FIVE GREAT MEN (_Continued_)
It was at one of Mr. Chamberlain's house-parties that I first met one of
the five distinguished men who made a deep impression on my mind and so
on my life. That man was Colonel John Hay, some time Ambassador of the
United States to this country. I shall never forget going down, some
thirty-two years ago, to Birmingham with my wife for a Saturday to
Monday party, and finding that the chief guest was the new American
Ambassador. When one is young and going to a pleasant house, there is
nothing more delightful or stimulating than the moment of waiting at the
side of a country-house omnibus consecrated to station work and
wondering who are to be one's fellow-guests. On that occasion it was not
long before we discovered that they were Colonel and Mrs. Hay and their
daughter Helen. It did not take one long to see what a memorable man Hay
was. It was indeed a case for me of friendship at first sight. Though it
only took, even in pre-motor days, some twenty minutes to drive to
Highbury, I had become, long before we reached the front door, a fervent
admirer of the man who had been Private Secretary to the greatest man of
modern times,--Abraham Lincoln.
The acquaintance begun at Highbury ripened for both of us into a true
friendship. I was deeply touched to find that Mr. Hay met me half way in
my desire to be friendly, for I knew enough about him to know that his
reputation was that of a very reticent, very fastidious man--a person by
no means inclined to fall into the arms of the first comer. But I don't
want to flatter myself. Perhaps the passport to Hay's heart in my case
was my love of Lincoln, for that he soon saw was real and not assumed.
Anyway, Hay and I soon began to see a great deal of each other, and he
paid me the compliment of confiding in me throughout the war between
Spain and America. He would have liked to avoid that war and did his
very best to do so, but I knew that all the time he felt it was
inevitable. I remember well his saying to me that the positions of the
United States and Spain were like two railway engines on the same track,
neither of which would give way and both of which were advancing. You
might delay the collision, but you could not prevent it, unless one
train cleared out of the way of the other, and to this neither side in
control would agree. Therefore, a collision had to come,--and come it
did.
Hay loved his tenure of office in England and greatly regretted that he
had to accede to Mr. McKinley's request that he should go back and
become Secretary of State. He knew the work would be too much for him,
and told me so quite simply and unaffectedly, but he was never a man to
shirk a duty. During his term of office, he and I were constantly in
touch with each other by letter. Though Hay did not write long letters,
he contrived in his short notes to say many poignant things,--often in
the form of comments on _Spectator_ articles, for he was a diligent
reader of my paper. One example is so curious and so interesting that I
must set it forth. The War enables me to do so without any risk of doing
injury in the diplomatic sphere. It concerns the memorable visit of
Prince Henry of Prussia to the United States in the year 1902.
The Kaiser was alarmed at the good feeling growing up between Britain
and the United States. He therefore made a special effort to capture
American goodwill, largely in the hope of drawing off American sympathy
from this country. Accordingly he sent his sailor brother to American to
announce his august and Imperial satisfaction with the United States.
The Americans--most kindly of hosts--gave him the best possible
reception. At that time Mr. Roosevelt was President, and Hay was
Secretary. Writing of Prince Henry's reception on March 1, 1902, _The
Spectator_ pointed out what delightful hosts the Americans had proved
and were proving, but went on to express very grave doubt whether in the
circumstances and with the men then at the helm, the Kaiser would "cut
any political ice" or gain any material advantage by the visit or by the
attempts at diplomatic bargaining sure to be connected with it. The
article continued as follows:
American photographers are taking "snapshots" of the
Prince at every turn in his progress; but the snapshots we
should like to see would be those of the President and Mr. Hay
just before and just after the Prince had made some political
request. They would hardly look, if our view of the American
temperament is correct, like the faces of the same persons.
The infinitely courteous hosts will in a moment become hard
business men, thinking not of the pleasantest sentences to say,
but of the permanent interests of the United States. Only
the humour might linger a little in the eyes.
The article took some six days to get to America, but as soon as it was
possible for a return of comments I received from Hay the following
characteristic and laconic note:
_Spectator_, March 1, p. 317, 2nd Column,
half-way down.
My Dear Strachey,
You are a mind reader.
J. H.
I turned eagerly to the passage, for I could not at the moment recollect
what we had said, and found what I have given above. By a guess, or
(shall I say?) by a piece of thought transference, I had had the good
luck to envisage exactly what had happened at Washington. Prince Henry
was not merely a social but a political bagman. He had asked for
something. He wanted a tangible "souvenir" of his visit. He had made
proposals to the State Department of the usual Prussian type. By "usual
Prussian type," I mean that he had asked for concessions of territory
and engagements in which all the real, and most of the apparent, benefit
was on the Prussian side. I do not now remember their exact nature,
though later I learned from Hay something of their general scope and
character. My only trustworthy recollection is that Hay referred to them
with that patient, well-bred disgust with which he always received
overtures of this kind. He was a man of a very fastidious sense of
honour, and not amused by the low side of life, or by trickery even when
foiled. And here I may perhaps be allowed to interpolate another
personal recollection. I remember his telling me twenty years ago--that
is, during the Spanish War--how the German Ambassador in London had
approached him officially with the request that a portion of the
Philippine Islands should be ceded--Heavens knows why--to the Kaiser. I
can well recall his contemptuous imitation of the manner of the request.
"You haf so many islands; why could you not give us some?" I asked Hay
what he had replied. With a somewhat grim smile he answered: "I told
him: 'Not an island--not one!'"
I shall perhaps be accused of indiscretion in what I have written,
especially when I am dealing with a man so discreet, so punctilious in
all official intercourse, as John Hay. I feel, however, that I am
justified by the time which has elapsed, and by the events of the last
few years.
I could fill, not one, but several chapters with the delightful talks
about Lincoln which I had with Mr. Hay. He was always at his best when
talking about Lincoln. It must not be supposed, however, that he was a
man with one idea or that he was, as it were, eaten up by his great
chief. Hay was a true statesman and a man with clear and consistent
views of his own. I had the pleasure of bringing Hay into touch with
Lord Cromer. Cromer was, of course, greatly impressed. I remember
pointing out to him that Hay was really the best illustration that he
could have had for one of his favourite theories,--that is, that the
people who in their youth had been private secretaries were, other
things being equal, the best people to whom to give big appointments.
Cromer used to say that the reason for this was a very plain one. The
difficulty with most officials, and especially with men in the Army, was
that they so often did not attain to positions of real responsibility,
and where they had to take the initiative, till their minds had been
atrophied by official routine and by the fact that they had simply
carried out other people's orders, and not to think or act for
themselves. It was different with a young man who at the most
impressionable time of life had not only been under the influence of a
great man, but had seen great affairs absolutely at first hand and not
dressed up in official memoranda. Again, the Private Secretary saw the
whole of them and not merely departmental fragments.
It was no doubt this fact which made Hay a great Ambassador and a great
Secretary of State. He had not only had the magnificent education which
was received by the whole of Lincoln's personal staff, the inspiration,
intellectual, moral, and political, which a man like Lincoln spreads
around him, but he had seen at their very source the great affairs of
home, war, and foreign politics.
He had seen how great questions arise and how hard it is to settle them;
how they go wrong through accidents, or delay, or negligence, how
necessary it is to prevent the rise of prejudice, selfishness, and folly
in their handling. In a word, there could not have been a better proof
of Lord Cromer's dictum than Hay's career. I remember talking on the
general subject to Hay, who in effect agreed, and later I also said the
same thing to President Roosevelt. I told him I thought it was a great
pity that the Presidents of the United States and other holders of great
offices did not encourage young men of brains and also of great
possessions, coming from families with great influence, local or social,
to become, when young, private secretaries. There would be a double
blessing produced thereby. It would help to bind men of wealth and
influence to the public service, and would get them trained to fill in
later life the great offices of State--Cabinet Ministers, Ambassadors,
and special commissioners. If a young man had been a member, say, of the
President's official family for four or five years and had then gone
into business or even into leisure, he would, granted that he was a man
of intelligence, have received an insight into affairs which might be of
great use to the nation later on. I even went so far as to dream that
the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great
Britain might have an occasional exchange of secretaries and so get a
certain number of people on both sides of the Atlantic who knew
something about the arcana in each government. As it is, both halves of
the English-speaking race are apt to make official bogeys,--to spell
Washington or London as the case may be with a very big capital letter,
and then to envisage this impersonation as something dark, mysterious,
or even terrible. How useful it would be if, when this sort of talk was
in the air, someone could say, "Honestly, they really are not a bit like
that (in Washington, or in London). You picture them as hard-shell
Machiavellis with sinister reasons for not answering our despatches or
proposals promptly, or as going behind our backs in this or that matter.
Believe me, they are just about like what we are here. They go out to
lunch as we do; they forget big things and trifle with small things, and
for fear of their trivialities being exposed, they talk big as if they
had some great and ruthless reasons of state for their official
misadventures. When you begin to ask, 'What are they up to? What is
their game?' the answer ninety-nine times out of a hundred is 'There is
not any game at all.'"
Before I take leave of Hay, I want to add a fact which deeply touched
me. It will be remembered that the Secretary of State, after a breakdown
in his health at Washington, came over to Europe to try the Mannheim
cure. The treatment at first seemed to do him good; but he was in truth
a broken man. So precarious, indeed, was his condition that, passing
through London, the only people he saw were Lord Lansdowne, then Foreign
Minister, and King Edward VII. I was the only exception. He asked me to
come up and see him, telling me that I must not let it be known or he
would be killed with kindness. If I was deeply touched by his thought of
me, I was still more moved to see how extreme was his weakness of body.
His mind, however, was as clear as ever and he talked almost in his old
way. He was the kind of man who was much too sensitive to say in words,
what I knew he felt--that it was good-bye. I came away from that last
talk, with my devotion to the man, high as it was before, greatly
heightened.
* * * * *
Though I did not know the Duke of Devonshire, earlier known as Lord
Hartington, nearly so intimately as the other four, I had for him a
political admiration which was almost unbounded. When a young man as was
only natural--I was twenty-six when I first came into contact with him--
I rather chafed at what I thought was his impenetrability. This,
however, I soon discovered was due to no want of intelligence, but
partly to natural shyness, partly to his education, partly to
temperament, and partly also to a kind of dumbness of the mind, which is
by no means inconsistent with a real profundity of intellect.
It is this mental profundity which is the main thing to remember about
the Duke of Devonshire. To speak of him as if he were merely a man of
character and firmness is to mistake him altogether. The Duke impressed
all who saw him at close quarters. It was only the people who did not
know him who said that he owed his rise to high office solely to his
birth and wealth. I remember Mr. Chamberlain once saying to me, "It's
all nonsense to talk about Hartington being dull and stupid. He is a
very clever man." What made this admission all the more memorable was
that Mr. Chamberlain was at the moment in a condition of something like
exasperation with his colleague's dilatory ways, and his constitutional
unwillingness to tackle a question till it was almost too ripe; you
simply could not hurry him. One of the difficult things about the Duke
was that he never realised the full greatness of his position in
politics, how much people depended on his lead, and how anxious they
were to find out what he thought and then fellow him without demur. But
the more they wanted to get a lead out of him, the more he seemed
determined to avoid if he possibly could the responsibility they had
asked him to assume, and partly because of a certain lethargy of his
mind, and partly because he never could be made to believe that anybody
could really want to lean upon and follow somebody else, he often
appeared to be utterly stubborn. I remember once, just before the
election in 1905, urging him as strongly as I knew how to make a public
statement and to give a public lead to the Unionist Free Trade electors
as to how they should vote. He was more than loath to take my advice. He
was all for letting the thing alone. He actually went so far as to say,
and remember, this was without the slightest suggestion of pose, "I
don't see why I should tell people what I should do if I had a vote.
They will do what they think right and I shall do what I think right.
They don't want me to interfere." It was no good to try and talk him
round, as one would have been inclined to talk round any ordinary
politician, by pointing out how very flattering it was to him for people
to wait upon his words and to desire to follow him, or to paint in
romantic language what he, as a leader of men, owed to his followers.
Anything of that sort was unthinkable with the Duke, and, if it had been
tried, would first of all have puzzled him utterly and when it had at
last dawned on him, would have put him off more than ever.
I could only repeat then that it was his duty to give people a lead and
when I said this once more I was met with the old tale that he would do
what he thought right, and they--the voters--would do what they thought
right. But what was wonderful in the Duke about a matter of this kind
was that he did not in the least show any annoyance at being badgered by
a man who was not only so much younger than he was, but also of so much
less experience in politics or affairs.
He was essentially a good-tempered man and had not a trace of _amour
propre_ in his nature. I doubt if he had ever intentionally snubbed a
man in his life, though, no doubt, he had often done so unintentionally,
for he was plain-spoken. He hated to hurt people's feelings, but he
sometimes thought that their feelings were like his own, quite iron-
clad. I remember an example of his imperturbability in this respect.
Once, in the eagerness of pressing a plan of action for the Unionist
Free Traders, to which he was disinclined, I expressed the wish to
propose it to the Council of our group and see what they thought of it.
He made no objection and I gathered that he thought it could do no harm
to have the matter aired, which, of course, was all I desired. A day or
two afterwards, however, the Duke casually and in the most good-humoured
way happened to say to me that I, of course, no doubt realised that if
people assented to my motion, he would have to resign as President of
our Association. I was, horror-struck, for to have lost him would have
meant utter destruction for our movement,--the movement, that is, to
prevent the Tariff Reformers running away with the Unionist Party. I
said at once that I would most gladly withdraw my proposal, and
expressed my complete confidence in his leadership.
He was delightfully naive about the whole matter and, here again,
without any pose. He declared that he did not see why I should not go on
with my scheme if I really thought it was a good one, and that he did
not regard it as in the least hostile to himself. There was nothing in
it that was in the least personally objectionable to him.
At a much earlier period of my acquaintance with him the Duke gave
another example of his good nature and want of fussiness. When the split
came in the Liberal party and the Liberal Unionist organisation was
created under his leadership and that of Mr. Chamberlain, I was chosen
as I have related elsewhere to act as Editor of the party organ, _The
Liberal Unionist._ Each number was to contain an article by some man
of importance, so I naturally asked Lord Hartington, as he then was, to
supply the signed article for the first number. I was entirely new to
the task of editing, and the Duke had never, oddly enough, written
anything before for publication, though, of course, he had made plenty
of speeches. The Duke was old-fashioned in his ways and did not have a
typewriter or a secretary, but wrote with his own hand. It was a very
good handwriting, but not quite printer-proof. Like all first numbers
mine was late. The proofs of the Duke's article were not sent out early
enough, with the result that we had to go to press without getting back
a corrected proof from the Duke. The result was one or two bad
misprints; the Duke was not angry--only sad, for he thought it might
make him look ridiculous. I was told, however, by excited members of the
Committee that I had made an awful blunder and must go and apologise for
so bad a beginning. Naturally, I was eager to express my regret, and
went down at once to the House of Commons and sent in for him. Now, as
ill-luck would have it, he was in the middle of an important debate on
Home Rule and just on the point of rising to speak when he received my
message. However, in the kindest way he came out, to see, as he said,
whether he could do anything for me, and apologised most profusely for
having kept me waiting for ten or twelve minutes. It was not, indeed,
till these apologies had been got over that I was able to make my
apologies, which he received in the most delightful way. If he had been
a pompous prig, he might so easily have lectured me (for I was not 26)
on how important it was for a young man just entering political life,
etc., etc. Of course, he had no thought of making me his special
adherent by his good temper and easiness. Such things never entered his
head. All the same, his courtesy, consideration, and evident
determination not to take advantage of my slip, made a deep impression
on me. A final example of the Duke's inability to realise that it
mattered to anybody else what he did was shown when he let Mr. Balfour,
then Prime Minister, persuade him to remain in the Unionist Ministry in
1905 when the rest of his Free Trade colleagues resigned. I felt none of
the amazement mixed with indignation felt by some of the Liberal
Unionists, because I knew my man, I felt, indeed, quite sure that what
had happened was that the Duke imagined that nobody would misunderstand
him and that perhaps, as he said, it was a pity when so many people were
resigning that he should resign also. He wouldn't be missed and so why
should he not just remain where he was? I felt equally sure, however,
that in a very little time he would come to understand the importance of
clearing up his position.
I was on manoeuvres and riding with the Hampshire Yeomanry at a great
sham fight on the Wiltshire downs, when I heard of the Cabinet crisis. I
well remember that on a hill-top, which was finally carried by our side,
I met the present Lord Middleton, then Mr. St. John Broderick, Secretary
of State for War and learned from him what had happened. That night I
went home to write on the crisis. When I got home I said to my wife,
"The Duke has not resigned, but it is all right. I will write an article
in _The Spectator_ which, while perfectly sympathetic, will set
forth the situation in a way which will be certain to bring the Duke
out." The result was as I expected.
I was interested some time afterwards to hear from one of his relatives
that my article was largely instrumental in determining him to follow
his followers in the matter of resignation. Almost the last time I saw
the Duke of Devonshire affords another example of his good-nature, of
his plain-spokenness, of his humanity, and of his public spirit. I had
always been, and still am, deeply concerned in the housing question. We
cannot be a really civilised nation unless we can get good houses and
cheap houses for the working-classes. Not being a philosopher, I had
always supposed that one way of getting good and cheap houses was to
find some improved form of construction. I have been informed, however,
by my Socialist friends that this is an entire mistake and that there
are much better ways. Though admitting that this was possible, and
hoping that it might be, I was always inclined to add, though I made no
converts,--"However good the other scheme, cheap construction, granted
it is also adequate construction, must be a desirable premium upon any
and every other scheme, financial or rhetorical, of getting good
houses." Therefore, I advocated and carried out by the joint action of
_The Spectator_ and another paper I then owned, _The County
Gentleman,_ a scheme for an exhibition of good cottages, in which a
prize was given for the best cottage. The novelty of my plan was that
the exhibits were not to be models of cottages, but were to be real
cottages. The Garden City were almost as glad to lend me their ground as
I was to avail myself of it, and by a well thought out arrangement we
were able, as it were, to endow the Garden City with some L20,000 worth
of good cottages without their having to put their hands into their
pockets. It was quite easy to guarantee to find purchasers or hirers of
the cottages put up by competitors. The competitor, therefore, could not
lose his money or tie it up for very long, and he was very likely able
to win a prize in one of the various categories. The greater number of
cottages were planned for competitions in which the cost was limited to
L150, for that was my ideal of the price for a cottage; and if a
competitor was sure to get his L150 back and might also get a prize
either of L150, or L100, or L50, he was in clover. But I am not out
to describe the success of the Cheap Cottages Exhibition, but only to
throw light on the character of the Duke of Devonshire. I asked the Duke
to open the Exhibition for me, and this he did in a speech full of
excellent good sense. He obeyed _ex animo_ my direction of "No
flowers by request." I remember, however, being somewhat disconcerted as
we went down in the special train by a remark which he made to one of
the Directors of the Garden City, who was saying, very properly, the
usual things about how pleased the Company had been to help with my
scheme. The Duke, with a loud laugh, replied with what was meant to be a
perfectly good-tempered joke, "And a jolly good advertisement for your
company you must have found it. Ha! Ha!" The Director, as was perhaps
not to be wondered at, looked somewhat flabbergasted at this sally.
Fortunately, I overheard it and was able to prevent any risk of wounded
feelings by explaining how helping to spread information in regard to
the good work being done by the Garden City was a thing which I and
those who were helping me were specially glad to do. If we had been able
to provide a useful advertisement for the Company we should feel almost
as well pleased as by the success of our own venture. The Duke at once
fully assented, but I don't think he in the least realised that his
original way of putting the remark might easily have given umbrage. If
it had been said to him and not by him it would not have caused any
annoyance and he no doubt assumed that other people would feel as simply
and as naturally as he did.
It would be impossible to give any account of the Duke and his character
and actions without noticing his devotion to the Turf. It was that
devotion which made Lord Salisbury once say with humorous despair that
he could not hold a most important meeting "because it appears that
Hartington must be at Newmarket on that day to see whether one quadruped
could run a little faster than another." The Duke was quite sincere in
his love of racing. There was no pose about it. He did not race because
he thought it his duty to encourage the great sport, or because he
thought it would make him popular, or for any other outside reason. He
kept racers and went to races because he loved to see his horses run,
though oddly enough I don't think he was ever a great man across
country, or was learned in matters of breeding and trainers. He just
liked racing and so he practised it and that is all that is to be said
about it. In this combination of sport and high political seriousness
he was extraordinarily English. Pope described the Duke's attitude
exactly in his celebrated character of Godolphin; the words fit the Duke
of Devonshire absolutely. They may well serve as a peroration to this
chapter.
Who would not praise Patricio's high desert,
His hand unstained, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head! all interests weigh'd,
All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd?
He thanks you not,--his pride is in piquet,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet.
But I am dwelling too much on the picturesque side of the Duke and so
getting too near the caricature view of the man. What I want is to give
in little a true picture of a really great man, for that is what he in
truth was.
Instead of tracing the Duke's political actions and political opinions,
I prefer to attempt an analysis of his political character. The first
and most obvious fact about the Duke was his independence, and what I
may call his inevitableness of action. Knowing the Duke's views on a
particular subject, you could always tell in any given circumstance what
would be his line of conduct. With most politicians explanations have to
be found at some point of their career for this or that action.
Everything seemed to point to their taking a particular course, and yet
they took another. In the case of one man this was due to influence
exerted over him by a friend. In that of another it was due to hostility
to some colleague or rival. The personal element deflected the course of
history. In the case of the Duke of Devonshire such explanations are
unthinkable. It is impossible to imagine him a Home-ruler out of
devotion to Mr. Gladstone, or a Free-trader out of jealousy or distrust
of Mr. Chamberlain. The Duke had no dislikes or prejudices of this kind.
Certainly he had none in the case of Mr. Chamberlain. All the efforts of
the Tapers and Tadpoles and paragraph-writers in the Press failed to
produce the slightest sense of rivalry between them. The Duke, to use a
racing phrase, went exclusively on men's public form, and gave his
contemporaries credit for the same public spirit which he himself
showed.
He was the last man in the world to think that he had a monopoly of
patriotism. His high-mindedness was, he assumed, shared by others. He
never betrayed a colleague, and he never thought it possible that a
colleague could think of betraying him. The result was that throughout
his career he was never once the victim of any intrigue or conspiracy.
He kept his mind fixed always on questions and not on men, and just as
he always endeavoured to solve the real problem at issue rather than
secure a party triumph, so his aim was to bring advantage to the nation,
not to gain a victory over an opponent. I should be the last to say that
in this the Duke of Devonshire was unique. What, however, was unique
about his position was the fact that no one ever attributed to him
unworthy motives or insinuated that he was playing for his own hand. If
any one had ventured to do so, the country would simply have regarded
the accuser as mad.
Another striking quality possessed by the Duke of Devonshire was his
absolute straightforwardness of conduct and clearness of language. No
one ever felt that he had a "card up his sleeve." He told the country
straight out exactly what he thought, and his reticence--for reticent he
was in a high degree--was due, not to the fact that he did not think it
advisable at the moment to let the country know what he was thinking,
but simply and solely to the fact that he had not been able to come to a
determination. He did not like meeting questions half-way, but waited
till circumstances forced them on his attention.
The late Duke of Argyll once said of him at a public meeting: "Oh,
gentlemen, what a comfort it is to have a leader who says what he means
and means you to understand what he says." Here in a nutshell was the
quality which the country most admired in the Duke of Devonshire. They
always knew exactly what he stood for, and whether he was a Unionist or
a Home-ruler, a Free-trader or a Protectionist. He was never seeking for
a safe point to rest on, one which, in the immortal language of the
politician in the _Biglow Papers_, would leave him "frontin' south
by north."
In spite of the independence, straightforwardness, and clearness of the
Duke's attitude, he often showed a curious diffidence, and seemed unable
to realise that he had so absolutely the confidence of the country that
no explanations were ever necessary in his case. For example, after the
secession of the Unionist Free-traders from Mr. Balfour's Administration
spoken of above, the Duke thought it necessary to explain--in his place
in the House of Lords--how it was that he remained for a few days
longer in the Cabinet than did his Unionist Free-trade colleagues. I
have reason to know that the Duke found such an explanation a painful
and trying one to make. Nevertheless he insisted on making it, and this
though on the day he spoke he was suffering from the beginnings of a
severe attack of influenza. It will be remembered that he then declared,
with a sincerity which in one sense deeply touched, and in another sense
might almost be said to have amused, the nation, that his mind was not
so clear as it ought to have been during his negotiations with Mr.
Balfour, and that he had not at first completely grasped the situation.
As a matter of fact, is it safe to say that no one, least of all his
Unionist Free-trade colleagues, thought there was the slightest need for
such an apology. If the thought of the nation on that occasion could
have been put into words, it would have run something like this:--"There
was not the least reason for you to say what you have said. Every one
recognised that you would in the end do exactly what you did--that is,
leave the Ministry--and the fact that you took four or five days longer
than your colleagues to realise that this was inevitable was looked on
as the most natural thing in the world. It was a proof to the British
people as a whole that a Free-trader could do nothing else. If you had
acted as quickly as others, it might possibly have been thought that
there was something not absolutely necessary in your action."
The Duke of Devonshire was often spoken of as a great aristocrat and as
a representative of the aristocratic interests in the country. Nothing,
however, could have been further from the truth. Though no doubt the
Duke was in a sense intensely proud of being a Cavendish, and though he
felt in his heart of hearts very strongly the duty of _noblesse
oblige_, he had nothing of that temperament which people usually mean
when they use the word "aristocrat." He was the last man in the world
whom one could associate with the idea of the noble who springs upon a
prancing war-steed, either real or metaphorical, and waves his sword in
the air. His represented rather what might be called the old-fashioned
English temperament, the possessors of which in effect say to the
world:--"I'll mind my own business, and you mind yours. You respect me,
and I'll respect you. You stand by me, and I'll stand by you; and when
we have both done our duty to ourselves and each other, for heaven's
sake don't let us have any d----d nonsense about it."
But though this is true in a sense, one would lose touch altogether with
the Duke's character if one insisted on it too much, or gave the
impression that the Duke's nature was one of surly defiance such as
Goldsmith describes in the famous line on the Briton in _The
Traveller_. No doubt one of his colleagues, Robert Lowe, once said of
him: "What I like about Hartington is his 'you-be-damnedness.'" But
though this element was not wanting in the Duke's character, it did not
in any way prevent him from being at heart as kindly, as sympathetic,
and as courteous as he was reasonable, straightforward, and plain-
spoken.
One may strive as one will to draw the character of the Duke, but in the
end one comes back to the plain fact that he was a great public
servant,--one who served, not because he liked service for its own sake
or for the rewards it brought in sympathy and public applause, but
solely because he was mastered by the notion of duty and by the sense
that, like every other Englishman, he owed the State a debt which must
be paid. Pope said of one of his ancestors that he cared not to be great
except only in that he might "save and serve the State." That was
exactly true of the late Duke of Devonshire.
This tradition of public service is one which has long been associated
with the house of Cavendish, and it is cause for national congratulation
to think that there is no risk of that tradition being broken. The
present Duke possesses the high character and the sense of public duty
which distinguished his predecessor. It may safely be predicted of him
that the ideals of public duty maintained by his uncle will not suffer
in his keeping.
* * * * *
Of the five great figures in England and America, who were known to me
and who are dead, I find by far my greatest difficulty in writing about
Theodore Roosevelt. Though I saw very much less of him than I did of
Lord Cromer, my feeling of regret at his death was specially poignant.
Mr. Roosevelt was almost my exact contemporary. Therefore, I could look
forward, and did look forward, to enjoying his friendship for many years
to come. Lord Cromer was ten or fifteen years my senior, and, though my
intimacy with him was of the very closest, far closer than that which I
enjoyed with Mr. Roosevelt, I did not feel myself on the same plane with
him. To put the matter specifically, Lord Cromer was engaged in most
important and most responsible public work when I was little more than a
child, and by the time I left Oxford he had already finished the first
three or four years of his great task in Egypt. Again, when Roosevelt's
death came, it came without warning. I did not know that his health had
in any way been failing.
Roosevelt and I were always so much in accord and our friendship through
the post was of so intimate a kind that I am sometimes amazed when I
think of the comparatively small number of days, or rather hours, that I
actually passed in his company. For several years before I saw him in
the flesh I had exchanged constant letters with him, and so much did he
reveal himself in them that, when we did meet, he appeared to me exactly
the man I had envisaged. Naturally I wondered greatly whether this would
be so, and took a strict inquisition of the impression made on me in
seeing him face to face. In similar cases, one almost always finds
surprises in minor, if not in major, differences; but Roosevelt needed
no re-writing on the tablets of my mind.
I shall never forget my visit to the White House. If I had slept under
that roof alone, and without any guide or interpreter, I should have
been deeply moved. My readers then may imagine what my feelings were
when I, who had read and thought so much of Lincoln, found that my
dressing-room was the little sanctum upstairs into which Lincoln, in the
crises of the war, used to retire for consultation with his Generals,
Ministers, and intimate friends. At that time the ground floor of the
White House, other than the great ceremonial rooms, had been almost
entirely absorbed by the various officials connected with the
Presidency.
Our train from New York was nearly an hour late, and, therefore, when we
arrived, we had only bare time to dress for dinner. Yet when we reached
the room where guests assembled before dinner we found the President
alone. Though it was through no fault of ours that we were late, my wife
had fully realised the necessity of being down in time. Dinner was if I
remember rightly at eight, and we were shaking hands with the President
by five minutes to.
I have already described how Lord Cromer at first sight showed himself
willing to tell me everything and to trust wholly to the discretion of
his visitor. Mr. Roosevelt exhibited an equal confidence. In the long
talk which I had with him on my first evening at the White House,
throughout the Sunday and during a long ride on the Monday, in pouring
rain on a darkish November evening, we talked of everything under the
sun, and had our talk out. Mr. Roosevelt was one of those very busy men
who somehow contrive to have time for full discussion. After breakfast
on the Monday morning,--we did not move to other quarters in Washington,
till late on the Monday,--Mr. Roosevelt asked me whether I would like
to see how he got through his work. I accepted with avidity. Accordingly
we went from the White House to the President's office, which had been
built, under Mr. Roosevelt's directions, in the garden and was just
finished. We first went into Mr. Roosevelt's special room. There he put
me in a window seat and said I was quite free to listen to the various
discussions which he was about to have with Cabinet Ministers, Judges,
Ambassadors, Generals, Admirals, Senators, and Congressmen.
It was very remarkable to see the way in which he managed his
interlocutors,--who by the way apparently took me either for a private
secretary or else as part of the furniture! I recall the clever manner
in which Mr. Roosevelt talked to an Ambassador, and kept him off thorny
questions, and yet got rid of him so skilfully that his dismissal looked
like a special act of courtesy. The interview with a leading Western or
Southern Senator, who had got some cause of complaint, I forget what,
was equally courteous and dexterous, though the President's attitude
here was, of course, perfectly different. Roosevelt was a man, for all
his downrightness, of great natural dignity and of high breeding, though
he had the good sense never, as it were, to _affiché_ this good
breeding to any man who might have misunderstood it and thought that he
was being patronised. In this case the Senator was a self-made man, who
would, no doubt, have been suspicious if he had been talked to in the
voice and language used for the Ambassador. Mr. Roosevelt had no
difficulty whatever in making his change of manners as quick as it was
complete. A Judge of the Supreme Court, who came for a short talk,
demanded yet a third style and got it, as did also one of the members of
the President's Cabinet.
"The President's Cabinet" remember, is not only a piece of official
style. It represents a fact. The American Cabinet Ministers are not
responsible to Congress, as ours are to Parliament, but are the nominees
of the President and responsible only to him. In a word, they are
_"the President's Cabinet."_ Communications between them and the
House of Representatives and the Senate come always theoretically, and
largely actually, through the President.
After an hour, or rather more, had been spent in these interviews, the
President took me into another room, which was the Cabinet Room, and
very soon the Members of the Administration began to assemble and to
take their seats round the big table in the centre. I felt as the
children say, that this was getting "warm." Even though I had the
President's general leave to stop, I thought I had better not take
advantage of it. As soon as I saw my friend Colonel Hay enter, I went up
to him and asked him whether he did not think that though I had been
honoured by the President's invitation, I had better not remain during
the Cabinet. I could see that this relieved him not a little. Though
devoted to Roosevelt, he was a little inclined to think that the
President's ways were sometimes too unconventional. Therefore, I slipped
quietly out of the room.
It is amusing to recall that when at luncheon, I apologised half
whimsically for my desertion, Mr. Roosevelt told me that I had acted
_"with perfect tact."_ Anyway, I look back to the incident with
interest. I hold that I probably got nearer to seeing the United States
Cabinet actually at work than do most people. Business had actually
begun before I completed my retreat.
I won the approval of the President not only for my discretion here,
but, as I afterwards found out, for my complete willingness, nay,
pleasure, in going out for a ride with him in a flood of rain on a dark
November evening. That was not a very great feat, but apparently some of
his visitors had shown themselves anything but happy in such rides. He
was indeed inclined to use his afternoon winter rides as a test of men.
Accustomed, however, as I was to the English climate and always, not
only willing, but intensely eager to get on the back of a horse, it
never occurred to me to think that our ride would either be put off
because it poured or its accomplishment counted to me for righteousness.
Certainly it was a curious kind of ride. I was mounted on a superb
Kentucky horse procured for me from the Cavalry Barracks--a creature
whose strength and speed proved how well deserved is the reputation of
that famous breed. We were a party of four, with General Wood and a
young aide-de-camp. No sooner were we mounted--I on a McClellan saddle--
than we set off at a fast pace which very soon became a gallop. I
remember, as we dashed through the rain on the hard pavements, thinking
that our horses' hooves sounded like an elopement on the stage--"heard
off". The lovers' ardour is usually marked by the vivid manner in which
their horses wake the thunders of the King's highway.
We crossed the well-known creek or torrent in the park near the city,
which meant putting our horses through a fairly swift and broad though
not deep stream, and then passed through what had once been a largish
plantation. The trees had, however, been cut down a year or two before.
This we negotiated at a gallop, the President leading. I admit that it
was an exciting performance. Not only was it almost dark when we reached
the wood or ex-wood, but the wood-cutters had left the stumps of
innumerable small trees or saplings, standing up about six inches from
the ground. You could hardly imagine anything better devised for
catching a horse's foot. But even worse than the risk of a horse
stumbling over a stump, was the thought of his putting his hoof down on
one of the more sharply pointed stumps, often not more than the
thickness of a big walking stick. It would have pierced like a spear.
However, I felt that the honour of my country and of my profession as a
journalist were at stake. Therefore, I made my horse, who was not at all
unwilling, keep well alongside the President. Under such conditions
steering was impossible; and we galloped along at haphazard. I was
consoled to feel that if the President's horse could pick his way, mine
could probably do the same. As it happened nobody's horse made a
blunder, and we all four emerged quite safely from the ordeal and soon
turned homeward, but by a different way. Our pace, however, did not
slacken. We galloped along a main thoroughfare, which was not made safer
by tram lines. All the same I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and was proud
to bring my big horse of nearly seventeen hands home without a slip. It
was in truth a delightful experience. My horse proved well able to keep
up with the President's very fine charger--needless to say, I knew
enough to know that one does not attempt to out-ride persons in the
position of sovereigns--and we talked as hard as we rode, for a whole
hour without interruption.
The President's remark as we dismounted was characteristic,--"Don't you
think, Strachey. I am quite right, as I can only get an hour's exercise
a day, to go while I am at it, as hard as I can?" That remark was really
meant as a kind of rebound argument for General Wood.
I assured the President in the enthusiasm of the moment that he was
perfectly right, but General Wood in a ride, which I subsequently took
with him, shook his head over the President's way of galloping fast on
the hard roads and declared that he shook his horse's legs all to
pieces. Some day there would be an accident. "I try to get him to give
up the practice but I am afraid I don't have much success, though he
takes it very well. No, he's not a careful rider!"--a comment, by the
way, which I had so often heard about myself that it sounded quite
familiar. Need I add that this was anxious affection on the part of
General Wood, one of the ablest of military and civil administrators
alive today--and a man whom I am proud to say has honoured me with a
friendship as warm and as generous as that of his great Chief and
friend.
Some day my correspondence with Mr. Roosevelt will, I hope, see the
light; but not yet. The President's powers in the matter of letter
writing, however, deserve a special comment. He was probably one of the
greatest letter writers in the matter of quantity who ever lived. He was
also high up in quality. He liked letter writing, and he certainly
expressed himself not only with vigour but with ease and distinction. If
not a faultless writer, he wrote well enough for his purpose, and showed
his largeness and fineness of character. Though a well-educated man,
with a strong tradition of culture behind him, and, further, with a very
marked love of good literature, he was too busy and too practical to
find time to turn or tune his phrases. His letters are very readable and
from many points of view very attractive, but they do not possess the
kind of fascination which belongs to the correspondence of some of the
elder statesmen of England or America--the kind of fascination which we
may feel sure will be exercised whenever Lord Rosebery's letters are
given to the world--may the event be a long way off. Finally, they have
not that inspiration in word and thought of which the history of
personal and political correspondence affords us its best example in the
letters of Abraham Lincoln.
One of the delightful things about Roosevelt's correspondence is, that
he touched life at so many sides. He struck the hand of a great
gentleman, a great statesman, and, in the best sense, a man of the
world, into the hands not only of kings and emperors, ministers and
soldiers, but of authors, poets, artists, men of science, explorers,
naturalists, and last, but not least, of men of action in all ranks of
life. He attained to this freedom of the Great World early in life. He
had in effect that singular advantage which belongs to kings. For twenty
years of his life at least he had always at his command the best brains
in the world. He had only to make a sign to get _en rapport_ with
the man who knew most on the subject that was interesting him. Besides
this, as his Biographer, Mr. Bishop, has pointed out, Roosevelt had the
essential mark of a great man. Emerson truly said, "He is great who
never reminds us of others." Certainly Roosevelt stood alone. Though he
touched many men of the Old World and the New, and of the old age and
the new, he was intensely individual.
As to his personal characteristic. One of the most memorable of his
personal characteristics was that, in spite of the fierce conflicts of
his political life, no one ever seriously accused him of a mean or
ignoble act. Though, not professing to be a political saint, he ran as
straight as any statesman of whom we have record. Not Pitt nor Lord Grey
here, nor Washington nor Lincoln in America, had a finer sense of honour
and of political rectitude. He preached the square deal; he practised
it.
To do that in party politics and with a democracy so vast and so full of
cross-currents and stormy elements as that of America is not nearly as
easy as it sounds. Roosevelt was of course no plaster saint. He dared to
look at life as a whole, and without its trappings and disguises, and
yet all the time he made men feel that it was not only right but quite
possible, in Burke's phrase, "to remember so to be a patriot as not to
forget that you are a gentleman."
I shall not touch upon Mr. Roosevelt's political views or political
acts. They are too well known for comment. Nor, again, is there, I am
glad to say, any necessity to make clear in these pages how strong was
the sympathy between Roosevelt and the English people, and how anxious
he was to keep together the whole of the English-speaking race,--not, of
course, by any sort of alliance, but by mutual understanding, and
through adherence to common aims and common ideals.
These things are public property. What I would rather dwell upon is a
certain boldness of attitude in which Roosevelt set a wonderful example
to the leaders of a democracy. Though Mr. Roosevelt was in many ways an
exceedingly astute and practical politician, he was not the least awed
by rumour, not the least afraid of touching questions because they were
thorny. His attitude towards Labour when questions of public order were
involved, is well shown in the letter to Senator Lodge in which
Roosevelt gives an account of a visit which he paid to Chicago during a
strike, accompanied by disorder in the streets.
When I came to Chicago I found a very ugly strike, on
account of which some of my nervous friends wished me to try
to avoid the city. Of course I hadn't the slightest intention
of doing so. I get very much puzzled at times on questions of
finance and the tariff, but when it comes to such a perfectly
simple matter as keeping order, then you strike my long suit.
The strikers were foolish enough to come to me on their own
initiative and make me an address in which they quoted that
fine flower of Massachusetts statesmanship, the lamented
Benjamin F. Butler, who had told rioters at one time, as it
appeared, that they need have no fear of the United States
Army, as they had torches and arms. This gave me a good
opening, and while perfectly polite, I used language so simple
that they could not misunderstand it; and repeated the same
with amplifications at the dinner that night. So if the rioting
in Chicago gets beyond the control of the State and the City,
they now know well that the Regulars will come.
Commenting on the President's visit to Chicago, Mr. Secretary Hay said:
"It requires no courage to attack wealth and power, but to remind the
masses that they, too, are subject to the law, is something few public
men dare to do." That of course is perfectly true. But it is equally
true that when a public man does dare speak the truth it always turns
out to be the best and most paying policy that he could have adopted.
Roosevelt did not lose popularity with the mass of his countrymen but
gained it by his honesty.
Another example of Roosevelt's political honesty was the way in which he
treated the question of negro-lynching in the South. This is delicate
ground, and as I have been accused by a Southern newspaper most
absurdly, as I am certain all reasonable Americans will agree, of
attacking America and the American people because in _The
Spectator_ I have spoken out in regard to lynching, I will quote
without comment the account of Roosevelt's plain speaking, given by Mr.
Bishop:
The President gave another illustration of his courage in
October, 1905, when he made a tour of the South, speaking at
various points in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas,
and Alabama, including a visit to the home of his mother at
Roswell, Georgia. At Little Rock, Arkansas, on October 25th,
he was introduced by the Governor of the State to a large
concourse of citizens in the City Park. In his introductory
remarks, the Governor made a quasi defence of the lynching
of coloured men for supposed outrages upon white women.
In opening his speech the President declared that he had been
fortunate enough to have spoken all over the Union and had
never said in any State or any section what he would not have
said in any other State or in any other section. Turning a few
minutes later directly to the Governor, he said: "Governor,
you spoke of a hideous crime that is often hideously avenged.
The worst enemy of the negro race is the negro criminal, and,
above all, the negro criminal of that type; for he has
committed not only an unspeakably dreadful and infamous crime
against the victim, but he has committed a hideous crime
against the people of his own colour; and every reputable
coloured man, every coloured man who wishes to see the uplifting
of his race, owes it as his first duty to himself and to
that race to hunt down that criminal with all his soul and
strength. Now for the side of the white man. To avenge
one hideous crime by another hideous crime is to reduce the
man doing it to the bestial level of the wretch who committed
the bestial crime. The horrible effects of the lynchings are
not for that crime at all, but for other crimes. And above
all other men, Governor, you and I and all who are exponents
and representatives of the law, owe it to our people, owe it to
the cause of civilisation and humanity, to do everything in our
power, and unofficially, directly and indirectly, to free the
United States from the menace and reproach of lynch law."
I have never gone, and do not want to go, one hairs-breadth beyond what
Mr. Roosevelt said in condemnation of the lynchers. Further, I fully
realise that the best men in the South detest lynching and are as
anxious to put down lynching as indeed were the best men in the South to
get rid of slavery. I want, however, to say with Roosevelt that whatever
else is right, and whatever ought to be the relations between white men
and black, lynching must be wrong, and must tend to make the
difficulties of a mixed population even greater than they were already.
Whatever may be the vices of the black man, burning negroes alive at the
mandate of an irresponsible mob, who are acting on rumour and hearsay,
cannot but be the very acme of human depravity. And it is as stupid as
it is wicked.
Though there was a distinct strain of austerity as well as
authoritativeness in Mr. Roosevelt's nature, there was also a deep
strain of sentiment. He was a man easily moved, not only by "the sense
of tears in mortal things," but by all that was generous and noble. A
delightful example of how deeply and quickly his feelings could be
touched when a child is given by Mrs. Douglas Robinson, his sister, in
the account of her brother.
The Roosevelt family were in Rome at the end of the "sixties" and
played, like other English-speaking children, on the Pincian Hill. While
they were playing at leapfrog word was suddenly passed round that the
Pope was coming.
"Teddie" whispered to the little group of American children
that he didn't believe in Popes--that no real American would;
and we all felt it was due to the stars and stripes that we
should share his attitude of distant disapproval. But then,
as is often the case, the miracle happened, for the crowd parted,
and to our excited, childish eyes something very much like a
scene in a story-book took place. The Pope, who was in his
sedan-chair carried by bearers in beautiful costumes, his
benign face framed in white hair and the close cap which he
wore, caught sight of the group of eager little children craning
their necks to see him pass; and he smiled and put out one
fragile, delicate hand towards us, and lo! the late scoffer who,
in spite of the ardent Americanism that burned in his eleven-year-old
soul, had as much reverence as militant patriotism in
his nature, fell upon his knees, and kissed the delicate hand,
which for a brief moment was laid upon his hair. Whenever
I think of Rome this memory comes back to me, and in a way
it was so true to the character of my brother. The Pope to
him had always meant what later he would have called "unwarranted
superstition," but that Pope, Pio Nono, the kindly,
benign old man, the moment he appeared in the flesh, brought
about in my brother's heart the reaction which always came
when the pure, the good, or the true crossed his path.
That is almost as good a papal story as that of the Pope whom the great
Napoleon brought a virtual captive from the Vatican to grace his
coronation as Emperor. The Pope, while moving about Paris, was
accustomed to give his blessing freely, for he soon became a very
popular character. It happened, however, that one day, while going
through the galleries of the Louvre, he unwittingly gave his blessing to
a little crowd that contained a fierce, anti-clerical Jacobin and
revolutionary. The man showed the greatest disgust and contempt at
receiving the Pope's blessing, and retorted with curses on the man who
dared implore for him Heaven's grace and favour. The Pope, with his
Italian grace and good manners, easily got the best of the scowling
brows and the muttered imprecations. He apologised simply and humbly to
the man whom he had blessed by mistake and added, "I do not think, sir,
that after all an old man's blessing can have done you any harm." Quite
as little could Roosevelt's boyish kiss make him a votary to
superstition.
I feel for the reasons that I have already given that I am not managing
to express my personal feeling about Roosevelt. Yet he is the last man
of whom I want to write perfunctorily or even ceremoniously. Therefore,
for the time I shall bring my recollections of him to a close by merely
noting certain characteristics of the statesman.
The essential quality in Roosevelt was the spirit of good citizenship.
He was a very able politician and party leader. He was also no mean
orator in a nation where the arts of the rostrum are specially
cultivated and understood. He was a skilled and powerful administrator.
He had a soldier's eye for country and a soldier's heart. What is more,
he understood the soldier's spirit as well as did Cromwell. Though a
strict disciplinarian, he knew that if you are to get the best out of a
soldier, you must make him feel a free citizen and not a fighting slave.
Roosevelt, again, was a man highly qualified to be the personal
representative and head of a great nation. He had the dignity of
demeanour, the sense of proportion, the knowledge of the world, the
instinct for great affairs, together with that universality of
comprehension which is necessary to the efficient discharge of high
office.
Yet, great as was Roosevelt in all these matters, it was not so much the
qualities just enumerated which make, and will continue to make, his
memory live in America. Others could rival him or surpass him on the
political stage. He made good citizenship an art. He never tired in
enforcing by precept and example the duty which men and women owe to the
community. No man, as his life and work showed, can be allowed to keep
his good citizenship in watertight compartments. He must not say that he
had done his best in his district or city or State, or at Washington,
and that no more was to be required of him. He must do his duty to the
State in all capacities. Duty accomplished in one sphere would not
relieve him of responsibility in the others.
Though Roosevelt was a Whig, an individualist, and a man who hated over-
centralisation, abhorred administrative tyranny, and loathed
_Etatism_, he never failed to pay due homage to the nation
personified. To him the Government as representing the community, was
something sacred and revered, not merely a committee to manage tram-
lines, roads, and drains. Treason to the State was to him the greatest
of crimes. When he talked of the National Honour, he meant something
very real and definite, and was not merely indulging in a rhetorical
flourish. Good citizenship was indeed to Roosevelt a religion, as in a
rougher and less conscious way it was to Cromwell and to Lincoln.