THE MAN
What did Theodore Roosevelt do during his life that raised him above
other men? What were his achievements? Why are memorials and monuments
raised in his honor, books written about him? Why do people visit his
grave, and care to preserve the house where he was born?
First, because he helped the cause of better government all his life,
as, while in college, he said that he was going to do.
Second, because he had a good influence on politics, upon business, and
upon American life generally. Dishonest and shady dealings which were
common when he left college, became very much less common as a result
of his work. No other American did as much as he for this improvement.
Third, because he practiced the "square deal." It did not matter to
him if the evil-doer was rich or poor,--Roosevelt was his enemy. The
criminal who had many friends in Wall Street was a criminal still
in his eyes; and the rascal who had friends in labor unions was
nevertheless a rascal to him. He would not denounce one and go easy
with the other. Poisoning people with bad meat was no less a crime to
him because it was said to be done in the interests of "business";
blowing up people with bombs was not to be considered any less than
murder because some one said it was done to help "labor."
Next, he practiced what he preached. When the great time came, he was
ready "to pay with his body for his soul's desire."
While President, he proved by his conduct of our relations with foreign
countries, that it is possible both to keep peace and to keep our self
respect, and that this can be done only by firmness and courage.
He maintained our national defenses at the highest possible level,
scorning to risk his fellow-countrymen's lives and fortunes through
neglect of the Army and Navy.
By his wisdom, promptness and moral courage in an emergency he made the
Panama Canal possible.
He led in a great fight for liberal politics, trying to put the ruling
power of the nation once more in the hands of its citizens, and showing
by his action that his country was dearer to him than any political
party.
Finally, in the very last years of his life, and in a time of dreadful
national trial, his great voice became the true voice of America to
lead his countrymen out of a quagmire of doubt and disloyalty.
You may have heard it said that he was conceited, arrogant,
head-strong. What did the men nearest him think? John Hay, the polished
diplomat, who had been private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, wrote
about Roosevelt in his diary. November 28, 1904:
I read the President's message in the afternoon.... Made several
suggestions as to changes and omissions. The President came in just
as I had finished and we went over the matter together. He accepted
my ideas with that singular amiability and open-mindedness which
form so striking a contrast with the general idea of his brusque and
arbitrary character.
You may have heard it said that he acted hastily, went ahead on
snap-judgments. On this subject, Mr. Hay wrote:
Roosevelt is prompt and energetic, but he takes infinite pains to
get at the facts before he acts. In all the crises in which he has
been accused of undue haste, his action has been the result of long
meditation and well-reasoned conviction. If he thinks rapidly, that
is no fault; he thinks thoroughly, and that is the essential.
He was never a humbug. He did not deny that he enjoyed being President.
He never let his friends point to him, while he was in the White House,
as a martyr. He had a good time wherever he was. As he wrote:
I remember once sitting at a table with six or eight other public
officials, and each was explaining how he regarded being in public
life--how only the sternest sense of duty prevented him from
resigning his office, and how the strain of working for a thankless
constituency was telling upon him--and that nothing but the fact that
he felt that he ought to sacrifice his comfort to the welfare of his
country kept him in the arduous life of statesmanship. It went round
the table until it came to my turn. This was during my first term of
office as President of the United States. I said: "Now, gentlemen, I
do not wish there to be any misunderstanding. I like my job, and I
want to keep it for four years more."[22]
[22] Abbott, p. 100.
As for the question whether he acted from personal ambition, or from
devotion to the cause he represented, the following incident is as
strong a piece of evidence as we have about any of our public men. It
is related by Mr. Travers Carman, of the _Outlook_, who accompanied
Colonel Roosevelt to the Republican convention in 1912.
Roosevelt, on the evening of this conference in the Congress Hotel,
lacked only twenty-eight votes to secure the nomination for President.
Mr. Carman was in the room, when a delegate entered, in suppressed
excitement, announcing that he represented thirty-two Southern
delegates who would pledge themselves to vote for the Colonel, if
they could be permitted to vote with the "regular" Republicans on all
matters of party organization, upon the platform, and so on. Here
were thirty-two votes,--four more than were needed to give him the
nomination.
Without a moment's hesitation and in the death-like silence of that
room the Colonel's answer rang out, clearly and distinctly: "Thank
the delegates you represent, but tell them that I cannot permit
them to vote for me unless they vote for all progressive principles
for which I have fought, for which the Progressive element in the
Republican party stands, and by which I stand or fall." Strong men
broke down under the stress of that night. Life-long friends of Mr.
Roosevelt endeavored to persuade him to reconsider his decision.
After listening patiently he turned to two who had been urging him
to accept the offer of the Southern delegates, placed a hand on
the shoulder of each, and said: "I have grown to regard you both
as brothers; let no act or word of yours make that relationship
impossible."[23]
[23] Abbott, p. 85.
Two important law-suits occupied some of Roosevelt's time after the
Progressive campaign. One of the favorite slanders about Roosevelt,
repeated mostly by word of mouth, was that he drank to excess or was an
habitual drunkard. At last it began to be repeated in print; a Michigan
newspaper printed it, coupled with other falsehoods concerning his use
of profane language. Few public men would have cared to bring suit,
because the plaintiff must stand a cross-examination. But Roosevelt was
careful of his good name; he did not intend that persons should be able
to repeat slander about him, except in deliberate bad faith.
He and his lawyers went to the trial, bringing with them dozens of
witnesses, life-long friends, hunting companions, reporters who had
accompanied him on political campaigns, fellow-soldiers, Cabinet
officers, physicians, officers of the Army and Navy. These witnesses
testified for a week to his temperate habits, agreeing absolutely in
their testimony. The doctors pointed out that only a temperate man
could have recovered so quickly from his wound. It was established that
he never drank anything stronger than wine, except as a medicine; that
he drank very little wine, and never got drunk.
At the end, the newspaper editor withdrew his statement, apologized,
was found guilty and fined only nominal charges. Mr. Roosevelt was not
after this small creature's money, but was only bent on clearing his
reputation. So it was at his request that the fine was fixed at six
cents.
Mr. William Barnes, the Albany politician, sued Mr. Roosevelt for
libel, because Roosevelt had called him a Boss, and said that he used
crooked methods. This had been said in a political campaign. The
Republicans were looking for some chance to destroy Roosevelt, and Mr.
Barnes, aided by an able Republican lawyer, thought that they would be
doing a great service if they could besmirch Mr. Roosevelt in some way.
So they worked their hardest and best, cross-examined him for days and
searched every incident of his political life. At the end they joined
that large band of disappointed men who tried to destroy Roosevelt
or catch him in something disreputable. For the jury decided in Mr.
Roosevelt's favor, indicating that he had uttered no untruth when he
made his remarks about Mr. Barnes.
As a writer, Mr. Roosevelt would have made a name for himself, if he
had done nothing else. The success of his books is not due to the high
offices which he held, for his best writings had nothing to do with
politics. As a writer on politics he was forceful and clear. There was
no doubt as to the meaning of his state papers; they never had to be
explained nor "interpreted." They were not designed to mean any one of
two or three things, according to later circumstances. Strength and
directness were the characteristics. When writing about the by-ways
of politics his enjoyment of the ridiculous made his work especially
readable. When he felt deeply about any great issue, as in his last
years, about the Great War, and our part in it, his indignation found
its way into his pages, which became touched with the fire of genuine
eloquence.
He wrote about books and animals, and about outdoor life, as no
President has ever done. His remarks upon literature are those of a
great book-lover, sensible, well-informed and free from pose.
Every one should read his "Autobiography," his "Hero Tales from
American History" which he wrote in company with Senator Lodge, and
his "Letters to His Children." His early accounts of hunting in the
West make good reading, but in his book about his African hunt, and in
the one on the South American trip, he probably reached his highest
level as a writer. If any American has written better books of travel
than these, more continuously interesting, fuller of pleasing detail
about the little incidents, the birds and tiny animals which he
encountered, and at the same time with a stricter regard for accuracy
of observation, I do not know where they are to be found.
[Illustration: Courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons and Lord Lee of
Fareham.
From a painting by P. Lazzlo.
PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT]
This man of politics had a true poetic feeling for the countries he
visited; time and again he moves his readers in describing the wonders
of the great waste places, the melancholy deserts and wildernesses, the
deadly fascination of the jungle, and the awful glory of the tropic
dawns and sunsets. When something awakened his imagination he could
write passages full of the magic of poetry. Witness this, it is not
a description of scenery, but a vision of the true historian of the
future:
The true historian will bring the past before our eyes as if it were
the present. He will make us see as living men the hard-faced archers
of Agincourt, and the war-worn spear-men who followed Alexander down
beyond the rim of the known world. We shall hear grate on the coast
of Britain the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves whose children's
children were to inherit unknown continents.... Beyond the dim
centuries we shall see the banners float above armed hosts.... Dead
poets shall sing to us of the deeds of men of might and the love
and beauty of women. We shall see the dancing girls of Memphis. The
scent of the flowers in the hanging gardens of Babylon will be heavy
to our senses. We shall sit at feast with the kings of Nineveh when
they drink from ivory and gold.... For us the war-horns of King Olaf
shall wail across the flood, and the harps sound high at festivals
in forgotten halls. The frowning strongholds of the barons of old
shall rise before us, and the white palace-castles from whose windows
Syrian princes once looked across the blue Ægean.... We shall see
the terrible horsemen of Timur the Lame ride over the roof of the
world; we shall hear the drums beat as the armies of Gustavus and
Frederick and Napoleon drive forward to victory.[24]
[24] "History as Literature," p. 32, et seq.
Here is one of Mr. Roosevelt's anecdotes of an incident in the White
House. It shows why the people were interested in that house while he
lived in it:
"No guests were ever more welcome at the White House than these
old friends of the cattle ranches and the cow camps--the men with
whom I had ridden the long circle and eaten at the tail-board of
a chuck-wagon--whenever they turned up at Washington during my
Presidency. I remember one of them who appeared at Washington one
day just before lunch, a huge powerful man, who, when I knew him,
had been distinctly a fighting character. It happened that on that
day another old friend, the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce, was
among those coming to lunch. Just before we went in I turned to my
cow-puncher friend and said to him with great solemnity, 'Remember,
Jim, that if you shot at the feet of the British Ambassador to make
him dance, it would be likely to cause international complications';
to which Jim responded with unaffected horror, 'Why, Colonel, I
shouldn't think of it! I shouldn't think of it!'"[25]
[25] "Autobiography," p. 132.
And here is one about his children:
"The small boy was convalescing, and was engaged in playing on the
floor with some tin ships, together with two or three pasteboard
monitors and rams of my own manufacture. He was giving a vivid
rendering of Farragut at Mobile Bay, from memories of how I had told
the story. My pasteboard rams were fascinating--if a naval architect
may be allowed to praise his own work--and as property they were
equally divided between the little girl and the small boy. The little
girl looked on with alert suspicion from the bed, for she was not yet
convalescent enough to be allowed down on the floor. The small boy
was busily reciting the phases of the fight, which now approached its
climax, and the little girl evidently suspected that her monitor was
destined to play the part of victim.
"Little boy. 'And then they steamed bang into the monitor.'
"Little girl. 'Brother, don't you sink my monitor!'
"Little boy (without heeding and hurrying toward the climax). 'And
the torpedo went at the monitor!'
"Little girl. 'My monitor is not to sink!'
"Little boy, dramatically; 'And bang the monitor sank!'
"Little girl. 'It didn't do any such thing. My monitor always goes to
bed at seven, and it's now quarter past. My monitor was in bed and
couldn't sink!'"[26]
[26] "Autobiography," p. 367.