connection with a trip which he arranged for the members of his family
to the Elkhorn Ranch and the Yellowstone Park in 1890. All his craving
for the out-of-door life, all his sympathy with pioneer enterprise,
such as his heroes Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett had indulged in, were
satisfied by those long days on the open prairies, and by the building
of his ranch-houses with the assistance of his old friends, Bill Sewall
and Will Dow, the two stanch Maine lumbermen, uncle and nephew, with
whom he had made many an excursion in the Maine woods in earlier days.
Theodore Roosevelt, however, was not to be allowed by his country to
remain too long the rider and dreamer under cottonwood-trees, or even
a potent influence for good in Western affairs, as he became. Already
rumors were abroad that he would be the choice of the Republican party
for the nominee for mayor of New York City, and he was recalled from
the wilds of North Dakota to a stirring triangular campaign in which
Henry George, representing “Single Tax” beliefs, Abraham S. Hewitt,
Democratic nominee, and the young ranchman from Dakota battled lustily
against each other, with the result that Mr. Hewitt was elected mayor
of New York.
In the autumn of 1886 he sailed for Europe to marry his old friend
Edith Carow, and for a brief period led a life of leisure and travel.
Only very rarely in his busy existence had he time for just that life
again, and the consequence is that some of his letters at that period
have an unusual value. He humorously described some of his travels
in Italy in a letter dated December, 1886, as follows: “My lack of
knowledge of the language has given me some soul-harrowing moments,--a
mixture of broken English with German and French proving but an
indifferent substitute for Italian, so I sometimes get what I do not
want, as when yesterday, an effort to state that after dinner we wished
only black coffee, expressed with deprecatory waves of the hand and the
idiomatic phrase, ‘c’est genuch’ produced in addition, cheese, pastry,
and fruit, all brought by the waiter in a wild hope that some one of
those might satisfy what he evidently supposed was my untranslatable
demand.”
A little later, from Sorrento, he writes in characteristic fashion,
showing that even in so romantic and enthralling a spot as Rome he
was still “on duty bent” from the standpoint of writing articles for
the _Century_. He says: “I finished six articles for the _Century_
on ranch life while in Rome and sent them off. I do not know whether
the _Century_ will want them or not. I read them all to Edith and her
corrections and help were most valuable to me. Now I am wondering why
my ‘Life of Benton’ has not come out. Here, [at Sorrento] I generally
take a moderate walk with Edith every morning, and then a brisk rush by
myself. I had no idea that it was in me to enjoy the ‘dolce far niente’
even as long as I have. Luckily, Edith would dislike an extended stay
in Europe as much as I would.”
In this letter, after speaking of ranch losses which necessitated
selling his beloved hunter, Sagamore, he signs himself, “Your
extravagant and irrelevant but affectionate brother, the White Knight,”
the latter being a reference to the character in “Alice in Wonderland,”
from which enchanting book we invariably quoted in ordinary
conversation or letters.
From Venice, in February, he writes: “Venice is perfectly lovely. It
is more strange than any other Italian town, and the architecture
has a certain florid barbarism about it,--Byzantine,--dashed with
something stronger--that appeals to some streak in my nature.” They
returned to London later, and were shown many attentions, for even at
that early period in his life, England recognized the statesman in
Theodore Roosevelt. He speaks of Mr. Bryce the historian as a “charming
man”--their friendship was to last all through my brother’s life, and
he mentions many other well-known young Englishmen, who have now grown
old in their country’s service. In a letter dated March 6 he says:
“I have been having great fun in London, and have seen just the very
nicest people, social, political, and literary. We have just come back
from a lunch at the Jeunes’, which was most enjoyable. Edith sat beside
Chamberlain, who impresses me very much with his keen, shrewd intellect
and quiet force. I sat between Trevelyan, who was just charming, and a
Lady Leamington.”
Unless I am mistaken, that was the first time my brother met Sir
George Trevelyan, with whom he carried on a faithful and interesting
correspondence for many years. “Mrs. Jeune has asked us to dine to
meet Lord Charles Beresford and Lord Hartington, and I have been put
down for the Athenæum Club, and also taken into the Reform Club. Last
night, I dined at a Bohemian Club, the famous Savage Club, with Healy
and one or two Parnellites, (having previously lunched with several
of the Conservatives, Lord Stanhope and Seton-Carr, and others).
The contrast was most amusing, but I like Healy immensely. Later on
I met a brother of Stanhope’s who is a radical, and listened to a
most savage discussion with a young fellow named Foster, a nephew of
the late Secretary of Ireland, who has also been very polite to me.
I have enjoyed going to the House of Commons under the guidance of
Bryce, the historian, and a dear old Conservative member named Hoare,
very greatly. It is amusing to see the Conservatives, fresh-looking,
well-built, thoroughly well-dressed gentlemen, honest and plucky but
absolutely unable to grapple with the eighty odd, erratic Parnellite
Irishmen. The last named, by the way, I know well of old,--I have met
them in the New York Legislature!”
These comments by the young man of twenty-eight are along the line of
comments made much later when almost all of his reactions to the men
named or suggested had come true. The travellers were more than glad to
get back to their native land, and by the early summer were settled at
Sagamore Hill, to begin there the beautiful family life which grew in
richness up to the moment of my brother’s death.
June 8, 1887, he writes from Sagamore, describing amusingly his efforts
to become a polo-player. He has often expressed his own feeling about
sports--he loved them, enjoyed his hunting and other athletic exercises
to the full, but they were always a relaxation, never a pursuit with
him. “Frank Underhill and I ride industriously around the field and
brandish our mallets so as to foster the delusion among simple folk
that we likewise are playing polo. Two other would-be players also
come now and then; but as they have not yet even learned to sit on
horseback and strike the ball simultaneously, and, after trial, having
found it impracticable to do so alternately, our games are generally
duels. Yesterday, I beat Frank two out of three--and in addition, stood
on my head on the sward in the enthusiasm of one mêlée where we got
rather mixed. Day before yesterday, I rowed Edith to Lloyd’s Neck,
portaged across--at low tide, the hardest work I ever did almost,--into
Huntington Harbor, then rowed out into the Sound. We took our lunch
and some volumes of Thackeray. It was an ideal day--but wasn’t I stiff
and blistered next morning! Do come soon and stay as long as possible.
Yours as ever, Theodore Roosevelt.”
During that same summer I took my little niece Alice, with my children,
to our old home on the Mohawk Hills for a change of air, and he writes
me in his usual loving way of his warm appreciation of the pleasure I
was giving the child, and sends his love to the little “yellow-haired
darling,” and incidentally, in the letters, says his book “Morris
[”Gouverneur Morris“] goes drearily on by fits and starts, and in the
intervals, I chop vigorously and have lovely rowing excursions”; and so
the happy summer wore to its close and was crowned in September by the
birth of his first boy, the third Theodore Roosevelt. He describes with
amusement little Alice’s remark--“a truthful remark,” he says--“_My
little brother_ is a howling polly parrot.” All through the letter one
realizes his joy and pride in his firstborn son, and shortly after
that, in December of the same year, he writes me to congratulate me on
the birth of my second son, Monroe, and says: “How glad I am that Ted,
Junior, has a future playmate. Just won’t they quarrel, though!”
Owing to the fact that in my brother’s own biography he describes
fully his work as civil service commissioner, police commissioner, and
assistant secretary of the navy, I do not purport to give a detailed
account of his labors, especially as during the period that he served
in the first position, I have comparatively few letters from him, and
it was not until he returned to New York in the second capacity that
I saw as much of him as usual. One winter, however, we had a most
characteristic intercourse. I do not remember exactly the date of
that winter. I had married young, my children had been born in rapid
succession, and owing to the delicacy of my health just before I was
grown up, I was conscious of the fact that I was not as grounded in
certain studies, especially American history, as I should have been,
and I found myself with a very slim knowledge of the most important
facts of my nation’s birth and early growth. The consequence was that
when my brother returned for a brief period to New York, I decided to
consult him as to how best to study American History, thinking perhaps
that I might go to Columbia College or something of that kind.
I began my effort for information by saying: “Theodore, I really know
very little about American history.” I can see the flash in his eyes
as he turned to me. “What do you mean?” he said; “it’s disgraceful for
any woman not to know the history of her own country.” “I know it is,”
I replied, “and that is just why I am consulting you about it. I know
you feel I ought to know all about American history, but I also know
that you preach large families, and you must remember that I have done
my best in that direction in these last five years, and now I am ready
to study American history!” “Do you mean really to study?” he said,
looking at me sternly. “Just as really to study as whooping-cough,
measles, chicken-pox, and other family pleasures will allow,” I said.
“Well,” he replied, still sternly, and not laughing at my sally, “if
you really mean to study, I will teach you myself. I will come at
nine o’clock every week on Tuesday and Friday for one hour, if you
will be ready promptly and give me all your attention.” Needless to
say, I was enchanted at the thought, and, true to his word, the busy
man came at nine o’clock every Tuesday and Friday for several months,
and in my library at 422 Madison Avenue I was ready with note-book
and blackboard, and he lectured to me for that hour twice a week as
if I were a matriculating class at Harvard College. I have now many
of the notes he made for me at that time, and I shall always remember
the painstaking way in which he drew the battle-fields, and explained
how “one commander came up in this position at just the right moment
and saved the day,” or how the lack of preparedness ruined many a
courageous adventure. These quiet hours come back to me with a rush of
recollection as I write, and I am proud to think that he felt it was
worth while to give me such instruction. Once I said to him: “How can
you do this, Theodore; how can you take the time to study for these
lectures?” “Oh!” he said, “I do not have to study; I could not, of
course, give quite as much time as that. You see, I just happen to know
my American history.” He certainly did “happen to know” his American
history, as was proved in many a controversy later in his life. His
American history and, indeed, the history of almost every other country
of the world were all at his finger-tips.
During his civil service commissionership, a period of a number of
years, the letters were few and far between, but I have one dated
July 28, 1889, in which he writes: “Struggle as I will, my life seems
to grow more and more sedentary, and as for my polo, it is one of
the things that _has_ been; witness the enclosed check which is for
Cranford, and I am trying to sell Diamond too;--how I hate to give it
up! We have had lovely days this summer, however, at Sagamore. I took
all the children down on the pond once, and made them walk out on a
half-sunken log, where they perched like so many sand-snipes. I am
leaving for the West soon to have a whack at the bears in the Rockies;
I am so out of training that I look forward with acute physical
terror to going up the first mountain. [He seems for the moment to
have forgotten that his life was growing very “sedentary.”] I have
mortally hated being so much away from home this summer, but I am very
glad I took the place [civil service commissionership] and I have
really enjoyed my work. I feel it incumbent on me to try to amount to
something, either in politics or literature because I have deliberately
given up the idea of going into a money-making business. Of course,
however, my political life is but an interlude--it is quite impossible
to continue long to do much between two sets of such kittle-kattle as
the spoilsmen and the mugwumps.”
The seed of the birth of the Progressive party of 1912 was sown by that
feeling of Theodore Roosevelt of the difficulty to do much “between
two sets such as the spoilsmen and the mugwumps.” The honest effort
to play honest politics for honest purposes and practical ideals was
the stimulating idea translated into action in that great attempt for
better government called the Progressive party; but this letter of the
young Civil Service Commissioner was written in 1889, and it was not
until twenty-three years later that the seed fructified into a movement
which, had it succeeded, would, I verily believe, have changed the fate
of the world.
But to return to the Civil Service Commission. He gave faithful effort
and all his intelligence to the improvement of that important service,
and often had the sensation, which he was doomed to have in so many of
his positions, that he was more or less beating his head against the
wall. He sent me at that time a copy of a letter to the Civil Service
Commissioners from an applicant who had been summoned to an examination
and had not appeared. To show the ignorance of some of the applicants,
I cannot resist quoting from the letter.
Alabama Mobile October 6, 1890.
_To the Comishers of Sivel Serves_,
My dear brothers: I am very sorry that I could not Meet you on the
day you said but gentlemen, i am glad of the cause that kept me
away. Let me tell you Mr. Comisher, i hav bin mard five years antel
the Other Da me and my wife hav bin the onley mbrs en ow Famly.
Well Sir on the Da before youre examnenashun My Wife Had a Kupple
ov tuins, gest think of it, Mr. Comischer--and of course i couddnt
go off and Leave her and them. i just staid home and we had a
sellabration--and i invited all my friends to dinner. i wish you
had been thare. i Hope i can be thare next time Mr. Comischer.
Very truly yours.
I remember my brother saying humorously that, after all, that
particular gentleman might just as well have stayed away with his
“tuins” and “sellabration,” as he really doubted whether he could have
passed the “examnenashun” had he appeared!
VI
THE ELKHORN RANCH AND NEAR-ROUGHING IT IN YELLOWSTONE PARK
From the cloistered life of American college boys, sheltered from
the ruder currents of the world by the ramparts of wealth and
gentle nurture, he passed, still very young, to the wild and free
existence of the plains and the hills. In the silence of those
vast solitudes men grow to full stature, when the original stuff
is good. He came back to the East, bringing with him, as Tennyson
sang, “The wrestling thews that throw the world.” --From a
speech by John Hay.
O lover of the things God made--
Hill, valley, mountain, plain:
The lightning from the darkened cloud,
The storm-burst with its rain.
--Roosevelt, “Hymn of Molokai.”
My brother has written so much about his own ranch, and has given so
vivid a description in his autobiography of the life led there, of the
wonderful stretches of the Bad Lands, of the swaying cottonwood-trees,
and the big fireplace in the Elkhorn Ranch sitting-room, around
which he and his fellow ranchers gathered, exhausted by a long day’s
cattle-herding or deer-hunting, that it hardly seems possible that I
can add much to the picture already painted by his own facile hand:
ranch life, however, viewed from the standpoint of the outsider or from
that of the insider has a different quality, and thus no reminiscences
of mine would be in any way complete were I not to describe my first
delightful visit paid to Medora, Dakota, and the surrounding country,
in 1890. Our party consisted of my brother and sister-in-law, my
sister Mrs. Cowles, then Anna Roosevelt, our friend Robert Munro
Ferguson, my husband and myself, and young George Cabot Lodge. The
latter was the sixteen-year-old son of our valued friend Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge, and was truly the “gifted son of a gifted father,”
for later he was not only to earn fame as a poet, well known to his
countrymen, but in his brief life--for alas! he died in the summer of
1909--his talents were recognized in other lands as well.
I had been prepared by many tales for the charm and freedom and
informal ease of life in the Bad Lands, and had often dreamed of going
there; but, unlike most dreams, this one came true in an even more
enchanting fashion than I had dared hope. Many had been the letters
that my brother had written to me from Elkhorn Ranch several years
previous to our journey. In June, 1886, he wrote: “I have never once
had breakfast as late as four o’clock. Have been in the saddle all day,
and have worked like a beaver, and am as rugged and happy as possible.
While I do not see any very great future ahead, yet, if things go on
as they are now going and have gone for the past three years, I think
that each year I will net enough money to pay a good interest on the
capital, and yet be adding slowly to my herd all the time. I think I
have more than my capital on the ground, and this year I ought to be
able to sell between two and three hundred head of steer and dry stock.
I wish I could see all of you, but I certainly do enjoy the life. The
other day while dining at the de Mores I had some cherries, the only
fruit I have had since I left New York. I have lived pretty roughly.”
I quote the above simply to show, what is not always understood, that
my brother’s ranching venture was, from his standpoint, a perfectly
just business enterprise, and, had not the extraordinarily severe
winters intervened, his capital would not have been impaired. Writing
that same summer, shortly after hearing of the birth of my baby girl,
he says in his loving way:
“My own darling Pussie, my sweetest little sister: How can I tell you
the joy I felt when I received Douglas’ first telegram; but I had not
the heart to write you until I received the second the good old boy
sent me, and knew you were all right. Just to think of there being a
second wee, new Pussie in this big world! How I shall love to pet and
prize the little thing! It will be very, very dear to Uncle Teddy’s
heart, which is quite large enough, however, not to lose an atom of
affection for Teddy Douglas, the blessed little scamp. I have thought
of you all the time for the last few weeks, and you can hardly imagine
how overjoyed and relieved I felt, my own darling sister. I hope the
little new Pussie will grow up like her dear mother, and that she will
have many many loving ones as fond of her as her irrelevant old cowboy
uncle is of Pussie, Senior. Will you be very much offended if I ask
whether she now looks like a little sparsely-haired, pink polyp? My own
offspring, when in tender youth, closely resembled a trilobite of pulpy
consistency and shadowy outline. You dearest Pussie,--you know I am
just teasing you, and how proud and fond I am of the little thing even
when I have never seen it. I wish I was where I could shake old Douglas
by the hand and kiss you again and again.
“Today I went down to Dickerman to make the Fourth of July speech to a
great crowd of cowboys and rangers, and after, stayed to see the horse
races between the cowboys and Indians.”
In another letter about the same time: “If I was not afraid of being
put down as cold-blooded, I should say that I honestly miss greatly and
all the time, and think lovingly of all you dear ones, yet I really
enjoy this life. I have managed to combine an outdoor life possessing
much variety and excitement, and now and then a little adventure, with
a literary life also. Three out of four days I spend the morning and
evening in the Ranch house writing, and working at various pieces of
writing I have now on hand. They may come to nothing, however; but on
the other hand they may succeed; at any rate, I am doing some honest
work whatever the result is and I am really pretty philosophical about
success or failure now. It often amuses me when I indirectly hear that
I am supposed to be harboring secret and bitter regret for my political
career, when, as a matter of fact, I have hardly ever, when alone,
given two thoughts to it since it closed, and have been quite as much
wrapped up in hunting, ranching, and book-making as I ever was in
Politics. Give my best love to wee Teddy and dear old Douglas; do you
know, I have an excessively warm feeling for your respected spouse. I
have always admired Truth, Loyalty, and Courage; and though I am really
having a lovely life, just the life I care for, please be sure that I
am always thinking of my own, darling sister, whom I love so much and
so tenderly. Ever your affectionate brother, Thee.”
On August 7 of the same year he wrote again after having paid a brief
visit to the East, and returned to Dakota: “Blessed little Pussie;
Mother of an increasing and vocal Israel, I did enjoy my two visits to
my dear sister, and that dear old piece of peripatetic bric-à-brac, her
Caledonian spouse. Everything here is much as usual. The boys were,
as always, genuinely glad to see me. I am greatly attached to the
Ranch and the life out here, and am really fond of the men. It is in
many ways ideal; we are so very rarely able to, actually and in real
life, dwell in our ideal ‘hero land.’ The loneliness and freedom, and
the half-adventurous nature of existence out here, appeals to me very
powerfully.... Merrifield and I are now busily planning our hunt in the
mountains.”
Such letters as the above filled the members of his family with a
strong desire to participate to some degree, at least, in the life
which he loved so dearly; but the births of various small members of
the family rendered such participation impossible until the late summer
of 1890.