as if it had been ten times as great. Riis happily applies the term " Ruling by the Ten Commandments " to the term which Theodore Roosevelt served as Governor of the greatest State in the American Union. The date of his first message was January 3d, 1900. Its clean cut, outspoken and wise views on public questions commanded general attention. One of the most impor- tant subjects was that of canals. A Com- mission had been at work for a long time, but its labors were not completed. The Governor appointed a committee, with Gen- eral Francis V. Greene at the head, to make a thorough examination of the whole system. Many millions of dollars were involved, and the question is one which is still of vital in- terest to the inhabitants of the Empire State, and is likely to be so for years to come. Other matters of equal importance that were elucidated in the Governor's convincing fashion, were taxation, the franchise tax, the State and public utilities, modern industrial conditions, trusts, and labor, while he recom- mended the repeal of the Horton Boxing law. It is not our province to give a history of Governor Roosevelt's administration, which, 164 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. it need not be said, was creditable in every sense. He grew and learned fast ; his views broadened and the horizon of his knowl- edge expanded. The statesmanlike expres- sions of his messages, and his high-minded course at all times, drew national attention to him. The brilliant Vice-President Hobart had died while in office, and the current set toward Roosevelt as the running mate of McKinley for a second term. He strongly preferred to serve New York again as Gov- ernor. He felt that he had a great work under way there, and yearned to complete it, or at least to carry it farther toward com- pletion. But there was no resisting the current, and he was enthusiastically nom- inated at the National Republican Conven- tion in 1900. On July 13, he was formally notified of his nomination, while standing on the porch of his house at Oyster Bay, the same spot where he stood two years before, when informed that he had been chosen by his party for the chief executive office of New York. It was decided that in the campaign which followed, President McKinley would make no public addresses. The Vice-Presidential candidate made enough for both. It is not worth while to give any of these numerous addresses, whose characteristics have become familiar to all our readers. There was one GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 165 speech, however, which deserves repro- duction, because it was non-political, and upon a subject of vital interest to the whole country. Furthermore, it was made in peculiar circumstances. Governor Roosevelt met William Jennings Bryan at the Labor Day picnic in Chicago on the 3d of September. Though political enemies, they came together under a flag of truce, to talk of the progress of labor and the duties of the citizens as relate to liberty and good government. These two able leaders warmly greeted each other, and the thousands of people who listened to them, applauded both impartially. Roosevelt and Bryan sat side by side earlier in the day on the reviewing stand, as the army of organized labor marched past, and they lunched together as guests of the labor organizations. To the eager, listening thousands, who gathered at Electric Park, Governor Roose- velt said : " We have exactly the same right to regu- late the conditions ,of life and work in fac- tories and tenement houses that we have to regulate fire escapes and the like in other houses. In . certain communities the exist- ence of a thoroughly efficient department of factory inspection is just as essential as the establishment of a fire department. How far we shall go in regulating the hours 166 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. of labor, or the liabilities of employers, is a matter of expediency, and each case must be determined on its own merits, exactly as it is a matter of expediency to determine what so-called ' public utilities ' the com- munity itself shall own, and what ones it shall leave to private or corporate owner- ship, securing- to itself merely the right to regulate. Sometimes one course is expedi- ent, sometimes the other. "In my own State during the last half dozen years we have made a number of no- table strides in labor legislation, and, with very few exceptions, the laws have worked well. This is, of course, partly because we have not tried to do too much and have pro- ceeded cautiously, feeling our way ; and, while always advancing, and taking each step in advance only when we were satisfied that the step already taken was in the right direc- tion. To invite reaction by unregulated zeal is never wise, and is sometimes fatal. " In New York our action has been along two lines. In the first place we determined that as an employer of labor the State should set a good example to other employers. We do not intend to permit the people's money to be squandered or to tolerate any work that is not the best. But we think that while rigidly insisting upon good work, we should see that there is fair play in return. Ac- GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 167 cordingly, we have adopted an eight-hour law for the State employees and for all con- tractors who do State work, and we have also adopted a law requiring that the fair market rate of wages shall be given. I am glad to say that both measures have so far, on the whole, worked well. Of course, there have been individual difficulties, mostly where the work is intermittent, as, for instance, among lock-tenders on the canals, where it is very difficult to define what eight hours' work means. But on the whole, the result has been good. The prac- tical experiment of working men for eight hours has been advantageous to the State. Poor work is always dear, whether poorly paid or not, and good work is always well worth having ; and it is a mere question of expediency, aside even from the question of humanity, we find that we can obtain the best work by paying fair wages and permit- ting the work to go on only for a reasonable time. " The other side of our labor legislation has been that affecting the wage workers who do not work for the State. Here we have acted in three different ways. Through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, through the Board of Mediation and Arbitration, and through the Department of Factory In- spection, ^68 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. " During the last two years the Board of Mediation and Arbitration has been especi- ally successful. Not only have they suc- ceeded in settling many strikes after they were started, but they have succeeded in preventing a much larger number of strikes before they got fairly under way. Where possible, it is always better to mediate be- fore the strike begins than to try to arbitrate when the fight is on and both sides have grown stubborn and bitter. *' The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done more than merely gather the statistics ; for by keeping in close touch with all the leading labor interests it has kept them informed on countless matters that were really of vital concern to them. Incidentally, one pleasing feature of the work of this bureau has been the steady upward tendency shown during the last four years both in amount of wages received and in the quantity and steadiness of employment. No other man has been benefited so much as the wage-worker by the growth in prosperity during these years. "Work in itself, so far from being any hardship, is a great blessing, provided, al- ways, it is carried on under conditions which preserve a man's self-respect and which allow him to develop his own character and rear his children so that he and they, as well as the whole community of which he and GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE STATE. Igg they are part, may steadily move onward and upward. The idler, rich or poor, is at best a useless and is generally a noxious member of the community. To whom much has been given, from him much is rightfully ex- pected, and a heavy burden of responsibility rests upon the man of means to justify by his actions the social conditions which have ren- dered it possible for him or his forefathers to accumulate and to keep the property he enjoys. He is not to be excused if he does not render full measure of service to the State and to the community at large. There are many ways in which this service can be rendered ; in art, in literature, in philan- thropy ; as a statesman, as a soldier ; but in some way he is in honor bound to render it ; so that benefit may accrue to his breth- ren who have been less favored by fortune than he has been. In short, he must work, and work not only for himself, but for others. If he does not work, he fails not only in his duty to the rest of the com- munity, but he fails signally in his duty to himself. There is no need of envying the idle. Ordinarily, we can afford to treat them with impatient contempt ; for when they fail to do their duty, they fail to get from life the highest and keenest pleasures that life can give. " Before us loom industrial problems, vast 170 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. in their importance and their complexity. The last half century has been one of extraor- dinary social and industrial development. The changes have been far-reaching ; some of them for good and some of them for evil. It is not given to the wisest of us to see into the future with absolute clearness. No man can be certain that he has found the entire solution of this infinitely great and intricate problem, and yet each man of us, if he would do his duty, must strive manfully, so far as in him lies to help bring about that solution. It is not as yet possible to say what shall be the exact limit of influence allowed the State or what limit shall be set to that right of individual initiative so dear to the hearts of the American people. All we can say is that the need has been shown on the one hand for action by the people in their col- lective capacity through the State, in many matters ; that in other matters much can be done by associations of different groups of individuals, as in trade-unions and similar organizations ; and that in other matters it remains now as true as ever that final suc- cess will be for the man who trusts in the struggle only to his cool head, his brave heart, and his strong right arm. There are spheres in which the State can properly act, and spheres in which a comparatively free field must be given to individual initiative. GOVERNOR OF THE EMPIRE StATE. tf\ " Though conditions of life have grown so puzzling in their complexity, though the changes have been so vast, yet we remain absolutely sure of one thing : that now, as ever in the past, and as it ever will be in the future, there can be no substitute for the elemental virtues, for the elemental qualities to which we allude when we speak of a man as not only a good man, but as emphatically a man. We can build up the standard of individual citizenship and individual well- being, we can raise the national standard and make it what it can and shall be made, only by each of us steadfastly keeping in mind that there can be no substitute for the world- old, humdrum, common-place qualities of truth, justice and courage, thrift, industry, common-sense and genuine sympathy with and fellow-feeling for others." CHAPTER XIII. VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. THERE were nine presidential tickets in the field in 1900, but the only real contest, lay, of course, between the Democrats and Republicans. William Jennings Bryan and Adlai Stevenson were the candidates of the former, and William McKinley and Theo- dore Roosevelt of the latter. The Repub- lican ticket received 7,207,923, and the Democratic 6,358,133 popular votes, or 292 Electoral to 155 votes. The Republican plurality was 849,790. Probably the most ornamental office in the gift of the American people is that of Vice- President. About all that dignitary has to do is to preside over the sessions of the United States Senate. If the vote upon some measure happens to be a tie, it is his province to cast the deciding vote. As a rule, the President relies wholly, or nearly so, upon his cabinet for counsel. Now and then he consults the leaders of his party and certain influential members of Congress, but more often than otherwise, the Vice-Presi- 172 VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. If3 dent is left very much to himself. McKinley was the first Chief Executive to break this rule. Vice-President G. A. Hobart was one of the ablest men who ever held that office, and he and his chief became intimate friends. The President consulted Hobart on the most important measures, and was largely influenced by his counsel. This influence was always exerted in the right direction, and much of the credit of McKinley's first administration was due to the Vice-Presi- dent's wisdom, quick perception and admi- rable tact. McKinley was an excellent judge of men, and he had long recognized the striking ability of Roosevelt. The President was calmer, more conservative and self-restrained than his assistant, but he held his integrity, courage and statesmanship in high admira- tion. But for the woful tragedy which soon shocked the country, the President doubt- less would have come to lean upon him as much as he had leaned upon his predecessor. Roosevelt, on his part, admired and loved his chief, and one of the finest tributes to that great man was delivered by him. . Although nominally there was little for him to do, the Vice-President was a man who could never remain idle. He spent his vacation time mostly on his ranch in the West, or in hunting, varied by addresses in dif- 174 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. f erent parts of the country. Some of the more instructive of these were given during the months that he was Vice-President. We have selected two of the most characteristic. That which immediately follows was de- livered before the Hamilton Club of Chicago, April 15, 1899. The subject was " The Stren- uous Life." As has been said, it is in reality a part of Roosevelt s own biography, and de- serves to be read, studied and remembered by every young man in the country. One minor result of this remarkable speech has been to make the qualifying word " strenu- ous" more generally used than any other word in our language. " Gentlemen : In speaking to you, men ot the greatest city in the West, men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently and dis- tinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of strenuous life; the life of toil and effort; of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires more easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. " A lifs of ignoble ease, a life of that peacq VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 175 which springs merely from lack either of de- sire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an indi- vidual. I ask only that what every self- respecting American demands from himself, and from his sons, shall be demanded of the American nation as whole. Who among you would teach your boys that ease, that peace is to be the first consideration in their eyes to be the ultimate goal after which they strive. You men of Chicago have made this city great, you men of Illinois have done your share, and more than your share, in making America great, because you neither preach nor practice such a doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons to work. If you are rich, and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in explora- tion, in historical research work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation. We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man 176 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. who never wrongs his neighbors ; who is prompt to help a friend; but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail; but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life \ve get nothing save by effort. Free- dom from effort in the present, merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past. A man can be freed from the neces- sity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune. But if he treats this period of free- dom from the need of actual labor, as a period not of preparation, but of mere enjoy- ment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer of the earth's surface; and he surely unfits himself to hold his own with his fellows, if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life ; and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world. " As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 177 happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glori- ous history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. If in 1861 the men who loved the Union had believed that peace was the end of all things, and war and strife the worst of all things, and had acted up to their belief, we would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives; we would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, besides saving all the blood and treasure we then lav- ished, we would have prevented the heart- break of many women, the dissolution of many homes; and we would have spared the country those months of gloom and shame, when it seemed as if our armies marched only to defeat. We could have avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from strife. And if we had thus avoided it, we would have shown that we were weaklings, and that we were unfit to stand among the great nations of the earth. Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant ! Let us, the children of the men who proved them 178 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. selves equal to the mighty days let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble coun- sels of peace were rejected; that the suffer- ing and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured ; for in the end the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the mighty American Republic placed once more as a helmeted queen among nations. " We of this- generation do not have to face a task such as that our fathers faced, but we have our tasks, and woe to us if we fail to perform them ! We can not, if we would, play the part of China, and be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our bor- ders, taking no interest in what goes on be- yond them; sunk in a scrambling commer- cialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk; busying our- selves only with the wants of our bodies for the day; until suddenly we should find, be- yond a shadow of question, what China has already found, that in this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwar- like and isolated ease is bound in the end to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous quali- ties. If we are to be a really great people, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 179 we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We can not avoid meet- ing great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is, whether we shall meet them well or ill. Last year we could not help being brought face to face with the problem of war with Spain. All we could decide was whether we should shrink like cowards from the contest, or enter into it as beseemed a brave and high-spirited people; and, once in, whether failure or success should crown our banners. So it is now. We can not avoid the responsibilities that confront us in Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philip- pines. All we can decide is whether we shall meet them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or whether we shall make our dealings with these new problems a dark and shameful page in our history. To refuse to deal with them at all merely amounts to dealing with them badly. We have a given problem to solve. If we under- take the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply ren- ders it certain that we can not possibly solve it aright. The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over- civilized man who has lost the great right- ing, masterful virtues, the ignorant man and the man of dull mind, whose Qul is incapable 180 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. of feeling the mighty lift that thrills. Stern with empires in their brains all these of course shrink from seeing the nation under- take its new duties; shrink from seeing us build a navy and army adequate to cur needs; shrink from seeing us do our share of the world's work, by bringing order out of chaos in the great, fair tropic islands from which the valor of our soldiers and sailors has driven the Spanish flag. . These are the men who fear the strenuous life, who fear the only national life which is really worth lead- ing. They believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation, as it saps them in the individual; or else they are wedded to that base spirit of gain and greed which recognizes in commercialism the be-all and end-all of a national life, instead of realizing that, though an indispensable element, it is after all but one of the many elements that go to make up true national greatness. No country can long endure if its foundations are not laid deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift, from business energy and enterprise, from hard, unsparing effort in the fields of indus- trial activity; but neither was any nation ever yet truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone. All honor must be paid to the architects of our material prosperity; to the great captains of industry who have VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 181 built our factories and our railroads; to the strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; for great is the debt of the nation to those and their kind. But our debt is yet greater to the men whose highest type is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, a soldier like Grant. They showed by their lives that they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win a competence for themselves, and those de- pendent upon them; but they recognized that there were yet other and even loftier duties duties to the nation and duties to the race. " We can not sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an as- semblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond. Such a policy would defeat even its own ends; for as the nations grow to have ever wider and wider interests and are brought into closer and closer contact, if we are to hold our own in the struggle for naval and com- mercial supremacy, we must build up our power within our own borders. We must build the Isthmian canal, and we must grasp the points of vantage which will enable us to have our say in deciding the destiny of the oceans of the east and the west. " So much for the commercial side. From the standpoint of international honor, the 182 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. argument is even stronger. The guns that thundered off Manila and Santiago left us echoes of glory, but they also left us a legacy of duty. If we drove out a med- iaeval tyranny to make room for savage anarchy, we had better not have begun the task at all. It is worse than idle to say that we have no duty to perform and we can now leave to their fates the islands we have con- quered. Such a course would be the course of infamy. It would be followed at once by utter chaos in the wretched islands them- selves. Some stronger, manlier power would have to step in and do the work; and we would have shown ourselves weaklings, unable to carry to successful completion the labors that great and high-spirited nations are eager to undertake. " The work must be done. We can not escape our responsibility, and if we are worth our salt, we shall be glad of the chance to do the work glad of the chance to show ourselves equal to one of the great tasks set by modern civilization. But let us not deceive ourselves as to the importance of the task. Let us not be misled by vain- glory into underestimating the strain it will put on our powers. Above all, let us, as we value our self-respect, face the responsibili- ties with proper seriousness, courage and high resolve. We must demand the high- VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 183 est order of integrity and ability in our pub- lic men who are to grapple with those new problems. We must hold to a rigid ac- countability those public servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands upon our strength and our re- sources. " Of course, we must remember not to judge any public servant by any one act, and especially should we beware of attacking the,, men who are merely the occasions and not the causes of disaster. Let me illustrate what I mean by the army and the navy. If twenty years ago we had gone to war, we should have found the navy as absolutely unprepared as the army. At that time our ships could not have encountered with suc- cess the fleets of Spain any more than now- adays we can put untrained soldiers, no matter how brave, who are armed with archaic black powder weapons, against well- drilled Regulars armed with the highest type of modern repeating rifle. But in the early '8o's the attention of the nation became directed to our naval needs. Congress most wisely made a series of appropriations to build up a new navy, and under a succession of able and patriotic secretaries, of both political parties, the navy was gradually built up, until its material became equal to ;(84 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. its splendid personnel, with the result that last summer it leaped to its proper place as one of the most brilliant and formidable fighting navies in the entire world. We rightly pay all honor to the men controlling the navy at the time it won these great deeds, honor to Secretary Long and Admiral Dewey, to the Captains who handled the ships in action, to the daring lieutenants who braved death in the smaller craft, and to the heads of bureaus at Washington who saw that the ships were so commanded, so armed, so equipped, so well engined, as to insure the best results. But let us keep ever in mind that all of this would not have availed if it had not been for the wisdom of the men who during the preceding fifteen years had built up the navy. Keep in mind the Sec- retaries of the Navy during those years; keep in mind the Senators and Congress- men who by their votes gave the money necessary to build and to armor the ships, to construct the great guns, and to train the crews ; remember also who actually did build the ships, the armor and the guns ; and remember the Admirals and the Cap- tains who handled battleships, cruisers and torpedo boats on the high seas, alone and in squadrons, developing the seamanship, the gunnery and the power of acting together, which their successors utilized so gloriously VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 185 at Manila and off Santiago. And, gentle- men, remember the converse, too. Remem- ber that justice has two sides. Be just to those who built up the navy, and for the sake of the future of the country, keep in mind those who opposed its building up. Read the Congressional Record. Find out the Senators and Congressmen who opposed the grants for building the new ships, who opposed the purchase of armor without which the ships were worthless; who op- posed any adequate maintenance for the navy department, and strove to cut down the number of men necessary to man our fleets. The men who did these things were one and all working to bring disaster on the country. They have no share in the glory of Manila, in the honor of Santiago. They have no cause to feel proud of the valor of our sea captains, of the renown of our flag. Their motives may or may not have been good, but their acts were heavily fraught with evil. They did ill for the national honor; and we won in spite of their sinister opposition. 11 Now, apply all this to our public men of to-day. Our army has never been built up as it should be built up. I shall not discuss with an audience like this the puerile sug- gestion that a nation of seventy millions of free men is in danger of losing its liberties 186 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. from the existence of an army of one hun- dred thousand men, three-fourths of whom will be employed in certain foreign islands, in certain coast fortresses, and on Indian reservations. No man of good sense and stout heart can take such a proposition seri- ously. If we are such weaklings as the proposition implies, then we are unworthy of freedom in any event. To no body of men in the United States is the country so much indebted as to the splendid officers and enlisted men of the Regular army and navy; there is no body from which the coun- try has less to fear; and none of which it should be prouder, or which it should be more anxious to upbuild. " Our army needs complete reorganiza- tion not merely enlarging and the reor- ganization can only come as the result of legislation. A proper general staff should be established, and the positions of ord- nance, commissary and quartermaster officers should be rilled by detail from the line. Above all, the army must be given the chance to exercise in large bodies. Never again should we see, as we saw in the Spanish War, major-generals, in command of divis- ions, who had never before commanded three companies together in the field. Yet incredible to relate, the recent Congress has showed a queer inability to learn some of the VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 187 lessons of the war. There were large bodies of men in both branches who opposed the declaration of war, who opposed the ratifica- tion of peace, who opposed the upbuilding of the army, and who even opposed the pur- chase of armor at a reasonable price for the battleships and cruisers, thereby putting an absolute stop to the building of any new fighting ships for the navy. If during the years to come any disaster should befall our arms, afloat or ashore, and thereby any shame come to the United States, remember that the blame will lie upon the men whose names appear upon the roll calls of Congress on the wrong side of these great questions. On them will lie the burden of any loss of our soldiers and sailors, of any dishonor to the flag ; and upon you and the people of this country will lie the blame, if you do not repudiate, in an unmistakable way, what these men have done. The blame will not rest upon the untrained commander of un- tried troops; upon the civil officers of a de- partment the organization of which has been left utterly inadequate; or upon the Admiral with unsurficient number of ships; but upon the public men who have so lamentably failed in forethought as to refuse to remedy these evils long in advance, and upon the nation that stands behind those public men. " So at the present hour no small share of 188 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the responsibility for the blood shed in the Philippines, the blood of our brothers and the blood of their wild and ignorant foes, lies at the thresholds of those who so long delayed the adoption of the treaty of peace, and of those who by their worse than foolish words deliberately invited a savage people to plunge into a war fraught with sure disaster for them ; a war, too, in which our own brave men who follow the flag must pay with their blood for the silly mock-humanitarian- ism of the prattlers who sit at home in peace. "The army and the navy are the sword and the shield which this nation must carry, if she is to do her duty among the nations of the earth if she is not to stand merely as the China of the western hemisphere. Our proper conduct toward the tropic islands we have wrested from Spain is merely the form which our duty has taken at the moment. Of course, we are bound to handle the affairs of our own household well. We must see that there is civic honesty, civic cleanliness, civic good sense in our house administration of city, State and nation. We must strive for honesty in office, for honesty towards the creditors of the nation and of the individual ; for the widest freedom of individual initiative where possible, and for the wisest control of the individual initiative where it is hostile to the welfare of the many. But because we set VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 189 our own household in order, we are not thereby excused from playing our part in the great affairs of the world. A man's first duty is to his home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State ; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a free man. In the same way, while a nation's first duty is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world as a whole ; and if it refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the peoples that shape the destiny of mankind. " In the West Indies and the Philippines alike we are confronted by most difficult problems. It is cowardly to shrink from solving them in the proper way ; for solved they must be, if not by us, then by some stronger and more manful race ; if we are too weak, too selfish or too foolish to solve them, some bolder and abler people must undertake the solution. Personally I am far too firm a believer in the greatness of my country and the power of my countrymen to admit for one moment that we shall ever be driven to the ignoble alternative. "The problems are different for the dif- ferent islands. Porto Rico is not large enough to stand alone. We must govern it wisely and well, primarily in the interest of 290 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. its own people. Cuba is, in my judgment, entitled ultimately to settle for itself whether it shall be an independent State or an in- tegral portion of the mightiest of republics. But until order and stable liberty are secured, we must remain in the island to insure them ; and infinite tact, judgment, moderation and courage must be shown by our military and civil representatives in keeping the island pacified, in relentlessly stamping out brigand- age, in protecting all alike, and yet in show- ing proper recognition to the men who have fought for Cuban liberty. The Philippines offer a yet graver problem. Their popula- tion includes half caste and native Christians, warlike Moslems, and wild Pagans. Many of their people are utterly unfit for self- government and show no signs of becoming fit. Others may in time become fit, but at present can only take part in self-govern- ment under a wise supervision at once firm and beneficent. We have driven Spanish tyranny from the islands. If we now let it be replaced by savage anarchy, our work has been for harm and not for good. I have scant patience with those who fear to under- take the task of governing the Philippines, and who openly avow that they do fear to undertake it, or that they shrink from it because of the expense and trouble ; but I have even scantier patience with those who, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 19} make a pretense of humanitarianism to hide and cover their timidity, and who cant about ' liberty ' and the ' consent of the governed,' in order to excuse themselves for their un- willingness to play the part of men. Their doctrines if carried out would make it in- cumbent upon us to leave the Apaches of Arizona to work out their own salvation and to decline to interfere in a single Indian reservation. Their doctrines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States. " England's rule in India and Egypt has been of great benefit to England, for it has trained up generations of men accustomed to look at the larger and loftier side of public life. It has been of even greater benefit to India and Egypt. And finally and most of all, it has advanced the cause of civilization. So, if we do our duty aright in the Philip- pines, we will add to that national renown which is the highest and finest part of national life ; will greatly benefit the people of the Philippine Islands ; and above all we will play our part well in the great work of uplifting mankind. But to do this work, keep ever in mind that we must show in a very high degree the qualities of courage, of honesty and of good judgment. Resistance must be stamped out. The first and all- important work to be done is to establish 192 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the supremacy of our flag. We must put down armed resistance before we can ac- complish anything else, and there should be no parleying, no faltering in dealing with our foe. As for those in our own country who encourage the foe, we can afford con- temptuously to disregard them ; butrit must be remembered that their utterances are saved from being treasonable merely from the fact that they are despicable. " When once we have put down armed resistance, when once our rule is acknowl- edged, then an even more difficult task will begin, for then we must see to it that the islands are administered with absolute honesty and with good judgment. If we let the public service of the islands be turned into the prey of the spoils politician, we shall have begun to tread the path which Spain trod to her own destruction. We must send out there only good and able men, chosen for their fitness and not because of their partizan service, and these men must not only administer impartial justice to the natives and serve their own Government with honesty and fidelity, but must show the utmost tact and firmness, remembering that with such people as those with whom we are to deal, weakness is the greatest of crimes, and next to weakness comes lack of consider ation for their principles and prejudices. VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 193 " I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country call not for the life of ease, but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease, and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard con- tests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by and will win for themselves the domi- nation of the world. Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully ; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word ; reso- lute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us not shrink from strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified ; for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness. CHAPTER XIV. STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. ON August 2, 1901, the State of Colorado celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of its admission to the Union. At that time, Vice- President Roosevelt delivered at Colorado Springs the following masterly address en- titled " Manhood and Statehood " : " This anniversary, which marks the com- pletion by Colorado of her first quarter- century of Statehood, is of interest not only to her sisters, the States of the Rocky Moun- tain region, but to our whole country. With the exception of the admission to Statehood of California, no other event em- phasized in such dramatic fashion the full meaning of the growth of our country as did the incoming of Colorado. "It is a law of our intellectual develop- ment that the greatest and most important truths, when once we have become thor- oughly familiar with them, often because of that very familiarity grow dim in our minds. The westward spread of our people across this continent has been so rapid, and so 194: STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 195 great has been their success in taming the rugged wilderness, turning the gray desert into green fertility, and filling the waste and lonely places with the eager, thronging, crowded life of our industrial civilization, that we have begun to accept it all as part of the order of nature. Moreover, it now seems to us equally a matter of course that when a sufficient number of the citizens of our common country have thus entered into and taken possession of some great tract of empty wilderness, they should be permitted to enter the Union as a State on an absolute equality with the older States, having the same right both to manage their own local affairs as they deem best, and to exercise their full share of control over-all the affairs of whatever kind or sort in which the nation is interested as a whole. The youngest and the oldest States stand on an exact level in one indissoluble and perpetual Union. "To us nowadays these processes seem so natural that it is only by a mental wrench that we conceive of any other as possible. Yet they are really wholly modern and of purely American development. When, a century before Colorado became a State, the original thirteen States began the great ex- periment of a free and independent republic on this continent, the process which we now accept in such matter-of-course fashion 196 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. looked upon as abnormal and revolutionary. It is our own success here in America that has brought about the complete alteration in feeling. The chief factor in producing the Revolution, and later in producing the war of 1812, was the inability of the mother country to understand that the freemen who went forth to conquer a continent should be encouraged in that work, and could not and ought not to be expected to toil only for the profit or glory of others. When the first Continental Congress assembled, the British government, like every other government of Europe at that time, simply did not know how to look upon the general question of the progress of the colonies save from the standpoint of the people who had stayed at home. The spread of the hardy, venture- some backwoodsmen was to most of the statesmen of London a matter of anxiety rather than of pride, and the famous Quebec Act of 1774 was in part designed with the purpose of keeping the English-speaking settlements permanently east of the Alle- ghanies, and preserving the mighty and beautiful valley of the Ohio as a hunting- ground for savages, a preserve for the great fur-trading companies; and as late as 1812 this project was partially revived. " More extraordinary still, even after in- depende.n?e was achieved, and, a firm Union STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 597 accomplished under that wonderful docu- ment, the Constitution adopted in 1789, we still see traces of the same feeling lingering here and there in our own country. There were plenty of men in the seaboard States who looked with what seems to us ludicrous apprehension at the steady westward growth of our people. Grave senators and repre- sentatives expressed dire foreboding as to the ruin which would result from admitting the communities growing up along the Ohio to a full equality with the older States ; and when Louisiana was given Statehood, they insisted that that very fact dissolved the Union. When our people had begun to settle in the Mississippi valley, Jefferson himself accepted with equanimity the view that probably it would not be possible to keep regions so infinitely remote as the Mississippi and the Atlantic coast in the same Union. Later even such a stanch Union man and firm believer in Western growth as fearless old Tom Benton, of Mis- souri, thought that it would be folly to try to extend the national limits westward of the Rocky Mountains. In 1830 our then best-known man of letters and historian, Washington Irving, prophesied that for ages to come the country upon which we now stand would be inhabited simply by roving tribes of nomads. 198 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. 11 The mental attitude of all these good people need not surprise anybody. There was nothing in the past by which to judge either the task before this country, or the way in which that task was to be done. As Lowell finely said, on this continent we have made new States as Old World men pitch tents. Even the most far-seeing statesmen, those most gifted with the imagination needed by really great statesmen, could not at first grasp what the process really meant. Slowly and with incredible labor the backwoods- men of the old colonies hewed their way through the dense forests from the tide- water region to the crest of the Alleghanies. But by the time the Alleghanies were reached, about at the moment when our national life began, the movement had gained wonderful momentum. Thenceforward it advanced by leaps and bounds, and the frontier pushed westward across the continent with ever- increasing rapidity until the day came when it vanished entirely. Our greatest states- men have always been those who believed in the nation who had faith in the power of our people to spread until they should be- come the mightiest among the peoples of the world. " Under any governmental system which was known to Europe, the problem offered by the westward thrust, across a continent, STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 190 of so masterful and liberty-loving a race as ours would have been insoluble. The great civilized and colonizing races of antiquity, the Greeks and the Romans, had been ut- terly unable to devise a scheme under which when their race spread it might be possible to preserve both national unity and local and individual freedom. When a Hellenic or Latin city sent off a colony, one of two things happened. Either the colony was kept in political subjection to the city or state of which it was an offshot, or else it became a wholly independent and alien, and often a hostile nation. Both systems were fraught with disaster. With the Greeks race unity was sacrificed to local independence, and as a result the Greek world became an easy prey of foreign conquerors. The Romans kept national unity, but only by means of a crushing centralized despotism. " When the modern world entered upon the marvelous era of expansion which began with the discoveries of Columbus, the na- tions were able to devise no new plan. All the great colonizing powers, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Russia, man- aged their colonies primarily in the interest of the home country. Some did better than others England probably best and Spain worst, but in no case were the colonists treated as citizens of equal rights in a com- 200 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. mon country. Our ancestors, who were at once the strongest and the most liberty- loving among all the peoples who had been thrust out into new continents, were the first to revolt against this system ; and the lesson taught by their success has been thoroughly learned. " In applying the new principles to our conditions we have found the Federal Con- stitution a nearly perfect instrument. The system of a closely knit and indestructible union of free commonwealths has enabled us to do what neither Greek nor Roman in their greatest day could do. We have pre- served the complete unity of an expanding race without impairing in the slightest degree the liberty of the individual. When in a given locality the settlers became sufficiently numerous, they were admitted to Statehood, and thenceforward shared all the rights and all the duties of the citizens of the older States. As with Columbus and the egg, the expedient seems obvious enough nowadays ; but then it was so novel that a couple of generations had to pass before we ourselves thoroughly grasped all its features. At last we grew to accept as axiomatic the two facts of national union and local and personal freedom. As whatever is axiomatic seems commonplace, we now tend to accept what has been accomplished a mere matter-of- STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 201 course incident, of no great moment. The very completeness with which the vitally important task has been done almost blinds us to the extraordinary nature of the achieve- ment. " You, the men of Colorado, and above all, the older among those whom I am now addressing, have been engaged in doing the great typical work of our people. Save only the preservation of the Union itself, no other task has been so important as the conquest and settlement of the West. This conquest and settlement has been the stupendous feat of our race for the century that has just closed. It stands supreme among all such feats. The same kind of thing has been in Australia and Canada, but upon a less im- portant scale, while the Russian advance in Siberia has been incomparably slower. In all the history of mankind there is nothing that quite parallels the way in which our people have filled a vacant continent with self-governing commonwealths, knit into one nation. And of all this marvelous history perhaps the most wonderful portion is that which deals with the way in which the Pa- cific coast and the Rocky Mountains were settled. " The men who founded these communities showed practically by their life-work that it is indeed the spirit of adventure which is the. 203 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. maker of commonwealths. Their traits of daring and hardihood and iron endurance are not merely indispensable traits for pioneers ; they are also traits which must go to the make-up of every mighty and suc- cessful people. You and your fathers who built up the West did more even than you thought ; for you shaped thereby the destiny of the whole republic, and as a necessary corollary profoundly influenced the course of events throughout the world. More and more as the years go by this republic will find its guidance in the thought and action of the West, because the conditions of de- velopment in the West have steadily tended to accentuate the peculiarly American char- acteristics of its people. " There was scant room for the coward and the weakling in the ranks of the advent- urous frontiersmen the pioneer settlers who first broke up the wild prairie soil, who first hewed their way into the primeval forest, who guided their white-topped wagons across the endless leagues of Indian -haunted des- olation, and explored every remote moun- tain-chain in the restless quest for metal wealth. Behind them came the men who completed the work they had roughly begun : who drove the great railroad systems over plain and desert and mountain pass ; who stocked the teeming ranches, and under STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 203 irrigation saw the bright green of the alfalfa and the yellow of the golden stubble sup- plant the gray of the sage-bush desert ; who have built great populous cities cities in which even* art and science of civilization are carried to the highest point on tracts which, when the nineteenth century had passed its meridian, were still known only to the grim trappers and hunters and the red lords of the wilderness with whom they waged eternal war. " Such is the record of which we are so proud. It is a record of men who greatly dared and greatly did ; a record of wander- ings wider and more dangerous than those of the Vikings ; a record of endless feats of arms, of victory after victory in the ceaseless strife waged against wild man and wild na- ture. The winning of the West was the great epic feat in the history of our race. " We have then a right to meet to-day in a spirit of just pride in the past. But when we pay homage to the hardy, grim, resolute men who, with incredible toil and risk, laid deep the foundations of the civilization that we inherit, let us steadily remember that the only homage that counts is the homage of deeds not merely of words. It is well to gather here to show that we remember what has been done in the past by the Western pioneers of our people, and that we glory in 204: FROM THE RANCli TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the greatness for which they prepared the way. But lip-loyalty by itself avails very little, whether it is expressed concerning a nation or an ideal. It would be a sad and evil thing for this country if ever the day came when we considered the great deeds of our forefathers as an excuse for our rest- ing slothfully satisfied with what has been al- ready done. On the contrary, they should be an inspiration and appeal, summoning us to show that we too have courage and strength ; that we too are ready to dare greatly if the need arises ; and, above all, that we are firmly bent upon that steady performance of every-day duty which, in the long run, is of such incredible worth in the formation of national character. " The old iron days have gone, the days when the weakling died as the penalty of inability to hold his own in the rough war- fare against his surroundings. We live in softer times. Let us see to it that, while we take advantage of every gentler and more humanizing tendency of the age, we yet preserve the iron quality which made our forefathers and predecessors fit to do the deeds they did. It will of necessity find a different expression now, but the quality itself remains just as necessary as ever. Surely you men of the West, you men who with stout heart, cool head, and ready hand STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 205 have wrought out your own success and built up these great new commonwealths, surely you need no reminder of the fact that if either man or nation wishes to play a great part in the world there must be no dallying with the life of lazy ease. In the abounding energy and intensity of existence in our mighty democratic republic there is small space indeed for the idler, for the luxury-loving man who prizes ease more than hard, triumph-crowned effort. 11 We hold work not as a curse but a bless- ing, and we regard the idler with scornful pity. It would be in the highest degree un- desirable that we should all work in the same way or at the same things, and for the sake of the real greatness of the nation we should in the fullest and most cordial way recognize the fact that some of the most needed work must, from its very nature, be unremunerative in a material sense. Each man must choose so far as the conditions allow him the path to which he is bidden by his own peculiar powers and inclinations. But if he is a man he must in some way or shape do a man's work. If, after making all the effort that his strength of body and of mind permits, he yet honorably fails, why, he is still entitled to a certain share of re- spect because he has made the effort. But if he does not make the^ effort, or if he makes ^06 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. it half-heartedly and recoils from the labor, the risk, or the irksome monotony of his task, why, he has forfeited all right to our respect, and has shown himself a mere cum- berer on the earth. It is not given to us all to succeed, but it is given to us all to strive manfully to deserve success. " We need then the iron qualities that must go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done, and to persevere through the long days of slow progress or of seeming failure which always come before any final triumph, no matter how brilliant. But we need more than these qualities. This country cannot afford to have its sons less than men ; but neither can it afford to have them other than good men. If courage and strength and in- tellect are unaccompanied by the moral pur- pose, the moral sense, they become merely forms of expression for unscrupulous force and unscrupulous cunning. If the strong man has not in him the lift toward lofty things his strength makes him only a curse to him- self and to his neighbor. All this is true in private life, and it is no less true in public life. If Washington and Lincoln had not had in them the whipcord fiber of moral and piental strength, the soul that steels itself to STATEHOOD AND MANHOOD. 207 endure disaster unshaken and with grim re- solve to wrest victory from defeat, then the one could not have founded, nor the other preserved, our mighty federal Union. The least touch of flabbiness, of unhealthy soft- ness, in either would have meant ruin for this nation, and therefore the downfall of the proudest hope of mankind. But no less is it true that had either been influenced by self-seeking ambition, by callous disregard of others, by contempt for the moral law, they would have dashed us down into the black gulf of failure. Woe to all of us if ever as a people we grow to condone evil because it is successful. We can no more afford to lose social and civic decency and honesty than we can afford to lose the qual- ities of courage and strength. It is the merest truism to say that the nation rests upon the individual, upon the family upon individual manliness and womanliness, using the words in their widest and fullest meaning. " To be a good husband or good wife, a good neighbor and friend, to be hard-work- ing and upright in business and social rela- tions, to bring up many healthy children to be and to do all this is to lay the foundations of good citizenship as they must be laid. But we cannot stop even with this. Each of us has not only his duty to himself, his family, and his neighbors, but his duty to 08 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the State and to the nation. We are in honor bound each to strive according to his or her strength to bring ever nearer the day when justice and wisdom shall obtain in public life as in private life. We cannot retain the full measure of our self-respect it we cannot retain pride in our citizenship. For the sake not only of ourselves but of our children and our children's children we must see that this nation stands for strength and honesty both at home and abroad. In our internal policy we cannot afford to rest satisfied until all that the Government can do has been done to secure fair dealing and equal justice as between man and man. In the great part which hereafter, whether we will or not, we must play in the world at large, let us see to it that we neither do wrong nor shrink from doing right because the right is difficult ; that on the one hand we inflict no injury, and that on the other we have a due regard for the honor and the interest of our mighty nation ; and that we keep unsullied the renown of the flag which beyond all others of the present time or of the ages of the past stands for confident faith in the future welfare and greatness of mankind." CHAPTER XV. PRESIDENT. THOSE of us who are old enough to re- member the month of April, 1865, will never forget the thrill of horror and wrath that swept through the country, when the news flashed from one end of the land to the other that the great and good Abraham Lin- coln had been stricken down by the bullet of an assassin. It was the first time that such a horrifying crime had occurred in our history. Indeed, every one believed that it was impossible that it should occur, and for a time many shook their heads and refused to credit the tidings. But, alas ! it was not only true, but, while it was the first assassi- nation, it was destined not to be the last. Sixteen years had come and gone, and the tragedy had taken its place among the woful events of the past, when President Garfield, on a sultry July day, was shot down by a half crazy miscreant in the Baltimore Railway station at Washington, and despite the most careful nursing and the best medical skill, he died about two months later. Then, in 14 209 210 F&OM THE RANCH to THE WHITE HOUSE. the month of September, 1901, came the final tragedy, and McKinley was the third President called to die a martyr's death. Thus, through one of the most lamentable of all crimes, Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States. The as- sassination was so recent, that we all remem- ber the hopeful reports of the medical men which was the cause of a general belief that McKinley would rally and recover from his wound. But it was not to so be. Some time before the death of the Presi- dent, two of Mrs. Roosevelt's children had been in the hospital. They were in need of the tonic of mountain air, and their parents thankfully accepted an invitation to occupy a cottage of a friend at Mount Marcy, the principal mountain peak in the Adirondacks. There, Mr. Roosevelt was staying with his loved ones, when news reached him of the terrible event at Buffalo. He hurried thither as fast as steam could carry him. He was shocked and deeply depressed by the striking down of his Chief, ana no man ever prayed more ardently than he that he would recover from his cruel wounding. The gleam of sun- shine came when he reached the bedside of the sufferer and found him hopeful and apparently in good condition. But the Vice-President was too prudent to pin his faith to the mere feelings of the illustrious PRESIDENT. 211 patient. He asked the honest, confidential opinion of the medical men. Three of them assured him that there was hardly a shadow of doubt that the President would recover. "And will it be safe tor me to return to my family, where my presence is needed ? " " You need have no hesitation whatever," was the reassuring reply* With such a warrant, Mr. Roosevelt has- tened back to Mount Marcy, where wife and sick little ones waited for his coming. He was criticised for not only leaving the suf- ferer at Buffalo, but it was said by some that he engaged in a hunting excursion among the mountains. In truth, he never dreamed of anything of that nature. In the whole broad land, there was no sincerer or more anxious mourner than he. He had arranged with two friends in Buffalo to keep him in- formed by telegraph of the President's daily or hourly condition. The news continued so encouraging that on Thursday morning, September I2th, he planned a little moun- tain trip for himself and family and several boy friends of his children. The household shared his love for vigorous exercise, and with the exception of the youngest two children, they made the five-mile tramp with him. Their plan was to spend the night at an open camp, returning home the next day. 212 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Early on the following morning, two tele- grams reached North Creek, the terminus of the telegraph line, with the news that the President's condition had become so much worse, that the gravest results were feared. Another message arrived from Mr. Roose- velt's secretary, telling him that he was coming on a special train for Mr. Roosevelt. From the terminal these messages were telephoned to the lower club house, and thence carried by team ten miles over the roughest of mountain roads to the cottage where Mr. Roosevelt and his family were staying, although temDorarily absent. One of the veteran Adirondack guides volunteered to take the messages to Mr. Roosevelt. He plunged straightway into the wilderness, with the long, swinging stride which those of his calling can main- tain hour after hour without fatigue. Where he crossed the Hudson River, on a frail foot-bridge, it was less than twenty feet wide. He had traversed half the distance when he met the women of the party re- turning to the club-house, under charge of one of the men. They told him that Mr. Roosevelt and the others had yielded to the temptation to climb Mount Marcy. The guide pushed on, determined to find his man and deliver the messages with which he had been entrusted. He had a long distance PRESIDENT. 213 to travel through the black, tangled forest, and the toil would have worn out many a vigorous person. But this guide had be- come inured to the work ; he knew the country, and not once did he hesitate or lose his way. Hour after hour he tramped on, and, quite early in the afternoon, came upon the party at the summit of Mount Marcy, where they had seated themselves on the ground and were eating lunch with the keenest of enjoyment. When Mr. Roosevelt looked up at the sound of a footstep and saw the tall, thin, muscular guide stalking toward him, with the yellow slips of paper in one hand, he knew he brought momentous news. The Vice-President hurriedly took the messages from the messenger, and neither he nor any of his companions spoke while he exam- ined them. When Mr. Roosevelt could command his voice, he read them aloud. Then, pulling himself together, he rose to his feet, saying that he must return to the club-house at once. With characteristic promptness, he started his long, vigorous stride so rapid that he kept well in advance throughout the whole distance. It can well be imagined that his active brain was surging with thoughts such as had never stirred him before. The imme- diate question was as to what he should dc $14: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. in the unprecedented circumstances. The message from Secretary Loeb was hopeful, and was that of a cooler-headed man than the overstrained Cortelyou. Whose judg- ment should Mr. Roosevelt act upon ? He placed greater weight to the words of the Secretary. If he accepted the alarming mes< sage of Mr. Cortelyou and rushed out of the woods, only to find, upon reaching Buffalo, that the relapse of the President had been temporary, and that he was farther on the road to recovery than before, the action of Mr. Roosevelt would look unseemly eager, and would be sure to bring harsh criticism. It must be remembered, too, that neither of the two gentlemen, with whom the Vice- President had arranged to keep him in- formed, had sent any word to him. In the circumstances, he was warranted in mak- ing the decision not to leave Mount Marcy until Saturday morning, unless the news assumed an alarming character before that time. Mr. Roosevelt and two guides arrived at the club-house a little before seven in the evening. Meanwhile, Secretary Loeb had caught the special train at Albany, and reached North Creek about noon. He be- gan telegraphing inquiries as to when the Vice-President would reach the lower club- house. He kept it up through the after PRESIDENT. 215 noon, without receiving any satisfactory re- sponses. Unfortunately, though perhaps naturally, no later bulletins regarding the President's condition were sent; the only ones were urgent inquiries as to whether Mr. Roosevelt had been found. It must be borne in mind that there was no telephonic communication between the upper and lower club-houses, and it took two hours of hard driving to pass from one to the other. Thus, when Mr. Roosevelt reached the upper house, he found no news later than the tele- grams which had been carried to him on Mount Marcy. He could learn nothing more except by sending to the lower house, which meant an interval of four hours. Meantime, the wisest thing for him to do was to get some sleep, so as to be ready in case a sudden summons came to him. When the messenger reached the lower house, he found no messages for the Vice- President. He called up Secretary Loeb at North Creek, who replied that he had a large number of telegrams and bulletins, which he was holding until he could learn the whereabouts of Mr. Roosevelt. It took considerable time to write out the budget that was sent over the telephone, and it was nine o'clock at night when the messenger started back for the upper house. A fine, misty rain was falling, and the darkness was 216 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. impenetrable, but the man knew the road too well to go astray, and he appeared at the Vice-President's cottage a little before mid- night. He was roused, and read the mes- sages. One of them stated that McKinley was dead, but a later bulletin from Secretary Cortelyou contradicted this, though it said the President was being kept alive by the use of oxygen. There could be no question of the profound gravity of the situation, nor of the call for the utmost haste on the part of the Vice-President. He swallowed a few mouthfuls, flung some articles in his dress-suit case, bade his family good-bye, and before it was midnight sprang into the light wagon and told the driver to travel the thirty-five miles with all possible haste. To obey orders meant a continual succession of perils. One-third of the way was over the old trail formerly used for hauling pig-iron. For most of the dis- tance, a bank, in many places thirty feet high, sloped down to a series of small lakes, while on the other side, huge stumps and boulders were so close to the highway, that the marks showed that they had been scraped by the hubs of many wheels, even in day- light. The road itself is narrow, with many deep mud holes, to pass which at a faster gait than a slow walk, would have insured the wrecking of the wagon, while to skirt PRESIDENT. 217 them would bring the outer wheels within a few inches of the steep and dangerous bank. Death could be avoided only by the driver keeping the horses in the highway all the time. The passenger was impatient, and now and then he urged the driver to do bet* ter, conscious at the same time that he wag doing his best. When the peril decreased, the driver made the horses trot. They hur- ried up the short hills and seemed to be plunging into bottomless pits on the other side; their metal shoes clicked against the stones, and the animals slipped, but in- stantly recovered themselves, while the mas- sive driver on the front seat, peering keenly into the gloom, by the aid of his dim lan- tern, kept his bearings, and was not startled when the hubs of the wheels rasped against stump or rock. Then after a swerve in the other direction, the passenger as well as driver knew they were on the very edge of the perpendicular bank over which men and horses were liable to be pitched head- long. But Mr. Roosevelt was used to such dan- gers. Instead of protesting against haste, he forced the driver to go the limit. The journey ordinarily takes two hours when the sun is shining, but on that memorable night it was made in an hour and a quarter. Be- fore the team halted in front of the lower 218 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. club-house, Mr. Roosevelt leaped out, and dashing up the steps, asked the latest news. The bulletins were handed to him. Then he hurried to the telephone and was speedily in communication with Secretary Loeb at North Creek, who told him the President was sinking and all hope was gone. " I will be with you as soon as I can," said the Vice-President, who bolted some food, while a fresh team was made ready to take him to Aiden Lair, nine miles distant. Two-thirds of the way was the best of the route, but there were many long hills and deep marshes. Another veteran held the reins, and between three and four o'clock in the morning, drew up at Aiden Lair. There a buckboard was waiting, and now that day- light was not far off, the team was driven at headlong speed. Even then President McKinley had been dead for an hour, but Mr. Roosevelt did not know it. Sixteen miles remained to be covered and every one was worse than any of those al- ready passed. But, with watch in hand, the Vice-President insisted that the driver should hurry the wiry blacks, whose speed from the first was headlong to the point of rashness. The account of that night ride from Aiden Lair to North Creek would make a thrilling story if it could be told. It is safe to say that time and again, Mr. Roosevelt escaped death PRESIDENT. 219 by a hair's-breadth, but he has done that so often that it almost seems as if he bears a charmed life. He went through without the slightest mishap, and, a few minutes before five o'clock, clasped the hand of Secretary Loeb and learned that President McKinley was no more. Vice-President Roosevelt arrived in Buf- falo on the afternoon of September 14, and drove at once to the Milburn House where President McKinley lay dead. Overcome by his sorrow, he hurried to offer condol- ence to the stricken widow. He then went to the Wilcox House, to meet Secretary Root, and several members of the Cabinet. The Secretary was hardly able to control his emotions, when he told Mr. Roosevelt that it was the wish of the late President and the Cabinet that he should take the prescribed oath with the least possible delay. An eye- witness has said : " There was not a dry eye in the room. The new President was visibly shaken, but he controlled himself, and when he lifted his hand to swear, it was as steady as though carved in marble. The taking of the oath was an impressive though practi- cally a private ceremony. Secretary Root had a personal talk with Mr. Roosevelt, then, stepping back, said in an almost inaudible voice : ' Mr. Vice-President, I ' Then his voice broke, and for fully two minutes the 220 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. tears caine down his face and his lips quivered so that he could not continue his utterances. There were sympathetic tears from those about him, and two great drops ran down either cheek of the successor of William McKinley. Mr. Root's chin was on his breast. Suddenly throwing back his head, as if with an effort, he continued in a broken voice. It is worth noting that Secretary of War Root was present when Chester A. Arthur took the oath of office, at his home on Lex- ington Avenue, New York, a few days after the assassination of President Garfield. One of what may be considered the first official utterances of President Roosevelt was his statement that he intended to con- tinue unbroken the policy of President McKinley " for the peace and prosperity of our beloved country." These words were received with much satisfaction throughout the country, and nothing could have been more dignified or in better taste. Such being the purpose of the new Presi- dent, it naturally followed that he should ask the members of the old Cabinet to retain their places. Custom would have required each to offer his resignation, but all com- plied with the request made of them. The first proclamation of President Roosevelt follows : PRESIDENT. 221 " By the President of the United States of America. A proclamation : " A terrible bereavement has befallen our people. The President of the United States has been struck down ; a crime committed not only against the Chief Magistrate, but against every law-abiding and liberty-loving citizen. "President McKinley crowned a life of largest love for his fellow-men, of most ear- nest endeavor for their welfare, by a death of Christian fortitude ; and both the way in which he lived his life and the way in which, in the supreme hour of trial, he met his death, will remain forever a precious heri- tage of our people. " It is meet that we, as a Nation, express our abiding love and reverence for his life, our deep sorrow for his untimely death. "Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do appoint Thursday next, September nine- teenth, the day in which the body of the dead President will be laid in its last earthly resting-place, a day of mourning and prayer throughout the United States. " I earnestly recommend all the people to assemble on that day in their respective places of divine worship, there to bow down in submission to the will of Almighty God, and to pay out of full hearts their homage of 222 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. love and reverence to the great and good President whose death has smitten the Na- tion with bitter grief. " In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. " Done at the city of Washington the fourteenth day of September, A.D. one thousand nine hundred and one, and of the independence of the United States the one- hundred-and-twenty-sixth. " THEODORE ROOSEVELT." CHAPTER XVI. A NATIONAL MENACE. EVERY true American is proud of his country, and every intelligent person, who can make an impartial comparison, must concede that we are the superior of all other nations, in everything that tends to make a people truly great. The Republic of the West is the grandest that ever existed since the world began, and is the hope of coming generations, of civilization, of progress, and of Christianity. But there are spots on the sun, and we are still a long way from perfection. Conscious of many grave imperfections, we still make no serious effort to correct them. Where all are agreed that some policy is as bad as bad can be, we still pursue it. Only when the results become intolerable, does outraged moral sense awake to action. Our people at heart are sound. When they realize to its full extent the depths of infamy to which government is sunk by the reign of bosses, the citizens turn in their wrath and smite them. But, after all, such awakenings are 223 224 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. only spasms of virtue. Ere long the cunning bosses work their way again to the top, and the " machine " operates as smoothly as be- fore. .No people in the world are as patient and long suffering as we. One of the gravest menaces to our national safety is the indiscriminate immigration that has not only been permitted for years, but is increasing at a perilous rate. More than a million emigrants leave their homes on the other side of the ocean every year and settle in this country. They are disgorged by the European nations and drop into the hopper that is always yawning invitingly open to them. We have an enormous country, which, even with this prodigious inflow, will not be as densely populated as some portions of Europe for generations to come. These people have formed settlements and com- munities in the Southwest, West and North- west that are models, as respects orderliness, industry and thrift. They are welcome and beneficial additions, and no one grudges them a dwelling-place among us. But the alarming feature of all this is that among these multitudes are some of the worst miscreants that ever breathed. They come here unsuspected, to work their mis- chief, and they do it without hindrance from the authorities. Some of them have wrought such evil at home, that they have been forced A NATIONAL MENACE. 2^5 to flee, from their own weak, corrupt govern- mental systems. When there is no safety left for them at home, they sheathe their knives, hide their bottles of poison about their clothes, and with murder in their hearts, flee to America, as resolute as ever to carry on their deviltry when opportunity offers. There are thousands of them to-day living under the protection of our laws and eager for an opportunity to commit any crime no matter how shocking its nature. There was a good deal of truth in the story that one of these wretches when questioned on his arrival, as to which political party he would support, replied : " I don't know yet ; whichever it is, it's got to be agin the government." These anarchists are the reptiles of society who ought to be crushed, as any man would crush with his heel the head of a venomous serpent coiled at his feet. We have been persistently tolerant of them and have reaped the awful consequences. As long ago as 1884, a lot of anarchists incited a crowd of 10,000 men, most of whom were on a strike, -to attack the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago. A fierce conflict with the police followed. Some nights later, a crowd of men and boys, most of whom were armed, held a meeting at the old Haymarket Plaza, where the most incendiary speeches 226 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. were made. In the midst of one of these wild harangues, Inspector Bonfield, with a column of policemen, plowed his way through the mob and ordered the speaker to cease his address. A furious fight was precipitated, during which one of the anarch- ists hurled a dynamite bomb among the offi- cers with appalling results. Seven police- men were killed, eleven crippled for life and twelve so grievously hurt that they could not do duty for a year afterward. The brave Inspector Bonfield and his men did not stay their hands and succeeded in dispersing the mob. The. leaders in this crime were arrested and given a fair trial. Their guilt was so clearly established, that several were hanged and others sentenced to long terms of im- prisonment. As soon as Governor Altgeld came into office in 1893, he pardoned all that remained in prison. This indiscrim- inate turning loose of red-handed criminals is another of the crying abuses of executive power. The condemned murderer becomes the pet of gushing women, and the members of the jury who have justly condemned him, often unite in asking for his pardon. One of the most vicious organizations among the Italians is known as the " Mafia." It is composed mainly of assassins, who are ready, whenever ordered, to " remove " any A NATIONAL MENACE. 227 objectionable person whether one of their own countrymen or an American official. They wrought so much mischief in New Orleans, that Chief Hennessy set out to ex- tirpate them. When he had brought a num- ber to justice, he was shot down on his own threshold, in the month of October, 1890. This outrage was too flagrant to be borne. Of those arrested, nineteen were indicted, and the guilt of six was clearly established. To the dismay of the city, every one of the men was acquitted. The jury had been packed. This was proved, and those en- gaged in the shameful work were indicted for the crime, which strikes at the very foun- dation of society. All New Orleans was thrown into such irrestrainable rage that the citizens attacked the prison where the Ital- ians were confined, shot nine and hanged two outside the jail. As is almost invariably the case with such acts, it is quite probable that vengeance was wreaked upon the inno- cent. Five of the victims had not been tried, and it will never be known whether or not they were guilty. Following the Chicago and New Orleans crimes, something in the nature of a reac- tion set in against the anarchists, and it was generally believed that we should have no further trouble with them. The New Or- leans outrage was not distinctively an an- 228 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. archistic one, though it was actuated by the same diabolical spirit that inspires those who look upon all rulers and legal authori- ties as the enemies of society, fit only to die by the hands of the assassin. The awakening from this fancied security came at Buffalo, in 1901, when President McKinley was shot by a genuine anarchist. The death of Lincoln was due to the hot resentments caused by the Civil War ; Gar- field was slain by a disappointed office- seeker, but McKinley was killed by aq anarchist. Whether he was the agent of some organization will never be known. In all probability he was, and was selected to slay one of the best of men. The strongest proof of this being the case, is his own strenuous denial of it. It is to be feared that we are not yet through with the anarchists. When they shall have assassinated some more of our Presidents and foremost citizens, we may awake to the duty of stamping them out. In his first message to Congress, Decem- ber 3, 1901, President Roosevelt made the following impressive references to the mur- der of McKinley and to the menace of Anarchism : " The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the 6th of September President McKinley was shot A NATIONAL MENACE. 229 by an Anarchist while attending the Pan- American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the i4th of that month. " Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American President, have a peculiarly sinister signifi- cance. Both President Lincoln and Presi- dent Garfield were killed by assassins of types unfortunately not uncommon in his- tory, President Lincoln falling a victim to the terrible passions aroused by four years of civil war, and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed office- seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved criminal belonging to that body of criminals who object to all governments, good and bad alike, who are against any form of popular liberty, if it is guaranteed by even 'the most just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people's sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot. " It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley's death he was the most widely loved man in all the United States, while we have never had any public man of his position who has been so wholly 230 FROM THE RA^tCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. free from the bitter animosities incident to public life. His political opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most gen- erous tribute to the broad kindliness of na- ture, the sweetness and gentleness of char- acter, which so endeared him to his close associates. " To a standard of lofty integrity in public life, he united the tender affections and home virtues which are all important in the makeup of national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for the Union, he also shone as an example to all our people because of his conduct in the most sacred and intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to re- spect him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those murderous criminals who seek to excuse their crim- inality by asserting that it is exercised for political ends inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power. But for this assas- sination even this base apology cannot be urged. 11 President McKinley was a man of mod- erate means, a man whose stock sprang from the sturdy tillers of the soil, who had him- self belonged among the wage-workers, who had entered the army as a private soldier. A NATIONAL MENACE. 231 Wealth was not struck at when the Presi- dent was assassinated, but the honest toil which is content with moderate gains after a lifetime of unremitting labor, largely in the service of the public. Still less was power struck at in the sense that power is irre- sponsible or centred in the hands of any one individual. The blow was not aimed ' at tyranny or wealth. It was aimed at one of the strongest champions the wage-worker has ever had ; at one of the most faithful representatives of the system of public rights and representative government who has ever risen to public office. " President McKinley filled that political office for which the entire people vote, and no President not even Lincoln himself was ever more earnestly anxious to represent the well-thought-out wishes of the people ; his one anxiety in every crisis was to keep in closest touch with the people, to find out what they thought, and to endeavor to give expression to their thought, after having en- deavored to guide that thought aright. He had just been re-elected to the Presidency, because the majority of our citizens, the majority of our farmers and wage-workers, believed that he had faithfully upheld their interests for four years. They felt them- selves in close and intimate touch with him. They felt that he represented so well and 232 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. so honorably all their ideals and aspirations that they wished him to continue for an- other four years to represent them. " And this was the man at whom the as- sassin struck ! That there might be nothing lacking to complete the Judaslike infamy of his act, he took advantage of an occasion when the President was meeting the people generally, and, advancing as if to take the hand outstretched to him in kindly and brotherly fellowship, he turned the noble and generous confidence of the victim into an opportunity to strike the fatal blow. There is no baser deed in all the annals of crime. " The shock, the grief of the country, are bitter in the minds of all who saw the dark days while the President yet hovered be- tween life and death. At last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes, and the breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony uttered no words save of forgiveness to his murderer, of love for his friends, and of un- faltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such a death, crowning the glory of such a life, leaves us with infinite sorrow, but with such pride in what he had accomplished and in his own personal character, that we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck at the Nation. We mourn a good and great President who is dead ; but while we mourn A NATIONAL MENACE. 233 we are lifted up by the splendid achieve- ments of his life and the grand heroism with which he met his death. " When we turn from the man to the Nation, the harm done is so great as to ex- cite our gravest apprehensions, and to de- mand our wisest and most resolute action. This criminal was a professed Anarchist, inflamed by the teachings of professed An- archists, and probably also by the reckless utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits of malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred. The wind is sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they cannot escape their share of responsibility for the whirlwind that is reaped. This ap- plies alike to the deliberate demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism, and to the crude and foolish visionary who, for what- ever reason, apologizes for crime or excites aimless discontent. " The blow was aimed not at this Presi- dent, but at all Presidents ; at every symbol of Government. President McKinley was as emphatically the embodiment of the pop- ular will of the Nation expressed through the forms of law as a New England town meeting is in similar fashion the embodi- ment of the law-abiding purpose and prac- tice of the people of the town. On no con- 234 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. ceivable theory could the murder of the President be accepted as due to protest against ' inequalities in the social order,' save as the murder of all the freemen en- gaged in a town meeting could be accepted as a protest against that social inequality which puts a malefactor in jail. Anarchy is no more an expression of ' social discontent ' than picking pockets or wife beating. "The Anarchist, and especially the An- archist in the United States, is merely one type of criminal, more dangerous than any other because he represents the same de- pravity in a greater degree. The man who advocates Anarchy, directly or indirectly, in any shape or fashion, or the man who apolo- gizes for Anarchists and their deeds, makes himself morally accessory to murder before the fact. The Anarchist is a criminal whose perverted instincts lead him to prefer confu- sion and chaos to the most beneficent form of social order. His protest of concern for workingmen is outrageous in its impudent falsity ; for if the political institutions of this country do not afford opportunity to every honest and intelligent son of toil, then the door of hope is forever closed against him. The Anarchist is everywhere not merely the enemy of system and of progress, but the deadly foe of liberty. If ever Anarchy is triumphant, its triumph will last A NATIONAL MENACE. 235 for but one red moment, to be succeeded for ages by the gloomy night of despotism. 41 For the Anarchist himself, whether he preaches or practices his doctrines, we need not have one particle more concern than for any ordinary murderer. He is not the victim of social or political injustice. There are no wrongs to remedy in his case. The cause of his criminality is to be found in his own evil passions, and in the evil conduct of those who urge him on, not in any failure by others or by the State to do justice to him or his. He is a malefactor, and nothing else. He is in no sense, in no shape or way, a ' product of social conditions/ save as a highwayman is ' produced ' by the fact that an unarmed man happens to have a purse. It is a travesty upon the great and holy names of liberty and freedom to permit them to be invoked in such a cause. No man or body of men preaching Anarchistic doctrines should be allowed at large any more than if preaching the murder of some specified private individual. Anarchistic speeches, writings and meetings are essen- tially seditious and treasonable. 11 1 earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the exercise of its wise discretion it should take into consideration the coming to this country of Anarchists or persons professing principles hostile to all Govern- 236 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. ment and justifying the murder of those placed in authority. Such individuals as those who not long ago gathered in open meeting to glorify the murder of King Humbert of Italy perpetrate a crime, and the law should insure their rigorous punish- ment. They and those like them should be kept out of this country ; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came ; and far-reach- ing provision should be made for the punish- ment of those who stay. No matter calls more urgently for the wisest thought of the Congress. "The Federal courts should be given jurisdiction over any man who kills or at- tempts to kill the President, or any man who, by the Constitution or by law, is in line of succession for the Presidency, while the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt should be proportioned to the enormity of the offence against our institutions. " Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race, and all mankind should band against the Anarchist. His crime should be made an offence against the law of Nations, like piracy, and that form of manstealing known as the slave trade ; for it is of far blacker infamy than either. It should be so declared by treaties among all civilized powers. Such treaties would give to the A NATIONAL MENACE. 237 Federal government the power of dealing with the crime. " A grim commentary upon the folly of the Anarchist position was afforded by the attitude of the law toward this very criminal who had just taken the life of the President. The people would have torn him limb from limb had it not been that the law he defied was at once invoked in his behalf. So far from his deed being committed on behalf of the people against the Government, the Government was obliged at once to exert its full police power to save him from instant death at the hands of the people. More- over, his deed worked not the slightest dislocation in our Governmental system, and the danger of a recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great it might grow, would work only in the direction of strengthening and giving harshness to the forces of order. No man will ever be restrained from becoming President by any fear as to his personal safety. If the risk to the President's life became great, it would mean that the office would more and more come to be filled by men of a spirit which would make them resolute and merciless in dealing with every friend of disorder. This great country will not fall into Anarchy, and if Anarchists should ever become a serious menace to its institutions they would not merely be 238 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. stamped out, but would involve in their ruin every active or passive sympathizer with their doctrines. The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled, it burns like a consuming flame." CHAPTER XVII. A SQUARE DEAL. THE young man who, at the age of twenty- four years, stood up alone, and in the face of ridicule, taunts and jeers, insisted in the New York Legislature that the scandalous charges against prominent officials should be probed to the bottom; who compelled the recognition of the splendid merits of Civil Service Reform; who, as Police Commis- sioner of the metropolis of our country, en- forced for the first time the laws on the statute books and gained the respect of the police and the foes of the measures; who faced death a score of times in pestilent Cuba; who, as Governor, ruled the Empire State by the Ten Commandments, who had proved his unshakable integrity and his res- olution that every one, high and low, should have a square deal; this young man was now President of the United States. And he was the same as at the beginning, except that he had grown mentally, in knowl- edge, in judgment, in tact and in statesman- ship. A political opponent, in answer to the charge that Mr. Roosevelt was a demagogue, 239 240 PROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE said in the London Times : " If it is meant to say Mr. Roosevelt is one who seeks popu- lar favor at the expense of honest convic- tion, it is a very unjust characterization. The quality which, above all others, makes Theodore Roosevelt the strongest individu- ality in America to-day, is his absolute sin- cerity in dealing with public questions and his unfeigned indifference to what others may think or say with regard to his course in discharging his official duties. He is the personification of courage, truth and manli- ness, and is a clean, straight man in all rela- tions of life. When he was President of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, he compelled a strict enforce- ment of the excise and other laws, and this incurred the bitter enmity of the element that controlled votes. When the Spanish war came on, and his regiment was filled so promptly by the best righting material in the States, he asked the President to appoint to its command an unknown assistant surgeon in the army who had had experience as a soldier, and whose talents and ability he had learned to appreciate. He took a subor- dinate place himself, but his judgment has been confirmed by the fact that his selection is now a major-general and the able and accomplished Military Governor of Cuba (1898). These were not the acts of a dema- A SQUARE DEAL. 34; gogue, but of a faithful and patriotic citizen, who preferred the public good to his own selfish interests. He despises all trickery and sham, and is strong enough to lead with- out resorting to any base or unworthy prac- tices. My testimony is not that of a partisan I know the President personally, but we were trained in different political schools. Whilst he was a Republican member of the Civil Service Commission at Washington, I was a Democratic Congressman. He be- lieves in party organization as a means of carrying out the principles which he thinks should be observed in administering the Government, but has never been narrow or bitter in dealing with political opponents. He is the first President we have had in forty years whose views are uncolored by personal experiences or observation during the Civil War, and is emphatically the product of a new era in American politics. He did not want the nomination for the Vice-Presidency last year, as he had his heart set on seeing completed work which he had begun as Governor of New York. He is hampered by no pledges, has no especial favorites to reward or enemies to punish, and is controlled by no clique or ring or boss. He has been a voluminous writer, but has dealt with no theories, and is therefore com- mitted to no peculiar politics. In writing 16 24:2 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. the history of the Winning of the West, or of his own Rough Riders, or of his hunting adventures, he has always dealt with action. He has never been a dreamer or a poet or a philosopher, but an earnest, practical man of affairs, who takes the world as it is and tries to make it better by what he does, not by what he preaches. I have several times seen it stated that because the family whose name he bears came from Holland, he may take sides with the Boers against England. This will not be given much consideration when it is known that his ancestors were three-fourths British and not exceeding one- fourth Dutch, and that he is altogether American. Nor is he a man to forget how generously Great Britain treated his country during the Spanish War, in which he bore so heroic a part. He has enough of care and responsibility as chief executive of the United States without interfering in any respect with the affairs of other countries." Now, the rule is that every writer who attempts to treat, in a greater or less degree, of the life of a public man, shall pronounce judgment upon his public acts. The writer is supposed to possess superior judgment to that of his subject; he is expected to point out the mistakes of his hero, to show how much better it would have been had he adopted another policy, and to regret that he A SQUARE DEAL. 243 fell short at certain stages. The biographer is the schoolteacher, who arrives on the ground after his pupil has left school, and is therefore beyond his control. It is lament- able, but the mischief having been done, the sagacious instructor makes it all clear for the benefit of others. One indisputable truth, however, should be borne in mind : the subject of all these criticisms probably knows ten times more about the matters criticised and his own policy than do his critics. He is familiar with all the conditions, many of which are unknown to the public, he is in the best sit- uation of any man in the world to form cor- rect judgments, and with his ability, training and experience, the chances are vastly in favor of his being right, when we, with our imperfect knowledge, think he is wrong. There have been acts of President Roosevelt which impressed many of us as ill-advised, and we wondered why he did not do differ- ently. None the less, we could never escape the conviction that he knew a good deal more about the matter than any of us could know, and we decided to await the verdict of time. Meanwhile, we would trust him. The country had managed thus far to get on very well without our help, and it was fair to be- lieve that it could gontiriue to limp forward without such aid. 244 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. It often looked during the War for the Union, as if the only men who did not know how to carry it through to a success- ful conclusion were the military leaders who performed the task. All the newspapers persistently instructed them in their duties, and vehemently condemned the government for ignoring their counsel. In one instance, President Lincoln yielded to the newspaper clamor " On to Richmond," and as a result the most humiliating Union defeat of the war followed. In hundreds of grocery stores, country taverns and loafing places, crowds of men, who had never shouldered a musket or heard the tap of a drum, or seen a body of troops, agreed that the country was going to the dogs, because the authorities at Wash- ington were totally unfit to direct military affairs, kept in place incompetent officers and failed to do what the critics declared were the simplest dictates of common sense. At one of these places, a barefooted, freckle- faced urchin stood leaning against the coun- ter, listening with open-mouthed wonder to the endless criticisms. The spokesman was demonstrating with pen and pencil, how " Little Mac " ought to have swung his army round to the rear and gobbled up the whole rebel army, captured General Lee and com- pelled peace within thirty days. The list- A SQUARE DEAL. 245 eners gravely nodded their heads and admitted that little or nothing was to be hoped, so long as we had a blind President at the head of affairs. Then upspake the urchin : " Say, why don't you fellers go down to Washington and take charge of things your- selves ? " The spokesman of the critics angrily sug- gested to the impudent youngster that it was time he went home and attended to the chores for his mother. The urchin went and thenceforward was made to understand that he was persona non grata with that particular group of wise men. The significance of this incident is that since we have reached the period when Theodore Roosevelt had become President of the greatest republic in the world, we shall refrain from any attempt to sit in judg- ment upon his public policy. We have made a mild criticism or two, but shall do so no more ; for, as we have said, we cannot escape the conviction that the subject of such criticism knows a mighty sight more about the matters under consideration than we or any one else will know for a consider- able time to come, But, if we cannot condemn, neither can we refrain from commending certain acts of the President, which were so unconven 24:6 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. tional that it may be doubted whether any of his predecessors would have acted as he did. Every one knows of the horrible out- rages to which the Jews have been subjected in Russia. The crimes repeatedly commit- ted against them have not been surpassed in ferocity by the Apaches of the Southwest. During the Easter season in 1903, these people at Kishenev were assailed by infuri- ated mobs, and men, women and children were subjected to horrifying barbarities. So diabolical indeed were the crimes committed that the local authorities suppressed the news and the outside world knew nothing of them until a few of the wretched survivors reached this country and told the truth. The unstable Czar was ignorant until the tidings went back across the ocean to him. Even he was shocked, and it is only fair to say that he took measures to punish the ring- leaders, and removed the governor of the province who had winked at the massacres. The Jews of western Europe and of the United States were incensed, and insisted that their respective governments should make protest to Russia, chiefly to prevent a repetition of the outrages, which was almost certain to take place. As a means of suc- cess, memorials were drawn up and signed by people of all religions, with the view of having them presented through the usual A SQUARE DEAL. 247 diplomatic channels to the court at St. Pe- tersburg. Such action was displeasing to the Russian government, and it conveyed an intimation to this country among others that the protests would not be received from any source, relating to a matter that was ex- clusively a domestic interest. This hint was enough for the European governments, which immediately dropped the subject. But it was otherwise with President Roose- velt. When the Russian ambassador failed to put in official form the intimation inform- ally thrown out, he told the Jews that he would do his best to have the matter brought before the Czar. Soon after the memorial, signed by the foremost clergymen, educators, public officials and citizens in the country, was placed in the President's hands. The great task remained to get the paper before the Russian Emperor. Europe was amazed at our " nerve." Some of the press believed that the Czar would be so affronted at what he must regard as an insult, that diplomatic relations would be suspended, with the possibility of war, in the near future. Nothing could exceed the cleverness with which the delicate matter was handled by our government. Secretary Hay instructed our representative at the Russian court to inquire whether that government would re- ceive the memorial. This letter of instruc- 248 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. tions contained the full text of the memorial, so that in making his inquiry, our charge got the all-important document itself before the Russian government. All that President Roosevelt set out to do having been done, he was prepared to accept with equanimity the refusal of the court to receive the me- morial. And all this had been accomplished without a shadow of offence to the Russian government. Moreover, though the protest has not wholly stayed the hands of the per- secutors of Jews, it certainly has done a good deal in that direction. The negro has been for years, as he doubt- less will continue to be for years to come, a disturbing element in American politics. Francis E. Leupp, after a frank talk with President Roosevelt on the question of Southern patronage, wrote to the New York Evening Post : " The President, as a man who believes in parties, will prefer Republicans to Demo- crats, and strong party men to those who are uncertain and indifferent. But if it came to a question between an unfit Republican and a fit Democrat, he would not hesitate a mo- ment to choose the Democrat. It has always been Mr. Roosevelt's desire to see the South back in full communion with the other sec- tions in conducting the national government, instead of standing on the outside whenever A SQUARE DEAL. 349 a Republican administration is installed at Washington. This is not the case with any other section, and he would take great pride in breaking up the South. " And the negro ? He must take the chances like the rest. If he be a man who has earned the respect of his white neighbors by his efforts to be a good citizen, by avoid- ing disreputable associations and trying to be helpful in the community where he lives, he has nothing to fear from President Roose- velt because of his color ; but if he has led a loose life, ignored his obligations to his fellow-men individually and to society and the law, he will have no favor whatever be- cause he is black or because he is a Repub- lican. The standard of personal character and civic virtue which the President will set up for the negro's emulation is better em- bodied in Booker T. Washington than in any other man of color known to the public. By this measure every negro who aspires to office will be tested. By the degree in which he approaches or falls short of it he will be judged fit or unfit. As illustrative of the President's tact, the Indianola affair may be recalled. For several years the postmistress at Indianola, Missis- sippi, had been a colored woman, named Mrs. Cox. Nothing was ever said against her character, or her conduct of the office. 250 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. But the wave of race prejudice rises and falls in some sections of the South and the hour came in the winter of 1901-02, when a mob threatened Mrs. Cox's life unless she gave up the office. She knew that such threats if disregarded, meant the deaths in all probability of herself and family. So she sent her resignation to Washington and with her children left the town. The news of the outrage naturally caused great excitement throughout the country, and the national authorities were stirred. Postmaster-General Henry C. Payne thought the majesty of our government should be vindicated, and that the postmistress should be escorted back to Indianola by a military guard, which should protect her in the conduct of her office. The President shared in the indignation, and had it been necessary he would have taken such a radical course. But another method equally effective pre- sented itself, and parried the raising of all constitutional questions. He ordered the post-office closed. This was done and the people who had made life intolerable for the postmistress, now had to go five miles to get their mail from another office. But dating beyond the negro was the Indian. He is the original American, and our forefathers found he -had been on the ground for many long centuries before the A SQUARE DEAL. 251 white man dreamed of the existence of a western continent. The same forefathers straightway began a system of robbery, mal- treatment and murder of the red men, who had no rights which their persecutors felt themselves bound to respect. The descend- ants of the same forefathers have rigorously carried out that policy ever since, with the inevitable result of countless massacres by the Indians, in which the law has prevailed that the innocent suffer for the crimes of the guilty. This is not the place to discuss the Indian question. Upon that, as upon all others, President Roosevelt holds decided views. He does not believe in feeding, and support- ing the Indians in idleness. There is no reason why they should not work as their Anglo-Saxon brothers do. The vast irriga- tion projects that our government is con- structing in many parts of the West offer a fine chance for a practical test of his belief that the Indian can be made a self-supporting, citizen. Not long since we should have smiled grimly at the proposal to turn the Apache into a good, everyday laborer. When we think of that most terrible tribe on the con- tinent, we recall Geronimo, Cochise, Mangus and other leaders who swept through the Southwest, like the demons they were, leav- ,252 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. ing a trail of fire and blood behind them. It seems grotesque to picture them toiling like the Italians and Celts on our public streets or buildings or works. But at this writing, the American engineers are working a small army of Apaches in Arizona, in construct- ing mountain roads and digging ditches and canals. These dusky toilers are the same men who raided with Geronimo, and the hands of many of them have been crimsoned by the blood of fathers, mothers and babes. Not only are they working regularly, but, incredible as it may seem, their overseers declare that they are bet- ter and more satisfactory workmen than the ordinary laborers. Hundreds of Nava- jos, Pimas, and Pueblos are employed on similar works, not only in Arizona, but else- where. The railroads give employment to a large number. In Colorado the sugar beet planters depend more and more each j^ear upon the help of the aborigines. During the hop-picking season in Oregon and Wash- ington, numerous families of Indians move from field to field until all the crop is gath- ered. Over the entire western country, the army of dusky laborers is growing rapidly each year, and the practical wisdom of Pres- ident Roosevelt's views has already been amply demonstrated. The readiness of the President to act when A SQUARE DEAL. 253 :t is his duty to do so was shown during the bloody strikes among the Arizona miners in 1903. These became so serious that the Governor notified the President that the civil authorities were no longer able to con- trol the mob. Within the same half hour in which this despatch was received, a de- tachment of United States troops was hurry ^ ing to the scene of disorder. Many conservative persons and papers friendly to Mr. Roosevelt, condemned his course during the strike of the anthracite coal miners of Pennsylvania in 1902. They thought he was stepping outside of his high office, and that constitutionally he could take no cognizance of the unfortunate state of af- fairs, whose burdensome effect soon made itself felt throughout most of the Union. As a rule, the specially ill results of a strike are not wide-spreading. Some inconveniences may be caused in a greater or less degree at a distance, but the chief evil is inflicted at home. But here was a condition from which it is hardly too much to say that every one in the North suffered. Coal has be- come a necessity. Not only did its price double and triple, but in many instances it could not be obtained at all. The day seemed near at hand when not a pound would be mined of the deposit of millions of tons, and with winter at hand, one shuddered 54 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. to think of the suffering and death that must follow. The deadlock between the employers and the miners remained unbroken. A promi- nent authority said that within a month coal would become as much of a necessity for all the inhabitants of the States north of Mason and Dixon's line as food or milk or water, and those who stood in the way of its supply at reasonable rates were the enemies of all the people, with a criminality nothing short of murder. Urgent telegrams were sent to the President by the Governor of Massa- chusetts, the Mayors of New York, Chicago and Detroit and by the New York Board of Trade. Most of these had remedies to sug- gest, some of which were revolutionary in character. What seemed the most feasible plan was for the government to seize the coal mines under its right of eminent do- main. The more conservative saw the grave peril in such a step. None the less every one was insistent that the situation was fast becoming so unbearable that some means, must be found of ending it without delay. The alarm was profound. Mayor Low said in his telegram that the existing situa- tion did immense injustice to millions of in- nocent people and the welfare of a large section of the country demanded the imme- diate rsgumptiqri of anthracite coal mining. A SQUARE DEAL. 255 The Governor of Massachusetts went to Washington to plead the cause of the eastern cities, where the peril would soon become overwhelming. It is conceded that the crisis that had come so unexpectedly upon the country was more dangerous than any that had occurred since the civil war. Amid all the din, organized capital stood inflexibly upon its rights. It owned the mines, it refused to yield to the demands of the strikers, and bade defiance to any outside interference. In all his " strenuous " career, President Roosevelt was never confronted by a more trying problem. He was as reso- lute as ever to do right, but, how was he to know what was right ? It would seem that the most obvious remedy would be to convene Congress in extraordinary session, and throw the re- sponsibility upon that body. But does any one need to be told what the result would have been ? Nearly every member would have hurried to Washington, loaded and primed with a panacea for the evil ; some would have come as the mouthpieces of labor organizations ; others would have represent- ed capital, and wrangling would have made clear, clean cut, sensible action an impossi- bility. A timid President or a demagogue would have waited for the regular assem- bling of Congress, and let it wrestle with the 256 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. problem. But Congress would not convene until December, and before that time, the Northern States would be in the depths of a coalless winter. The right thing to do, as it seemed to the President, was to organize a board of arbitra tion, composed of members who would com- mand the respect of the country and the confidence of the miners and their em- ployers. He consulted with the most emi- nent lawyers, and they told him that his authority to organize such a board was very doubtful. Indeed they did not believe that the warrant existed. They asked him what assurance he could have that Congress would sanction his action, or that it would vote money to pay the expenses of the arbitra- tion ; and that the parties concerned would carry out the award of the commission when it should be made. All these objections were formidable, but, if the first could be overcome, little difficulty was likely to be met with the others. In- stead, therefore, of convening Congress, the President called the leaders on both sides to Washington. He consulted frankly, listened to their arguments and stated his own views with his usual force and clearness. He knew that whatever these representative men agreed upon, Congress would not dare to refuse to ratify. The composition of the A SQUAEE DEAL. 357 Commission was fixed, and, as the first in- dispensable step, the President would pledge all the parties in interest to accept and ful- fill the decree of the arbitrators. This plan was carried out in spirit and letter. One of the most crushing calamities that could overtake this country was averted. The President was condemned for what many declared was a complete surrender to labor. What higher tribute can be made to his moral heroism than the fact that when he acted as he did, he felt absolutely certain that it meant the end of his political career ? What man could have measured up to such a demand upon the best part of his nature ? It was again the question What is right for me to do ? And having settled the question with his conscience, he did not hesitate. The belief that he had made an eternal enemy of capital and committed political hari kari was one of the mistakes which Theodore Roosevelt has made in the course of his life. In his address at Sioux Falls, South Da- kota, in April, 1903, the President referred to this Commission in the following words : " The coal strike in the anthracite regions threatened our nation with a disaster second to none which has befallen us since the days of the Civil War. Their report was made just before the Senate adjourned at the J7 258 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. special session ; and no government docu- ment of recent years marks a more impor- tant piece of work better done, and there is none which teaches sounder social morality to our people. The Commission consisted of seven as good men as were to be found in the country, representing the bench, the Church, the army, the professions, the em- ployers and the employed. They acted as a unit, and the report which they unani- mously signed is a masterpiece of com- mon sense and sound doctrine on the very question with which our people should most deeply concern themselves. The immediate effect of the Commission's appointment and action was of vast and incalculable benefit to the nation ; bat the ultimate effect will be even better, if capitalist, wage-worker, and lawmaker alike will take to heart and act upon the lessons set forth in the report they have made." CHAPTER XVIII. THE MAN OF PEACE. EVERY one ardently hopes and prays for the hastening of the day when nations shall go to war no more, and the whole world shall be at peace. It is beyond compre- hension that beings created in the image of their Creator should risk and sacrifice their own lives in trying to kill one another. In the nature of things, there has never been a war in which one" party was not blamable, and in most cases both were criminally guilty. The trend of all civilized peoples is toward the peaceful settlement of disputes, and though the happy era is a long time in coming, it is destined to reach us sooner or later. Then indeed will dawn the millen- nium. It seems like a grim irony on human na- ture that the Czar of Russia should be the originator and founder of The Hague Tribune of peace, the body whose ostensible object is to settle the quarrels among nations not by the sword, but by arbitration, which should be the court of resort between indi- 259 260 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. viduals, as well as by great powers. It did considerable of what may be termed pre- liminary work, and in October, 1904, Secre- tary of State Hay, obeying the instructions of the President, sent a note to the American representatives at the courts of the govern- ments that had accepted the acts of The Hague Conference of 1899, reciting the great work done by that council of nations, and inviting a conference of the signatory powers for the disposal of such questions as had been left over by the former sessions. Secretary Hay continued as follows : " On the 24th of September, ultimo, these resolutions were presented to the President by a numerous deputation of the Interpar- liamentary Union. The President accepted the charge offered him, feeling it to be most appropriate that the executive of the nation which had welcomed the conference to its hospitality should give voice to its impres- sive utterances in a cause which the Amer- ican Government and people hold dear. He announced that he would at an early date invite the other nations, parties to The Hague conventions, to reassemble, with a view to pushing forward toward completion the work already begun at The Hague, by considering the questions which the first conference had left unsettled, with the express provision that there should be a second conference, THE MAN OF PEACE, 261 " In accepting this trust the President was not unmindful of the fact, so vividly brought home to all the world, that a great war is now in progress. He recalled the circumstances that at the time when, on August 24, 1898, His Majesty the Emperor of Russia sent forth his invitation to the na- tions to meet in the interest of peace, the United States and Spain had merely halted in their struggle to devise terms of peace. While at the present moment no armistice between the parties now contending is in sight, the fact of an existing war is no reason why the nations should relax the efforts they have so successfully made hitherto toward the adoption of rules of conduct which may make more remote the chances of future wars between them. In 1899 the conference of The Hague dealt solely with the larger general problems which confronts all nations, and assumed no function of in- tervention or suggestion in the settlement of the terms of peace between the United States and Spain. It might be the same with a reassembled conference at the present time. Its efforts would naturally lie in the direction of further codification of the uni- versal ideas of right and justice which we call international law ; its mission would be to give them future effect. "The President directs that you will 262 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. bring the foregoing consideration to the attention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the government to which you are accred- ited, and in direct conference with him, ascertain to what extent that government is disposed to act in the matter. " Should his Excellency invite suggestion as to the character of the questions to be brought before the proposed second peace conference, you may say to him that at this time it would seem premature to couple the tentative invitation thus extended with a categorical programme of subjects of discus- sion. It is only by comparison of views that a general accord can be reached as to the matters to be considered by the new con- ference. It is desirable that in the forma- tion of a programme the distinction should be kept clear between the matters which belong to the province of international law and those which are conventional as between individual governments. The final act of The Hague Conference, dated July 29, 1899, kept the distinction clearly in sight. Among the broader general questions affecting the right and justice of the relation of sovereign states which were then relegated to a future conference were the rights and duties of neutrals, the inviolability of private property in naval warfare, and the bombardment of ports, towns and villages by a naval force. THE MAN OF PEACE. 63 The other points mentioned in the final act take form of suggestions for consideration by interested governments. "The three points mentioned cover a large field. The first, especially, touching the rights and duties of neutrals, is of uni- versal importance. Its rightful disposition affects the interests and well-being of all the world. The neutral is something more than an onlooker. His acts of omission or com- mission may have an influence indirect, but tangible on a war actually in progress, while, on the other hand, he may suffer from the exigencies of the belligerents. It is this phase of warfare which deeply concerns the world at large. Efforts have been made time and again to formulate rules of action applicable to its more material aspects, as in the Declaration of Paris. As recently as April 28, of this year, the Congress of the United States adopted a resolution reading thus: " ' Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That it is the sense of the Congress of the United States that it is desirable, in the interest of uni- formity of action by the maritime states of the world in time of war, that the President endeavor to bring about an understanding among the principal maritime powers with a 264 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. view of incorporating into the permanent law of civilized nations the principle of the exemption of all private property at sea, not contraband of war, from capture or destruc- tion by belligerents. " ' Approved April 28, 1904. " Other matters closely affecting the rights of neutrals are the distinction to be made between absolute and conditional contra- band of war and the inviolability of the official and private correspondence of neu- trals. "As for the duties of neutrals toward the belligerents, the field is scarcely less broad. One aspect deserves mention, from the prominence it has acquired during recent times, namely, the treatment due to refugee belligerent ships in neutral ports. " It may also be desirable to consider and adopt a procedure by which states non-signatory to the original acts of The Hague Conference may become adhering parties. "You will explain to His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs that the present overture for a second conference to com- plete the postponed work of the first confer- ence is not designed to supersede other calls for the consideration of special topics, such as the proposition of the Government of the Netherlands, recently issued, to as- THE MAN OF PEACE. 265 semble for the purpose of amending the provisions of the existing Hague Conven- tion with respect to hospital ships. Like all tentative conventions, that one is open to change in the light of practical experience, and the fullest deliberation is desirable to that end. " Finally, you will state the President's desire and hope that the undying memories which cling around The Hague as the cradle of the beneficent work which had its be- ginning in 1899, may be strengthened by holding the second peace conference in that historic city." Favorable responses were received from Germany, France, Japan, and other powers. The Russian reply was friendly, but natu- rally it proposed that the conference should be postponed until the conclusion of the then existing war with Japan. In his mes- sage to Congress, December 5, 1905, Presi- dent Roosevelt named the questions that had been left over for the consideration of the second peace conference, and stated that the Emperor of Russia, immediately after the treaty of peace with Japan, took the initiative in recommending that the con- ference be called. The United States Gov- ernment in response said it would, as a mat- ter of course, take part in the new confer- ence and do what it could to further its 266 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. aims. This made the reassembling an assured fact. " This government," said the President, " will do everything in its power to secure the success of the conference to the end that substantial progress may be made in the cause of international peace, justice, and good will." The greatest war of modern times was that which broke out between Russia and Japan, in February, 1904. In this instance, it must be conceded that justice was on the side of the " little yellow man," and the sympathy of most of the civilized nations was with him. This was especially true of the United States, although the friendship between Russia and this country has been of the warmest nature ever since our Revo- lution. The bravery, patriotism, military and naval ability of the Japanese amazed the world. From the very beginning, the Rus- sian troops encountered nothing but defeat upon land, while the Japs swept their fleets from the Eastern seas. The Island Empire taught a lesson to all other powers that will be remembered for ages. As the titanic struggle went on, the losses of lives became appalling. No fitter name was ever given to war than that applied by our own General Sherman. It is not the killed in battle alone, but the agonies of the wounded, and the anguish of the stricken THE MAN OF PEACE. 267 ones at home that make one shudder, when he is compelled to see or read of the strug- gle. As the strife between the enormous armies, employing all the modern " improve- ments " in the method of killing people, pro- gressed, the world stood aghast and the cry went up that the strife should cease. More than enough lives had been sacrificed in the awful strife. It must end. But how cculd that end be brought about ? Russia had a colossal empire behind her, upon which, despite her crushing defeats, she continued to draw. While she had been fought to her knees, she still continued fighting. The Japs would fight, so long as a man was able to load and aim a gun. She might destroy Russian armies one after the other, but they were replaced by draughts upon the millions at home, despite the ominous signs of domestic revolution which began to show themselves. When Russia was gently approached in the interests of peace by one or more other powers, she hotly resented it. She would suffer no inter- ference nor listen even to advice. On the other hand, no nation dare molest Japan, for Great Britain had pledged herself to go to her help, if she was attacked by a second power. So perforce the world was com- pelled to keep hands off and the fearful war was waged more fiercely than ever. 268 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. What might be called the mortal stroke was delivered to Russia, in the latter part ot May, 1905, when Admiral Togo annihilated the last Russian fleet. It was one of the greatest naval victories in history. This crushing of a leading Power caused a universal demand from every civilized nation for an ending of the bloody struggle. Upon none was the effect profounder than upon President Roosevelt. His position was unique. As the chief Executive of one of the foremost world powers, whatever he said or did must command respectful at- tention. Our influence among nations is second to none. Moreover, we had strictly observed the laws of neutrality. We were on specially friendly terms with Russia and Japan, though the former had felt now and then that we leaned too much to the side of her adversary. We were entangled with no other European nation, and our motives could not be open to suspicion, as would have been the case with any other power. It was certain that neither of the belligerents would treat an advance from the President with disrespect. With that admirable tact which is one of Mr. Roosevelt's -strongest characteristics, he skilfully felt his way over this delicate ground. Everything looked favorable, and on June 8. 1905, he sent the following despatch through THE MAN OF PEACE. 69 diplomatic channels to the Japanese and the Russian governments : "The President feels that the time has come when in the interest of all mankind he must endeavor to see if it is not possible to bring to an end the terrible and lamentable conflict now being waged. "With both Russia and Japan the United States has inherited ties of friendship and good will. It hopes for the prosperity and welfare of each, and it feels that the progress of the world is set back by the war between the two great nations. The President ac- cordingly urges the Russian and Japanese governments, not only for their sakes, but in the interests of the whole civilized world to open direct negotiations for peace with one another. "The President suggests that these peace negotiations be conducted directly and ex- clusively between the belligerents ; in other words, that there may be a meeting of Rus- sian and Japanese plenipotentiaries or dele- gates without intermediary, in order to see if it is not possible for these representatives of the two Powers to agree to terms of peace. "The President earnestly asks that the (Russian or Japanese; according to address) Government do now agree to such a meet- ing, and is asking the Japanese or Russian) Government likewise to a.gree. 270 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. "While the President does not feel that any intermediary should be called in respect to the peace negotiations themselves, he is entirely willing to do what he properly can if the two powers concerned feel that his service will be of aid in arranging the pre- liminaries as to the time and place of meet- ing. "But if even these preliminaries can be arranged directly between the two powers or in any other way the President will be glad, as his sole purpose is to bring about a meeting which the whole civilized world will pray may result in peace." Both Russia and Japan accepted the prof- fer and on June 12, agreed to appoint pleni- potentiaries to discuss terms of peace. Russia's first appointments were Mr. Mura- vieff, a former Minister of State, and Baron Rosen, former Minister at Tokio, but Sergius Witte, former Finance Minister, took the place of Muravieff as chief envoy. Japan was represented by Baron Komura, former Foreign Minister, and Mr. Takahira, Minister to the United States. Portsmouth, New Hampshire was selected as the place for the sessions of the peace commission. President Roosevelt at this time was at his home at Oyster Bay, and thither the Russian and Japanese envoys were escorted on different naval vessels. The President, THE MAN Of PEACE. 271 on board the Mayflower, introduced the en- voys to each other, and at the luncheon fol- lowing the ceremony, he offered the toast : 11 1 drink to the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and the people of the two great nations whose representatives have met one another on this ship. " It is my most earnest hope and prayer, in the interest not only of these two great Powers, but of all civilized mankind, that a just and lasting peace may be speedily con- cluded between them." The plenipotentiaries and their suites were carried to Portsmouth, where they were given commodious quarters, and held their first meeting, August 9. As was to be ex- pected, the terms as submitted by Japan, were rejected by the Russian envoys. It was then agreed that the clauses should be considered separately. In this way, an agreement was reached on several A dead- lock came, however, on the demand that Russia should reimburse Japan for the ex- penses of the war ; deliver interned Russian fvarships in Chinese and American ports and restrict Russian naval power in Asiatic waters. As the days passed without the first sign of agreement, there was hardly a man who did not believe the conference would break up and that the war would be renewed and 72 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. pressed indefinitely. There seemed no pos- sible escaping it. Sergius Witte declared over and over again, in the most emphatic manner, that Russia would never pay a kopeck for indemnity, and the Japs were per- sistent. President Roosevelt kept at work harder than ever, and communicated directly with the Emperors of both nations. Im- perial Councils were held in Tokio and St. Petersburg. In the end, Japan waived her demand for an indemnity and made suffi- cient concessions on other points to bring about peace between the two nations. If President Roosevelt had no other claim upon the gratitude of the world, his name would deserve to be held in loving remem- brance through the coming ages, for the great and beneficent work he did in the summer of 1905, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. CHAPTER XIX. THE MAN OF VERSATILITY. IN a commercial sense, the most impor- tant measure connected with the administra- tion of President Roosevelt, is the construc- tion of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The incalculable advantages that would result from such an immense work had attracted the notice of all civilized nations for many years. As long ago as 1850, Great Britain and the United States agreed to dig such a canal, of which neither was to assume exclusive control, and in case of war between the two nations, the respective vessels were to be exempt from molestation. It was ex- pected that the work would be begun at once, but it was not done. Then the con- viction fastened itself upon the American people that the canal should be dug by our government and wholly owned and con- trolled by us. Finally, the old treaty was abrogated, and after many preliminaries, which it is not necessary to relate in this place, the United States made a treaty with the Republic of Panama, in November, 1903, by which Panama ceded to the United States 18 273 274: FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. in perpetuity, the necessary tract of land ten miles in width for the route of such canal. Now, in order to be historically accurate, it must be stated that the Republic of Panama was brought into existence by the Isthmian Canal project. The Act of Congress of June 28, 1902, provided that the strip of land already referred to should be purchased from Colombia, which was then the owner. When, however, the treaty came before the Columbian Congress, that body rejected it. Various pretexts were given, but the simple truth was that the corrupt members com- posing the Congress, as well as others high in authority, believed that the United States, being so rich and powerful, would pay a much larger sum than the generous price offered. The rejection of the treaty pre- cipitated a new and stirring condition of affairs. The inhabitants of the Isthmus were eager for the building of the canal, and when they found that the" mother country" to which they had not long been joined, had committed such an act of folly, they rebelled and declared themselves independent. The government forces in Panama and Colon numbered only about 1,500 men, and most of them felt friendly rather than otherwise toward the revolutionists. The revolt oc- curred, and was carried through successfully THE MAN OF VERSATILITY. 275 without the loss of any lives. The American women and children were in grave peril for some time, but the firmness of the naval offi- cers and marines sent thither to protect them prevented any attack by the overwhelming numbers of Colombians. So complete was this bloodless revolution that a good many believed our government had instigated and set it on foot. President Roosevelt declared that no one connected with the authorities had any part in it, nor had they any more knowledge that it was impending than those who depended upon the newspapers for information. The construction of the canal was decided upon and the great work begun. In his annual message to Congress, December 5, 1905, President Roosevelt said : " The treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama, under which the construction of the Panama Canal was made possible, went into effect with its rati- fication by the United States Senate on February 23, 1904. The canal properties of the French Canal Company were transferred to the United States on April 23, 1904, on payment of $40,000,000 to that company. On April i, 1905, the Commission was re- organized .... Active work in canal con- struction, mainly preparatory, has been in progress for less than a year and a half. 276 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. During that period two points about the canal have ceased to be open to debate. First, the question of route ; the canal will be built on the Isthmus of Panama. Second, the question of feasibility; there are no physical obstacles on this route that Ameri- can engineering skill will not be able to overcome without serious difficulty, or that will prevent the completion of the canal within a reasonable time, and at a reason- able cost. This is virtually the unanimous testimony of the engineers who have inves- tigated the matter for the Government. " The American people is pledged to speediest construction possible of a canal adequate to meet the demands which the commerce of the world will make upon it, and I appeal most earnestly to the Congress to aid in the fulfillment of the pledge. Gratifying progress has been made during the past year, and especially during the past four months. The greater part of the neces- sary preliminary work has been done. Ac- tual work of excavation could be begun only on a limited scale till the Canal zone was made a healthful place to live in and to work in. The isthmus had to be sanitated first. The task has been so thoroughly accom- plished that yellow fever has been virtually extirpated from the isthmus and general health conditions vastly improved. The THE MAN OF VERSATILITY. 277 same methods which converted the island of Cuba from a pest hole which menaced the health of the world, into a healthful place of abode, have been applied on the isthmus with satisfactory results. There is no reason to doubt that when the plans for water sup- ply, paving and sewerage of Panama and Colon and the large labor camps have been fully carried out, the isthmus will be, for the Tropics, an unusually healthy place of abode. The work is so far advanced now that the health of all those employed in canal work is as well guarded as it is on similar work in this country and elsewhere. " In addition to sanitating the isthmus, satisfactory quarters are being provided for employees and an adequate system of sup- plying them with wholesome food at reason- able prices has been created. The country has thus been made fit to work in, and provis- ion has been made for the welfare and com- fort of those who are to do the work. Hospi- tals have been established and equipped that are without superiors of their kind anywhere. During the last year a large portion of the plant with which the work is to be done has been ordered. It is confidently believed that by the middle of the approaching year a suf- ficient proportion of this plant will have been installed to enable us to resume the work of excavation on a large scale." 278 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. The President's message named three sub- jects which overshadowed all others the canal, life insurance and railway rate legis- lation. The last was the one of the greatest interest to the nation at large. That which is to be accomplished the future must make clear. We have brought incidents down to 1906, where perforce we leave them. It has been shown that all the promises of the young member of the New York Leg- islature have been made good. President Roosevelt has not fallen short of the ex- pectations of his countrymen. When, through the dark tragedy at Buffalo, he suc- ceeded to the highest office in the land, he felt honor bound, as he said at the time, to carry out the wishes of his predecessor. He was so conscientious in this respect that he gave offices to all who had been promised them by Mr. McKinley. His administration was so satisfactory, not only to his own party but to the country at large, that his nomina- tion for the Presidency was certain, months before the assembling of the national con- vention. No voice was raised in opposition, and, in June, 1904, he was placed at the head of the Republican ticket, with Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, as the candidate for the Vice-Presidency. The nominees of the Democrats were Judge Alton B. Parker of New York and Henry G. Davis of West Vir- THE MAN OF VERSATILITY. 379 ginia. Tickets were also placed in the field by the Independents, the Socialists, the Pro- hibitionists, the People and the Social Labor parties. Only the leading candidates entered the electoral college, and the popular vote cast for the others was too trifling to be mentioned. The whole country was amazed at the result of the election. Few of the most enthusiastic partisans of President Roosevelt looked for such an overwhelming victory. He received 7,624,489 votes to 5,082,754 cast for Parker, his plurality thus amounting to 2,541,635. His electoral vote was 336 to 140 for Parker. Even the rock-bound Dem- ocratic State of Missouri gave him a plurality of more than 25,000. His victory was of the most decisive character and afforded another of the many proofs, which the American people have given of their admiration and respect for a man who is honest through and through, whose principles are right, and who has the courage of his convictions. Thus far what has been written about Mr. Roosevelt has had to do mainly with his career in politics, including his creditable part in the war with Spain ; but any bio- graphical notice of him would be grossly imperfect if it failed to make note of his brilliant versatility. In this respect, he sug- gests Kaiser William II., of Germany. There 280 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. is truth in the characterization of Roosevelt by one of his biographers as " that amiable and gifted author, legislator, field sportsman, soldier, reformer and executive." Two years before his graduation from Harvard, he wrote a history of the Naval War of 1812, which ranks among the best authorities. Since then he has produced among others : " Hunting Trips of a Ranch- man " ; biographies of Thomas Hart Benton, Gouverneur Morris and Oliver Cromwell ; " Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail " ; " The Winning of the West " (probably the best work extant upon that theme) ; " The Wilderness Hunter " ; " New York " ; " The Rough Riders " ; " American Ideals " and " The Strenuous Life." Even amid the multitudinous duties as President, he finds time to pursue his literary work. All that his pen produces would command attention and respect apart from his prominence in the affairs of the nation. As has been said, he is a mighty hunter and his stories of western life, in which he has been an eager participant, are fascinat- ing, for in reading them every one knows they are truthful narratives. His knowledge of natural history would enable him to fill a professorship of the subject in any institu- tion. A more ardent sportsman never lived. No boy let loose on vacation, ever hied THE MAN OF VERSATILITY. 281 more 'joyously to play than the President, when able to lay aside the cares of his office, rushes westward to his ranch, or buries himself with a party of veteran hunt- ers and choice spirits in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains. He revels in the hunt, with its spice of personal danger, and its hardships. Trained athlete that he has al- ways been, of powerful physique and great physical strength, the most inured plains- man cannot overcome more obstacles than he. If we might venture on a prophecy as to Mr. Roosevelt's future, should his life be spared, it is this : When his term as President ends, his first act will be to start on a trip round the world. He will take a spin with Emperor William, and would engage him in a boxing bout, but for the weakness of one of the Em- peror's arms ; he will hob-nob with King Edward and incidentally show him how to build up his muscles, demonstrating how much superior the strenuous life is to one of idleness and luxury ; he may drop in as a spectator at some of the proceedings of the Austro-Hungarian Parliament ; if one of the usual rows breaks out, it will be worse for those who may be forced into contact with the visitor than for himself ; he will be as much a favorite with royalty as was Ben* jamin Franklin among the frivolous and gay 282 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. French. The next that will be heard from Mr. Roosevelt will tell that he is in Central Africa, chasing elephants, fighting hippopo- tami, rhinoceroses and other big game. Since there are no tigers in the Dark Continent, he will head for India, where there is no end of them. He will not forget to drink tea with Emperor of Japan, to shake hands with Oyama, Togo and the other military and naval heroes ; incidentally he will teach the last wrinkle in jiu-jitsu to the profes- sionals in Tokio. Completing the round, he will come back to his own country, and, after spending a few weeks on his ranch or in the Rockies, in order to train down, will become the President of Harvard Univer- sity. Next but it is hardly safe to prophesy further. Some one may repeat the suggestion that he will be a Presidential candidate again. He will not. How can we know that ? He has said so. Among President Roosevelt's many ad- mirable qualities, are his personal puritanic morality, his deep religious convictions, and his ardent love for his family. With the children, he frolics like a boy, and while he is strict in his discipline, no father could be more affectionate. No breath of scandal can ever taint that threshold. One of the wisest utterances of a distin- THE MAN OF VERSATILITY. 283 guished American humorist was to the effect that the best method by which a father can teach a son to go the right way is to go that way himself, This truth was emphasized by the President's army order, issued in March, 1902 : " It is the duty of regimental and partic- ularly of company officers, to try by precept and example to point out to the men under their control, and particularly to the younger men, the inevitable misery and disaster which follow upon intemperance and upon moral uncleanness and vicious living. The officers should, of course, re- member always that the effect of what they say must depend largely upon the lives they themselves lead. As a nation, we feel keen pride in the valor, discipline and steadfast endurance of our soldiers, and hand in hand with these qualities must go the virtues of self-restraint, self-respect and self-control." So when the publisher of a vile sheet sent the author of the above words a gorgeous, nauseating volume, the 'President refused to receive it, and, with a thrill of pride, we all said : "It is exactly what we knew he would do!" One of President Roosevelt's biographers says he is not a good dancer. It has been remarked, too, that when he occasionally 284 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. bursts into song, the listeners are reminded of the old couplet : *' Swans sing before they die ; 'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing." All the same, the truth is beyond ques- tion : the century has produced no nobler type of MAN that it has given us in Theo- dore Roosevelt. CHAPTER XX. WORDS OF WISDOM. T . ROOSEVELT lacks the grace of the polished orator, but he is always intensely in earnest, and what he says is instructive and well worth attention. He has made many addresses and speeches, that show the thoughtful scholar, the deep thinker and a profound knowledge of history and of men. In this concluding chapter, we shall give extracts from some of his speeches touching chiefly upon religion, patriotism, education, labor and capital, and our civic duties. As regards religion : " But in addition to the hard, practical common sense needed by each of us in life, we must have a lift toward lofty things or we shall be lost, individually and collectively, as a nation. Life is not easy, and least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation that aspires to do great deeds. In the cen- tury opening, the play of the infinitely far- reaching forces and tendencies which go to make up our social system bids fair to be even fiercer in its activity than in the cen- 285 286 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. tury which has just closed. If during this century the men of high and fine moral sense show themselves weaklings; if they possess only that cloistered virtue which shrinks shuddering from contact with the raw facts of actual life; if they dare not go down in the hurly-burly where the men of might contend for the mastery; if they stand aside from the pressure of conflict; then as surely as the sun rises and sets, all of our great material progress, all the multiplica- tion of the physical agencies which tend for our comfort and enjoyment, will go for naught, and our civilization will become a brutal sham and mockery. If we are to do as I believe we shall and will do, if we are to advance in broad humanity, in kindliness, in the spirit of brotherhood, exactly as we ad- vance in our conquest over the hidden forces of nature, it must be by developing strength in virtue and virtue in strength, by breeding and training men who shall be both good and strong, both gentle and valiant men who scorn wrong-doing, and who at the same time have both the courage and the strength to strive mightily for the right. . . . " The other day in a little Lutheran church at Sioux Falls I listened to a most interesting and most stimulating sermon, which struck me particularly because of the translation of a word which, I am ashamed to say, I myself WORDS OF WISDOM. 2S^f had always before mistranslated. It was on the old text of faith, hope, and charity. The sermon was delivered in German, and the word that the preacher used for charity was not charity, but love; preaching that the greatest of all the forces with which we deal for betterment is love. Looking it up I found, of course, what I ought to have known, but did not, that the Greek word which we have translated into the word charity, should be more properly translated love. That is, we use the word charity at present in a sense which does not make it correspond entirely to the word used in the original Greek. This Lutheran preacher developed in a very striking but very happy fashion, the absolute need of love in the broadest sense of the word, in order to make mankind even approximately perfect. . . . 11 It seems to me that these Young Men's Christian Associations play a part of the greatest consequence, not merely because of the great good they do in themselves, but because of the lesson of brotherhood that they teach all of us. All of us here are knit together by bonds which we cannot sever. For weal or for woe our fates are inextricably intermingled. All of us in our present civ- ilization are dependent upon one another to a degree never before known in the history of mankind, and in the long run we are 288 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. going to go up or go down together. For a moment some man may rise by trampling on his fellows; fora moment, and much more commonly, some men think they will rise or gratify their envy and hatred by pulling down others. But any such movement up- ward is probably illusory, and is certainly short-lived. Any permanent movement up- ward must come in such a shape that all of us feel the lift a little, and if there is a ten- dency downward, all of us will feel that tendency too. We must, if we are to raise ourselves, realize that each of us in the long run can with certainty be raised only if the conditions are such that all of us are some- what raised. In order to bring about these conditions, the first essential is that each shall have a genuine spirit of regard and friendship for the others, and that each of us shall try to look at the problems of life somewhat from his neighbor's standpoint that we shall have the capacity to under- stand one another's position, one another's needs, and also the desire each to help his brother as well as to help himself. To do that wisely, wisely to strive with that as the aim, is not very easy. Many qualities are needed in order that we can contribute our mite toward the upward movement of the world among them the quality of self-abne- gation, and yet combined with it the quality WORDS OF WISDOM. 2g which will refuse to submit to injustice. I want to preach the two qualities going hand in hand. I do not want a man to fail to try to strive for his own betterment. I do not want him to be quick to yield to injustice; I want him to stand for his rights; I want him to be very certain that he knows what his rights are, and that he does not make them the wrongs of some one else. . . . " Another thing : let us, so far as strength is given us, make it evident to those who look on, and who are not of us, that our faith is not one of words merely; that it finds ex- pression in deeds. One sad, one lamentable phase of human history is that the very lofti- est words, implying the loftiest ideas, have often been used as cloaks for the commission of dreadful deeds of iniquity. No more hideous crimes have ever been committed by men than those that have been committed in the name of liberty, of order, of brotherhood, of religion. People have butchered one another under circumstances of dreadful atrocity, claiming all the time to be serving the object of the brotherhood of man, or of the brotherhood of God. We must in our lives, in our efforts, endeavor to further the cause of brotherhood in the human family; and we must do it in such a way that the men anxious to find subject for complaint or derision in the Churches of the United 2$0 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. States, in our Church, may not be able to find it by pointing out any contrast between our professions and our lives. . . . " Surely in every movement for the bet- terment of our life, our life social in the tru- est and deepest sense, our life political, we have a special right to ask not merely sup- port, but leadership from those of the Church. We ask that you here to whom much has been given will remember that from you rightly much will be expected in return. For all of us here the lines have been cast in pleasant places. Each of us has been given one talent, or five, or ten talents, and each of us is in honor bound to use that talent or those talents aright, and to show at the end that he is en- titled to the praise of having done well as a faithful servant." The following are some of the things President Roosevelt has said regarding patriotism : " If ever the need comes in the future, the past had made abundantly evident that from this time on Northerner and Southerner will in war know only the generous desire to strive how each can do the more effective service for the flag of our common country. The same thing is true in the endless work of peace, the never-ending work of building and keeping the marvelous fabric of our in- WORDS OF WISDOM. 291 dustrial prosperity. The upbuilding of any part o our country is a benefit to the whole, and every such effort to stimulate the re- sources and industry of a particular section is entitled to the heartiest support from every quarter of the Union. Thoroughly good national work can be done only if each of us works hard for himself, and at the same time keeps constantly in mind that he must work in conjunction with others. . . . " I fail to see how any American can come to Chattanooga and go over the great battle- fields of the neighborhood the battle-fields here in this State and just across the border of my mother's State of Georgia how any American can come here and see evidences of the mighty deeds done by the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray, and not go away a better American, prouder of the country, prouder because of the valor displayed on both sides in the contest the valor, self-devotion, the loyalty to the right as each saw the right. " Two of my captains were killed at San- tiago ; one was Allyn Capron, the fifth in line who, from father to son, had served in the regular army of the United States, who had served in every war in which our country has been engaged ; the other, Bucky O'Neill. His father had fought under Meagher, when, 292 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. on the day at Fredericksburg. his brigade left more men under the stone wall than did any other brigade. I had in my regiment men from the North and the South ; men from the East and the West ; men whose fathers had fought under Grant, and whose fathers had fought under Lee ; college graduates, capitalists' sons, wage-workers, the man of means and the man who all his life had owed each day's bread to the day's toil. I had Catholic, Protestant, Jew and Gentile under me. Among my captains were men whose forefathers had been among the first white men to settle on Massachusetts Bay and on the banks of the James, and others whose parents had come from Germany, from Ire- land, from England, from France. They were all Americans, and nothing else, and each man stood on his worth as a man, to be judged by it, and to succeed or fail ac- cordingly as he did well or ill. Compared to the giant death-wrestles that reeled over the mountains round about this city the fight at Santiago was the merest skirmish ; but the spirit in which we handled ourselves there, I hope, was the spirit in which we have to face our duties as citizens if we are to make this Republic what it must be made " When our forefathers joined to call into being this nation, they undertook a task for WORDS OF WISDOM. 293 which there was but little encouraging pre- cedent. The development of civilization from the earliest period seems to show the truth of two propositions : In the first place, it had always proved exceedingly difficult to secure both freedom and strength in any government ; and in the second place, it had always proved well-nigh impossible for a nation to expand without either breaking up or becoming a centralized tyranny. With the success of our effort to combine a strong and efficient national union, able to put down disorder at home and to maintain our honor and interest abroad, I have not now to deal. This success was signal and all- important, but it was by no means unprece- dented in the same sense that our type of expansion was unprecedented. The history of Rome and Greece illustrates very well the two types of expansion which had taken place in ancient time and which had been universally accepted as the only possible types up to the period when as a nation we ourselves began to take possession of this continent. The Grecian states performed remarkable feats of colonization, but each colony as soon as created became entirely independent of the mother state, and in after years was almost as apt to prove its enemy as its friend. Local self-government, local independence, was secured, but only 294 FROM THE RANCH TO TUB WHITE HOUSE. by the absolute sacrifice of anything resem- bling national unity. In consequence, the Greek world, for all its wonderful brilliancy and extraordinary artistic, literary, and phil- osophical development, which has made all mankind its debtor for the ages, was yet wholly unable to withstand a formidable foreign foe, save spasmodically. As soon as powerful permanent empires arose on its outskirts, the Greek states in the neighbor- hood of such empires fell under their sway. National power and greatness were com- pletely sacrificed to local liberty " With Rome the exact opposite occurred. The imperial city rose to absolute dominion over all the peoples of Italy and then expanded her rule over the entire civilized world by a process which kept the nation strong and united, but gave no room what- ever for local liberty and self-government. All other cities and countries were sub- ject to Rome. In consequence this great and masterful race of warriors, rulers, road- builders and administrators, stamped their indelible impress upon all the after-life of our race, and yet let an over-centralization eat out the vitals of their empire until it became an empty shell ; so that when the barbarians came they destroyed only what had already become worthless to the world. "The underlying viciousness of each type WORDS OF WISDOM. 295 of expansion was plain enough and the rem- edy now seems simple enough. But when the fathers of the Republic first formulated the Constitution under which we live, this remedy was untried and no one could fore- tell how it would work. They themselves began the experiment almost immediately by adding new States to the original thir- teen. Excellent people in the East viewed this initial expansion of the country with great alarm. Exactly as during the colonial period many good people in the mother country thought it highly important that settlers should be kept out of the Ohio valley in the interest of the fur companies, so after we had become a nation many good people on the Atlantic coast felt grave ap- prenension lest they might somehow be hurt by the westward growth of the nation. These good people shook their heads over the formation of States in the fertile Ohio valley which now forms part of the heart of the nation ; and they declared that the destruction of the Republic had been ac- complished when through the Louisiana purchase we acquired nearly half of what is now that same Republic's present territory ; Nor was their feeling unnatural. Only the adventurous and the far-seeing can be ex- pected heartily to welcome the process of expansion, for the nation that expands is a 296 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. nation which is entering upon a great career, and with greatness there must of necessity come perils which daunt all save the most stout-hearted. . . . 11 You men of the Grand Army by your vic- tory not only rendered all Americans your debtors. If the Union had been dissolved, if the great edifice built with blood and sweat and tears by mighty Washington and his compeers had gone down in wreck and ruin, the result would have been an incalculable calamity, not only for our people, and most of all for those who, in such event, would have seemingly triumphed, but for all man- kind. The great American Republic would have become a memory of derision, and the failure of the experiment of self-government by a great people on a great scale would have delighted the heart of every foe of republican institutions. Our country, now so great and so wonderful, would have been split into little jangling rival nationalities, each with a history both bloody and con- temptible. It was because you, the men who wear the button of the Grand Army, triumphed in those dark years, that every American now holds up his head high, proud in the knowledge that he belongs to a nation whose glorious past and great pres- ent will be succeeded by an even mightier future ; whereas had you failed, we would WORDS OF WISDOM. 297 all of us, North and South, East and West, be now treated by other nations at the best with contemptuous tolerance, at the worst with overbearing insolence." Among the President's sentiments regard- ing education is the following : "Although we talk a good deal about what the widespread education of this country means, I question if many of us deeply con- sider its meaning. From the lowest grade of the public school to the highest form of university training, education in this coun- try is at the disposal of every man, every woman, who chooses to work for and obtain it. The State has done very much ; private benefaction has done very much ; witness also this University (of California). And each one of us who has obtained an educa- tion has obtained something for which he or she has not personally paid. No matter what the school, what the university, every American who has a school training, a university training, has obtained something given to him outright by the State, or given to him by those dead or those living who were able to make provision for that train- ing because of the protection of the State, because of existence within its borders. Each one of us then who has an education, school or college, has obtained something from the community at large for which he 298 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. or she has not paid, and no self-respecting man or woman is content to rest perma- nently under such an obligation. Where the State has bestowed education the man who accepts it must be content to accept merely as a charity unless he returns it to the State in full, in the shape of good citi- zenship. I do not ask of you, men and women here to-day, good citizenship as a favor to the State. I demand it of you as a right, and hold you recreant to your duty if you fail to give it. " From those to whom much has been given we have Biblical authority to expect and demand much in return ; and the most that can be given to any man is education. I expect and demand in the name of the nation much more from you who have had training of the mind than from those of mere wealth. To the man of means much has been given, too, and much will be ex- pected from him, and ought to be, but not as much as from you, because your posses- sion is more valuable than his. If you envy him I think poorly of you. Envy is merely the meanest form of admiration, and a man who envies another admits thereby his own inferiority. We have a right to expect from the college-bred man, the college-bred woman, a proper sense of proportion, a proper sense of perspective, which will WORDS OF WISDOM. 999 enable him or her to see things in their right relation one to another, and when thus seen, while wealth will have a proper place, a just place, as an instrument for achieving happiness and power, for conferring happi- ness and power, it will not stand as high as much else in our national life. I ask you to take that not as a conventional statement from the university platform, but to test it by thinking of the men whom you admire in our past history and seeing what are the qualities which have made you admire them, what are the services they have rendered. For, as President Wheeler said to-day, it is true now as it has ever been true, that the greatest good fortune, the greatest honor, that can befall any man is that he shall serve the nation, serve his people, serve mankind ; and looking back in history the names that come up before us, the names to which we turn, the names of the men of our own people which stand as shining marks in our annals, the names of those men typifying qualities which rightly we should hold in reverence, are the names of the statesmen, of the soldiers, of the poets, and after them, not abreast of them, the names of the architects of our material prosperity also." One of the greatest problems confronting us as it confronts other nations, is the ad- 300 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. justment of the right relations between labor and capital. Like the negro problem, it often seems the despair of our most patriotic and thoughtful citizens. President Roosevelt has had to face the question many times, from his service as police commissioner down to his occupancy of the White House. He is always ready to express his views with candor and frankness, and his words are entitled to great weight and consideration. " The development of machinery and the extraordinary change of business conditions," said he, " have rendered the employment of capital and of persons in large aggregations not merely profitable but often necessary for success, and have specialized the labor of the wage-worker at the same time that they have brought great aggregations of wage- workers together. More and more in our great industrial centers men have come to realize that they cannot live as independently of one another as in the old days was the case everywhere, and is now the case in the country districts. " Of course fundamentally each man will yet find that the chief factor in determining his success or failure in life is the sum of his own individual qualities. He cannot afford to lose his individual initiative, his individual will and power ; but he can best use that power if for certain objects he unites WORDS OF WISDOM. 3QJ with his fellows. Much can be done by organization, combination, union among the wage-workers ; finally, something can be done by the direct action of the State. It is not possible empirically to declare when the interference of the State should be deemed legitimate and when illegitimate. " The line of demarcation between un- healthy over-interference and unhealthy lack of regulation is not always well defined, and shifts with the change in our industrial needs. Most certainly we should never in- voke the interference of the State or Nation unless it is absolutely necessary ; but it is equally true that when confident of its neces- sity we should not on academic ground re- fuse it. Wise factory laws, laws to forbid the employment of child labor and to safeguard the employees against the effects of culpable negligence by the employer, are necessary, not merely in the interest of the wage-worker, but in the interest of the honest and humane employer, who should not be penalized for his honesty and humanity by being exposed to unchecked competition with an unscrupulous rival. It is far more difficult to deal with the greed that works through cunning than with the greed that works through violence. But the effort to deal with it must be steadily made. 302 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. " Very much of our effort in reference to labor matters should be by every device and expedient to try to secure a constantly better understanding between employer and em- ployee. Everything possible should be done to increase the sympathy and fellow feeling between them, and every chance taken to allow each to look at all questions, especially at questions in dispute, somewhat through the other's eyes. If met with a sincere desire to act fairly by one another, and if there is, furthermore, power by each to appreciate the other's standpoint, the chance for trouble is minimized. I suppose every thinking man rejoices when by media- tion or arbitration it proves possible to settle troubles in time to avert the suffering and bitterness caused by strikes. Moreover, a conciliation committee can do best work when the trouble is in its beginning, or at least has not come to a head. When the break has actually occurred, damage has been done, and each side feels sore and angry ; and it is difficult to get them together difficult to make either forget its own wrongs and remember the rights of the other. If possible the effort at conciliation or medi- ation or arbitration should be made in the earlier stages, and should be marked by the wish on the part of both sides to try to come to a common agreement which each shall WORDS OF WISDOM. 303 think in the interests of the other as well as of itself. " No one quality will get us out of any difficulty. We need more than xme : we need a good many. We need, as I said, the power first of each man's honestly try- ing to look at the problem from his fellow's standpoint. Capitalist and wage-worker alike, should honestly endeavor each to look at the matter from the other's standpoint, with a freedom on the one hand from the contemptible arrogance which looks down on the man of less means, and on the other, from the no less contemptible envy, jealousy and rancor, which hates another because he is better off. Each quality is the supple- ment of the other, and in point of baseness there is not the weight of a finger to choose between them. " Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in the community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, it is in the long run with absolute certainty that class's own worst enemy. In the long run, and as a whole, we are going to go up or go down together. Of course there will be individual exceptions, small, local exceptions in kind, exceptions in place ; but as a whole, if the commonwealth prospers, some measure of 304 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSR prosperity comes to all of us. If it is not prosperous, then the adversity, though it may fall unequally upon us, will weigh more or less upon all. It lies with us ourselves to determine our own fate. I cannot too often say that the wisest law, the best ad- ministration of the law, can do naught more than give us a fair field in which to work out that fate aright. If as individuals, or as a community, we mar our future by our own folly, let us remember that it is upon our- selves that the responsibility must rest." From the many wise and instructive re- marks by the President upon civic duties, we close with the following timely extracts : " It is not enough to be well meaning and kindly, but weak ; neither is it enough to be strong, unless morality and decency go hand in hand with strength. We must possess the qualities which make us do our duty in our homes and among our neighbors, and in addition we must possess the qualities which are indispensable to the make up of every great and masterful nation the qualities of courage and hardihood, of individual initiative and yet of power to combine for a common end, and, above all, the resolute determination to permit no man and no set of men to sunder us one from the other by lines of caste or creed or section. We must act upon the motto of all for each and each WORDS OF WISDOM. 305 for all. There must ever be present in our minds the fundamental truth that in a re- public such as ours the only safety is to stand neither for nor against any man because he is rich or because he is poor, because he is engaged in one occupation or another, be- cause he works with his brains or because he works with his hands. We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less. Finally, we must keep ever in mind that a republic such as ours can exist only by virtue of the orderly liberty which comes through the equal domination of the law over all men alike, and through its administration in such res- olute and fearless fashion as shall teach all that no man is above it and no man below it. ... " Just this morning, when attending ser- vice on the great battleship Kearsarge, I listened to a sermon addressed to the offi- cers and enlisted men of the navy, in which the central thought was that each American must be a good man or he would not be a good citizen. And one of the things dwelt upon in that sermon was the fact that a man must be clean of mouth as well as clean of life must show by his words as well as by his actions his fealty to the Almighty if he 306 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. was to be what we have a right to expect from men wearing the national uniform. We have good scriptural authority for the statement that it is not what comes into a man's mouth but what goes out of it that counts. I am not addressing weaklings, or I should not take the trouble to come here. I am addressing strong, vigorous men who are . engaged in the active, hard work of life ; and life to be worth living must be a life of active and hard work. I am speaking to men engaged in the hard, active work of life, and therefore to men who will count for good or for evil. It is peculiarly in- cumbent upon you who have strength to set a right example to others. I ask you to remember that you cannot retain your self- respect if you are loose and foul of tongue ; that a man who is to lead a clean and honor- able life must inevitably suffer if his speech is not clean and honorable. Every man here knows the temptations that beset all of us in this world. At times any man will slip. I do not expect perfection, but I do expect genuine and sincere effort toward being de- cent and cleanly in thought, in word, and in deed. Our whole effort should be toward securing a combination of the strong qualities with those qualities which we term virtues. I expect you to be strong. I would not respect you if you were not. I do not want WORDS OF WISDOM. 307 to see Christianity professed only by weak- lings ; I want to see it a moving spirit among men of strength. I do not expect you to lose one particle of your strength or courage by being decent. On the contrary, I should hope to see each man become all the fitter to do the rough work of the world ; all the fitter to work in time of peace ; and if, which may Heaven forefend ! war should come, all the fitter to fight in time of war. I desire to see in this country the decent men strong, and the strong men decent, and until we get that combination in pretty good shape we are not going to be by any means as successful as we should be. There is always a tendency among very young men, and among boys who are not quite young men as yet, to think that to be wicked is rather smart ; to think it shows that they ar^ men. How often you see some young fel- low who boasts that he is going to ' see life,' meaning by that that he is going to see that part of life which it is a thousandfold better should remain unseen. I ask that every man before me constitute himself his brother's keeper by setting an example to that younger brother which will prevent him from getting such a false estimate of life. If any of you in the presence of younger boys, and especially the younger people of your own family, misbehave yourselves, if 308 FROM THE RANCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. you use coarse and blasphemous language before them, you can be sure that these younger people will follow your example and not your precept. It is no use to preach to them if you do not act decently yourself. You must feel that the most effective way in which you can preach is by your practice." 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