its golden age. Soon it was all to vanish and pass into the most
romantic chapter of American history.
Before his first visit was at an end, he had become a ranchman.
The young master of Elkhorn Ranch, brave, outspoken, and always ready to
bear his full share of toil, and hardship, was not long in winning the
respect and hearty good-will of the bluff, honest men of the Bad Lands.
After only a little experience in ranching, he learned to sit in his
saddle and ride his horse like a life-long plainsman.
But he never pretended to any special fondness for a bucking bronco; and
a story is told of a trick played on him by some friendly persons in
Medora.
He was in town, waiting for a train that was to bring a guest from the
East. While he was in a store, the jokers placed his saddle on a
notoriously vicious beast, which they substituted for his mount.
When he came out, in haste to ride around to the railway station, he did
not detect the deception.
Once, he was on the horse’s back, the bronco bucked and whirled to the
amusement of the grinning villagers. But to their amazement, the young
ranchman succeeded in staying on him and spurring him into a run.
Away they flew to the prairies, and soon back they raced in a cloud of
dust and through the town. The friend from the East arrived, and joined
the spectators, who waited to see if the young squire of Elkhorn ever
would return.
In a little while, he was seen coming along the road at a gentle gait.
And when he reached his starting point, he dismounted, with a smile of
quiet mastery, from as meek a creature as ever stood on four legs.
He had no use, however, for a horse whose spirit ran altogether to
ugliness. When he first went West, he doubted the theory of the natives
that any horse was hopelessly bad.
For instance, there was one in the sod-roofed log stable of Elkhorn, who
had been labelled _The Devil_. Roosevelt believed that gentleness would
overcome Devil. The boys thought it might, if he should live to be
seventy-five.
After much patient wooing, Devil actually let Roosevelt lay his hand on
him and pat him. The boys began to think that possibly there was
something in this new plan of bronco busting.
One day, however, when his gentle trainer made bold to saddle and mount
him, Devil quickly drew his four hoofs together, leaped into the air,
and came down with a jerk and a thud. Then he finished with a few fancy
curves, that landed his disillusioned rider a good many yards in front
of him.
Roosevelt sprang to his feet and on to the back of the animal. Four
times he was thrown. Finally, the determined rider manœuvred Devil
out on to a quicksand where bucking is impossible. And, when at last, he
was driven back to solid earth, he was like a lamb.
In this rough life of the range, the young ranchman conquered for ever
the physical weaknesses of his youth, and put on that rude strength
which enabled him to stand before the world, a model of vigorous
manhood.
_James Morgan_ (_Arranged_)
SAGAMORE HILL
_His Home at Oyster Bay_
_From Roosevelt’s Autobiography_
Sagamore Hill takes its name from the old Sagamore Mohannis, who, as
Chief of his little tribe, signed away his rights to the land, two
centuries and a half ago.
The house stands right on the top of the hill, separated by fields and
belts of woodland from all other houses, and looks out over the Bay and
the Sound.
We see the sun go down beyond long reaches of land and of water. Many
birds dwell in the trees round the house or in the pastures and the
woods near by. And, of course, in Winter gulls, loons, and wild fowl
frequent the waters of the Bay and the Sound.
We love all the seasons; the snows and bare
[Illustration: ROOSEVELT BREAKING “DEVIL”]
woods of Winter; the rush of growing things and the blossom-spray of
Spring; the yellow grain, the ripening fruits, and tasseled corn, and
the deep, leafy shades that are heralded by “the green dance of Summer”;
and the sharp fall winds that tear the brilliant banners with which the
trees greet the dying year.
The Sound is always lovely. In the summer nights, we watch it from the
piazza, and see the lights of the tall Fall River boats as they steam
steadily by. Now and then we spend a day on it, the two of us together
in the light rowing skiff, or perhaps with one of the boys to pull an
extra pair of oars. We land for lunch at noon under wind-beaten oaks on
the edge of a low bluff, or among the wild plum bushes on a spit of
white sand; while the sails of the coasting schooners gleam in the
sunlight, and the tolling of the bell-buoy comes landward across the
waters....
Early in April, there is one hillside near us which glows like a tender
flame with the white of the bloodroot. About the same time, we find the
shy mayflower, the trailing arbutus. And although we rarely pick wild
flowers, one member of the household always plucks a little bunch of
mayflowers to send to a friend working in Panama, whose soul hungers for
the northern Spring.
Then there are shadblow and delicate anemones about the time of the
cherry blossoms. The brief glory of the apple orchards follows. And then
the thronging dogwoods fill the forests with their radiance.
And so flowers follow flowers, until the springtime splendour closes
with the laurel and the evanescent honey-sweet locust bloom. The late
summer flowers follow, the flaunting lilies, and cardinal flowers, and
marshmallows, and pale beach rosemary; and the goldenrod and the asters,
when the afternoons shorten and we again begin to think of fires in the
wide fireplaces.
_Theodore Roosevelt_
THE CHILDREN OF SAGAMORE HILL
Mrs. Roosevelt looked after the place itself. She supervised the
farming, and the flower gardens were her especial care.
The children were now growing up, and from the time when they could
toddle, they took their place--a very large place--in the life of the
home. Roosevelt described the intense satisfaction he had in teaching
the boys what his father had taught him.
As soon as they were large enough, they rode their horses, they sailed
on the Cove and out into the Sound. They played boys’ games, and through
him, they learned very young to observe nature.
In his college days, he had intended to be a naturalist, and natural
history remained his strongest avocation. And so he taught his children
to know the birds and animals, the trees, plants, and flowers of Oyster
Bay and its neighbourhood. They had their pets--Kermit, one of the boys,
carried a pet rat in his pocket.
Three things Roosevelt required of them all: obedience, manliness, and
truthfulness.
_William Roscoe Thayer_
OFF WITH JOHN BURROUGHS
_From Roosevelt’s Autobiography_
One April, I went to Yellowstone Park, when the snow was still very
deep, and I took John Burroughs with me. I wished to show him the big
game of the Park, the wild creatures that have become so astonishingly
tame and tolerant of human presence.
In the Yellowstone, the animals seem always to behave as one wishes them
to! It is always possible to see the sheep, and deer, and antelope, and
also the great herds of elk, which are shyer than the smaller beasts.
In April, we found the elk weak after the short commons and hard living
of Winter. Once, without much difficulty, I regularly rounded up a big
band of them so that John Burroughs could look at them. I do not think,
however, that he cared to see them as much as I did.
The birds interested him more, especially a tiny owl, the size of a
robin, which we saw perched on the top of a tree, in mid-afternoon,
entirely uninfluenced by the sun, and making a queer noise like a cork
being pulled from a bottle.
I was rather ashamed to find how much better his eyes were than mine, in
seeing the birds and grasping their differences.
_Theodore Roosevelt_
THE BIG STICK
I saw in Roosevelt a strong man, who had taken early to heart Hamlet’s
maxim, and had steadfastly practised it:--
“_Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When Honour’s at the stake._”
He himself summed up this part of his philosophy in a phrase which has
become a proverb:--
“_Speak softly; but carry a big stick._”
More than once in his later years, he quoted this to me, adding, that it
was precisely because this or that Power knew that he carried a big
stick, that he was enabled to speak softly with effect.
_William Roscoe Thayer_ (_Condensed_)
A-HUNTING TREES WITH JOHN MUIR
_From Roosevelt’s Autobiography_
When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the “big
trees,” the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite with
John Muir. Of course, of all people in the world, he was the one with
whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite....
John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our
tent, bedding, and food for a three days’ trip.
The first night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of
the great Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in colour and in
symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than
ever was conceived even by the fervour of the Middle Ages.
Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening, and again with a burst
of wonderful music at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to
find that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or
bird songs, and knew little about them. The hermit thrushes meant
nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and the cliffs, everything.
The only birds he noticed or cared for, were some that were very
conspicuous, such as the water-ousels--always particular favourites of
mine too.
The second night, we camped in a snow-storm on the edge of the cañon
walls, under the spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir. And
next day, we went down into the wonderland of the Valley itself.
I shall always be glad that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir, and in
the Yellowstone with John Burroughs.
_Theodore Roosevelt_ (_Condensed_)
THE BEAR HUNTERS’ DINNER
_From Roosevelt’s Autobiography_
When wolf-hunting in Texas, and when bear-hunting in Louisiana and
Mississippi, I was not only enthralled by the sport but also by the
strange new birds and other creatures, and the trees and flowers I had
not known before.
By the way, there was one feast at the White House, which stands above
all others in my memory, this was “The Bear Hunters’ Dinner.”
I had been treated so kindly by my friends on these hunts, and they were
such fine fellows, men whom I was so proud to think of as Americans,
that I set my heart on having them at a hunters’ dinner at the White
House.
One December, I succeeded. There were twenty or thirty of them, all
told, as good hunters, as daring riders, as first class citizens as
could be found anywhere. No finer set of guests ever sat at meat in the
White House.
And among other game on the table, was a black bear, itself contributed
by one of these same guests.
_Theodore Roosevelt_ (_Condensed_)
HUNTING IN AFRICA
_From Roosevelt’s Autobiography_
The African buffalo is undoubtedly a dangerous beast, but it happened
that the few that I shot did not charge.
A bull elephant, a vicious “rogue” which had been killing people in the
native villages, did charge before being shot at. My son Kermit and I
stopped it at forty yards.
Another bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, nearly got me, as
I had just fired both cartridges from my heavy double-barreled rifle, in
killing the bull I was after--the first wild elephant I had ever seen.
The second bull came through the thick brush to my left, like a steam
plow through a light snowdrift, everything snapping before his rush, and
was so near that he could have hit me with his trunk. I slipped past him
behind a tree.
People have asked me how I felt on this occasion. My answer has always
been that I suppose I felt as most men of like experience feel on such
occasions. At such a moment, a hunter is so very busy that he has no
time to get frightened. He wants to get in his cartridges and try
another shot.
Rhinoceros are truculent, blustering beasts, much the most stupid of all
the dangerous game I know. Generally their attitude is one of mere
stupidity and bluff. But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when
wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever shot, I mortally
wounded at a few rods’ distance, and it charged with the utmost
determination. Whereat I and my companion both fired, and, more by good
luck than anything else, brought it to the ground just thirteen paces
from where we stood.
Another rhinoceros may or may not have been meaning to charge me; I have
never been certain which. It heard us, and came at us through rather
thick brush, snorting and tossing its head. I am by no means sure that
it had fixedly hostile intentions. And indeed, with my present
experience, I think it likely that if I had not fired, it would have
flinched at the last moment, and either retreated or gone by me. But I
am not a rhinoceros mind-reader, and its actions were such as to
warrant my regarding it as a suspicious character. I stopped it with a
couple of bullets, and then followed it up and killed it.
The skins of all these animals which I thus killed are in the National
Museum at Washington.
_Theodore Roosevelt_ (_Condensed_)
THE EVER FAITHFUL ISLAND
Now, let us see what Theodore Roosevelt did to help establish Liberty in
this Hemisphere.
It is a far cry from the Very Magnificent Don Christopher Columbus,
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and discoverer of the West Indies and South
America, to plain Theodore Roosevelt of Oyster Bay and citizen of the
United States of North America.
Yet it was a very direct cry, a ringing call down through four
centuries, a never ceasing plea for Liberty and safety.
And it was plain Colonel Theodore Roosevelt who, with his Rough Riders,
helped to break the last link of the chain of Spanish domination in
America. Its first link was unwittingly forged by Columbus, when he
discovered the gold and pearls of the New World.
Through the many years, Cuba, the “Ever Faithful Island,” remained loyal
to Spain, while her other American possessions declared their
Independence, slipped from her grasp, and set up Republics.
But instead of taking warning from her American losses, Spain continued
her policy of repression in Cuba.
Then there arose Cuban Patriots, among them, Gomez, Maceo, and Garcia,
who struggled for Cuba’s Freedom. There were rebellions, insurrections,
and war. Great and terrible were the sufferings of the People.
It is not possible here to give an account of the Cuban War for
Independence. But after a terrific struggle, it was finally won in 1898,
with the help of our United States. Thus Spain lost her last foothold in
America, and withdrew from this hemisphere.
To-day, the Island of Cuba the “Ever-Faithful Island,” the “Pearl of the
Antilles,” is a flourishing Republic with a world commerce. And during
the World War, the red, white, and blue, single-bestarred Flag of Cuba,
waved over a brave Cuban Army, the ally of the United States.
But as to Theodore Roosevelt’s part in liberating the Island, while he
was Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley, we will
let one of his biographers tell about it:--
THE COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS
_In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of
endangered American interests, which give us the right and the duty
to speak and act, the war in Cuba must stop._
_President_ MCKINLEY
Roosevelt had always felt the danger to the United States of maintaining
a despicable or an inadequate Navy, and from the moment he entered the
Navy Department, he set about pushing the construction of the unfinished
vessels and of improving the quality of the personnel.
He was impelled to do this, not merely by his instinct to bring whatever
he undertook up to the highest standard, but also because he had a
premonition that a crisis was at hand, which might call the Country, at
an instant’s notice, to protect itself with all the power it had.
Roosevelt was impressed by the insurrection in Cuba, which kept that
Island in perpetual disorder. The cruel means, especially
reconcentration and starvation, by which the Spaniards tried to put down
the Cubans, stirred the sympathy of the Americans, and the number of
those who believed that the United States ought to interfere in behalf
of humanity, grew from month to month.
During his first year in office, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt busied
himself with all the details of preparation. And all the while he
watched the horizon towards Cuba, where the signs grew angrier and
angrier.
But the young Secretary had to act with circumspection. President
McKinley, desiring to keep the peace up to the very end, would not
countenance any move which might seem to the Spaniards either a threat
or an insult.
Early in the evening of February 15, 1898, the U. S. battleship _Maine_,
peaceably riding at her moorings in Havana Harbour, was blown up. Two
officers and 264 enlisted men were killed by the explosion and in the
sinking of the ship.
The next morning, the newspapers carried the report to all parts of the
United States, and, indeed, to the whole world. A tidal wave of anger
surged over this Country.
“That means war!” was the common utterance.
I doubt whether Roosevelt ever worked with greater relish than during
the weeks succeeding the blowing-up of the _Maine_. The Navy Department
arranged in hot haste to victual the ships; to provide them with stores
of coal and ammunition; to bring the crews up to their full quota by
enlisting; to lay out a plan of campaign; to see to the naval bases and
the lines of communication; and to coöperate with the War Department in
making ready the land fortifications along the shore.
Having accomplished his duty as Assistant Secretary, Roosevelt resigned.
He thought that he had a right to retire from that post, and to gratify
his long cherished desire to take part in the actual warfare.
General Alger, the Secretary of War, had a great liking for Roosevelt,
offered him a commission in the Army, and even the command of a
regiment.
This he prudently declined, having no technical military knowledge. He
proposed instead that Dr. Leonard Wood should be made Colonel, and that
he should serve under Wood, as Lieutenant Colonel.
While Roosevelt finished his business at the Navy Department, Colonel
Wood hurried to San Antonio, Texas, the rendezvous of the First Regiment
of Volunteer Cavalry--the Rough Riders!
A call for volunteers, issued by Roosevelt and endorsed by Secretary
Alger, spread through the West and Southwest, and it met with a quick
response.
Not even in Garibaldi’s famous Thousand, was such a strange crowd
gathered. It comprised cow-punchers, ranchmen, hunters, professional
gamblers, and rascals of the Border, sportsmen, mingled with the society
sports, former football players and oarsmen, polo players, and lovers
of adventure from the great eastern cities. They all had one quality in
common--courage--and they were all bound together by one common
bond--devotion to Theodore Roosevelt.
Nearly every one of them knew him personally. Some of the western men
had hunted or ranched with him. Some of the eastern had been with him in
college, or had had contact with him in one of the many vicissitudes of
his career.
* * * * *
I shall not attempt to follow in detail the story of the Rough Riders,
but shall touch only on those matters which refer to Roosevelt himself.
Wood having been promoted to Brigadier General, in command of a larger
unit, Theodore Roosevelt became Colonel of the regiment of Rough Riders.
On July 1 and 2, he commanded the Rough Riders in their attack on and
capture of San Juan Hill, in connection with some coloured troops.
In this engagement, their nearest approach to a battle, the Rough
Riders, who had less than five hundred men in action, lost eighty-nine
in killed and wounded.
Then followed a dreary life in the trenches, until Santiago surrendered,
and then a still more terrible experience, while they waited for Spain
to give up the war.
Under a killing tropical sun, receiving irregular and often damaged
food, without tent or other protection from the heat or from the rain,
the Rough Riders endured for weeks the ravages of fever, climate, and
privation.
Finally, because of Roosevelt’s insistence, the Government at
Washington, without loss of time, ordered the Army home.
The sick were transported by thousands to Montauk Point, at the eastern
end of Long Island, where in spite of the best medical care which could
be improvised, large numbers of them died.
But the Army knew, and the American Public knew, that Roosevelt had
saved multitudes of lives. At Montauk Point, he was the most popular man
in America.
This concluded Roosevelt’s career as a soldier. The experience
introduced to the Public those virile qualities of his, with which his
friends were familiar.
_William Roscoe Thayer_ (_Arranged_)
THE RIVER OF DOUBT
Roosevelt decided to make one more trip for hunting and exploration. As
he could not go to the North Pole, he said, because that would be
poaching on Peary’s field, he selected South America.
He had long wished to visit the Southern Continent, and invitations to
speak at Rio Janeiro and at Buenos Aires, gave him an excuse for setting
out.
He started with the distinct purpose of collecting animal and botanical
specimens, this time for the American Museum of Natural History in New
York, which provided two trained naturalists to accompany him. His son
Kermit, toughened by the previous adventure, went also.
Having paid his visits and seen the civilized parts of Brazil, Uruguay,
and Argentina, he ascended the Paraguay River, and then struck across
the plateau which divides its watershed from that of the tributaries of
the Amazon. For he proposed to make his way through an unexplored region
in Central Brazil, and reach the outposts of civilization on the Great
River.
The Brazilian Government had informed him that by the route he had
chosen, he would meet a large river--the River of Doubt--by which he
could descend to the Amazon.
There were some twenty persons, including a dozen or fifteen native
rowers and pack-bearers, in his party. They had canoes and dugouts,
supplies of food for about forty days, and a carefully chosen outfit.
With high hopes, they put their craft into the water and moved down
stream. But on the fourth day, they found rapids ahead. And from that
time on, they were constantly obliged to land and carry their dugouts
and stores round a cataract.
The peril of being swept over the falls, was always imminent, and as the
trail, which constituted their portages, had to be cut through the
matted forest, their labours were increased. In the first eleven days,
they progressed only sixty miles. No one knew the distance they would
have to traverse, nor how long the river would be broken by falls and
cataracts, before it came down into the plain of the Amazon.
Some of their canoes were smashed on the rocks. Two of the natives were
drowned. They watched their provisions shrink. Contrary to their
expectations, the forest had almost no animals. If they could shoot a
monkey or a monster lizard, they rejoiced at having a little fresh meat.
Tropical insects bit them day and night and caused inflammation and even
infection. Man-eating fish lived in the river, making it dangerous for
the men when they tried to cool their inflamed bodies by a swim.
Most of the party had malaria, and could be kept going only by large
doses of quinine. Roosevelt, while in the water, wounded his leg on a
rock; inflammation set in, and prevented him from walking, so that he
had to be carried across the portages.
The physical strength of the party, sapped by sickness and fatigue, was
visibly waning. Still the cataracts continued to impede their progress
and to add terribly to their toil. The supply of food had shrunk so
much, that the rations were restricted, and amounted to little more than
enough to keep the men able to go forward slowly.
Then fever attacked Roosevelt, and they had to wait for a few days,
because he was too weak to be moved. He besought them to leave him and
hurry along to safety, because every day they delayed consumed their
diminishing store of food, and they might all die of starvation.