never _can_ get on in politics, and in the second, I would rather have
led that charge and earned my colonelcy, than serve three terms in the
United States Senate. It makes me feel as though I could now leave
something to my children which will serve as an apology for my having
existed. [How much his existence needed an apology!] In spite of the
strain, and the anything but hygienic conditions under which we have
lived, I am in very good health. If we stay here all summer, we shall
have yellow fever among us, of course, but I rather think I will pull
through that too. I wish they would let us go to Porto Rico, or if not,
then let me get all my regiment together in Maine or somewhere like
that and get them in trim for the great campaign against Havana in the
Fall. I wish you could see these men. I am as proud of them as I can
be, and I verily believe they would go anywhere with me. They are being
knocked down right and left, however, with the fever. I shan’t take any
risks unless I really think I ought to, and now, I begin to believe
that I am going to get home safely.”
A letter from Bob Ferguson about the same time backs up his future
position in regard to moving the men, and reiterates:
“It was a glorious spin, over trenches and barbed wires instead
of oaken panels, however. One never expects to see the like
again;--Corinne and Anna must have suffered terribly from Theodore’s
wild, whirlwind career! His courage all through was so simple and so
true to him. The Spaniards laughed at the Cubans, and said they had no
fighting to do until the Americans came;--they ‘kept on coming.’ One
officer told Colonel Wood that the Americans were ‘magnanimous, brave,
and ferocious.’ If Cervera had stayed in harbor with his ships, we
would have been in the devil of a hole between starvation and fever. It
is lucky things went as they did.”
And again, on August 6, he writes to me:
“These dreary Cuban days and dark and dismal nights are drawing to a
close for the time,--Thank the Lord and Theodore. [The much-criticised
“round robin” had had its effect.] It is hardly fair to damn this
country that way, however, for in reality, it is most inexplicably
beautiful. In the sunshine of the morning, when once in a while an
almost refreshing breeze comes, then the tropical valleys bask and
smile in the most enticing luxuriance, and entrance one into lazy
dreams of fairy-land. The mass of the scarlet acacia, the trails of
morning-glories, and lilies, and the hot growth of all kinds,--above
all, the graceful and kingly royal palm and his harem, the slender,
tall, clustering bamboos,--are all lovely. These things by moon-light
were simply inexpressible; however, the real side of nature is deadly
sun, over-whelming, drenching rain, dark, drizzly mist and dew, fever,
malaria, filth, disgust with everything. Well, this is at an end now,
and almost time it were, for there would not be many left to tell the
tale if left here all summer as the President and Secretary proposed to
leave us only a couple of days ago, but Theodore ‘sicked one’ as your
Stewart’s whole pack of pup-dogs could not commence to do. If we take
a final fall, it will be at Havana in the autumn and not with yellow
fever, if we can help it, here at Santiago. You all had a dreadful time
of it, probably far worse than we merry men of the Greenwood. Honestly,
while it is all going along and when there is an advance, the spirits
rise amazingly and one trips forward as gaily as in Sir Roger or any
other airy measure. That, however, is the one really satisfactory
sensation. Lying passive in reserve, and being searched and found by
the long-range mausers and shrapnel in the bushes, is not so cheerful
an occupation; in fact, it is a low proceeding altogether.
“Whooping along from time to time ‘thoro bush--thoro brier,’ with a
wildish throng, firing, cheering, laughing, and running,--that, is a
very different story, and holding the advance point in spite of orders
to retire (!) is another thing to make even novices chuckle inwardly
when they once feel they can do it,--but Theodore was the sparkle to
all that fun.
“I could make your flesh creep, however, with horror; meanwhile, you
can picture to yourself in pleasant nightmares, flocks of vultures and
buzzards, the dead and wounded lost in the tangled growth,--and swarms
of crabs,--great big land crabs with one, enormous, lobster-like claw,
creeping, rustling, scuffling thro’ the dried aloes and palmettoes....
War never changes its hideous phantasms. The heroism of even modern men
(and none the less of the women who let them go) is the one thing to
glory and hope in. We pack up tonight. My love to all.”
And so ended the brief and glorious career of the Rough Riders, a
career which has about it a touch of Roland and Robin Hood. These
letters, written _at the time_, are valuable refutations of some
bruited questions, and the very people who criticised certain actions
of my brother, _at the time_, would be the first, I verily believe,
now, to wish they had withheld their criticism.
The depleted regiment, emaciated beyond words, returned to Montauk
Point on Long Island, and my husband and I came down from the
Adirondack Mountains to meet them at Camp Wyckoff. What a night we
spent in a Red Cross tent at the camp! How we talked! How good it was
to greet the gallant men again, so many of whom we knew and loved, and
how infinitely interesting to come in contact with the wild Westerners
about whose courage and determination my brother had written such
glowing accounts.
In the last letter my brother wrote to my husband from Santiago, the
sentence “As for the political effect of my actions, I never can get
on in politics” was soon to be refuted, for hardly had he arrived at
Montauk than the politicians flocked surreptitiously to sound him as
to the possibility of his running for governor of New York State, but
that’s another story!
The throb of parting from their leader was soon to be experienced by
the gallant men who had followed Theodore Roosevelt so eagerly in
the Cuban jungles. Picturesque to the end, the mustering out of the
Rough Riders, under blue autumnal skies at Montauk Point, was the
culmination of its romantic career, and many a ferocious fighter and
wild bronco-buster turned from the last hand-clasp of his colonel with
tears in the eyes which had not flinched before the fiercest Spanish
onslaught.
IX
THE ROUGH RIDER STORMS THE CAPITOL AT ALBANY
THE MAN WHO CAN
(Old Saxon for “The King”)
WRITTEN OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
How shall we know “the man who can”?
(That was the Saxon phrase, they say.)
Nay, perchance we shall find the man
Close to our hearts and lives to-day!
Soldier and patriot, strong of hand,
Keen of vision to know the time,
Quick and true to the hour’s demand,
Poet, too, without rune or rhyme!
Poet, because through mists of sin
He finds the best as it yet shall be.
Faces evil, yet dares begin
To _live_ the good that his soul can see.
Speech like an arrow, swift and straight,
Strength that smites to the core of wrong;
Smile that mocks but an adverse fate,
Heart of a boy, that leaps to song.
Honor scornful of life or place,
Courage brightest in sordid strife;
Such is the man whose first, best grace
Was the simple crown of a stainless life!
--Marion Couthouy Smith.
It could not have been a pleasant thought to Mr. Thomas Platt (the
acknowledged Republican boss of New York State, and a most interesting
and unusual personality) when he realized that the tremendous
popularity of the colonel of the Rough Riders would force him to accept
the suggestion of some of the Republican leaders that this same colonel
should be the Republican nominee for governor that autumn of 1898.
The dash of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill was not more strenuous
than Theodore Roosevelt’s sudden and unexpected storming of the Albany
Capitol. What an autumn it was! Every imaginable obstacle was put in
the way of his success. He was accused of not having paid his taxes;
he was bitterly impugned by a certain number of his former friends and
adherents--Independents--who did not believe that he should accept the
“regular” nomination, and many and varied were the battles fought about
and around his personality.
The whole campaign had to be arranged so suddenly and hurriedly that
all kinds of amusing, although sometimes unpleasant, contretemps
occurred. One remains clearly in my mind. There was to be held near
Troy a country fair. Its date had apparently not been determined upon
before my brother had agreed to speak at what promised to be a large
colored meeting the evening of the same day on which the fair was to
be held. My brother had not expected to have to go to the fair, but a
sudden summons came, saying that it was very important that he should
appear and make an out-of-door speech to a large concourse of up-state
farmers. He was torn from Oyster Bay at an abnormally early hour and
dashed up to Troy. Meanwhile, the newspapers of Albany and Troy had
announced that he could not be present owing to his engagement for
the evening in New York. The consequence was that the attendance at
the fair at the time he was supposed to speak was almost nil, and he
returned to New York much depressed at the apparent lack of interest.
I came in from my country home to dine with him and go to the colored
meeting. The colored people were especially enthusiastic about my
brother’s candidacy, because the Tenth Regiment of regulars, a colored
regiment, had stormed San Juan Hill side by side with the Rough Riders.
The meeting scheduled had been widely heralded, and we started for the
hall with the conviction that although the _day_ had been a failure the
_night_ was going to justify our highest expectations. Arriving at the
hall, one old man with a long gray beard, sitting in the front seat,
was apparently the total of the great audience that had been promised.
My brother and I waited in the little room near the platform, anxiously
peering out every now and then, hoping that the hall would soon be
filled to overflowing, but no one came, and after an hour and a half of
disheartening disappointment, we shook hands warmly with the faithful
elderly adherent--who had remained silently in his seat during this
period of waiting--and left the hall. My brother, in spite of distinct
distress of mind, turned laughingly to me as we walked rapidly away and
said, quoting from Maria Edgeworth’s immortal pages: “Little Rosamund’s
day of misfortunes!” The next day the morning newspapers announced
that the evening newspapers had given the misinformation that the
Republican candidate for governor would not be able to return from the
Troy fair in time for the colored meeting, an announcement which had so
discouraged the colored folk that only one old man had been true to his
colors!
From that day on, through the strenuous campaign, my brother was known
by the family entirely as “Little Rosamund.”
Another evening comes back to my mind. My husband and my brother
had left me in my country home on the hill at Orange, and they were
supposed to return at eleven o’clock that night. The last train arrived
and my carriage returned from it empty. I was worried, for they were
so thoughtful that I felt they would surely have telephoned to relieve
my possible anxiety, and when at twelve o’clock the telephone-bell
rang, I ran to the instrument expecting to hear a familiar voice,
instead of which “I am a _World_ reporter” was what I heard, “and I
would like to know where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas Robinson
are.” “I cannot give you any information,” I replied discreetly, and
more truthfully than usual, I confess. “It is very strange,” said
the voice--a distant unknown voice at twelve o’clock at night, when
you are the sole occupant of a remote country house, always has a
somewhat eerie effect--“for we have traced them up to within the last
hour and we cannot find them anywhere.” A slight wave of apprehension
passed over me, but at the same time I was sufficiently confident of
my two stalwart gentlemen not to have any serious fear concerning
their whereabouts, and suddenly seized with an irresistible desire
to be “funny”--a perfectly inexcusable inclination in a political
campaign--I said to the reporter: “Wait one moment, please. Should you
by any chance discover the whereabouts of Colonel Roosevelt and Mr.
Robinson, would you be kind enough to let _me_ know where they are?”
I have always remembered the sound of the distant laugh of the man
as I hurriedly put down the telephone-receiver, fully realizing my
mistake in becoming jocose, and sure enough the next morning, in large
headlines, appeared on the front page of the _World_: “Mrs. Douglas
Robinson has no knowledge where Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Douglas
Robinson have spent the night.”
Another incident that comes back into my memory was an evening in
Chickering Hall, almost immediately before Election day, at which
many well-known speakers were to make their plea for the election of
Theodore Roosevelt, and at which, also, that most brilliant of speakers
and charming of men, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, was to bring the evening to
a climax. As Election day drew near, the great boss of Tammany Hall,
Richard Croker, forsook his usual methods of strict silence, and began
to be loquacious. Croker, when running a candidate, was always very
careful indeed to keep the mystery of the Wigwam (Tammany) wrapped
closely about him, but as the fight waxed hot and heavy, he lost his
control and said many a foolish thing, and the Republican papers
jubilantly announced that when Croker began to talk, it meant that he
knew that his cause was lost.
At the meeting at Chickering Hall, when Mr. Choate rose to make the
final speech of the evening, he said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is late; you have heard many speakers and
I shall be brief. All that I wish to do is to recall to your minds
a certain Bible story--you may not have the incident clear in your
memory. I refer to the story of Balaam and his ass!” Here the learned
speaker paused and his audience concentrated their attention upon him,
somewhat puzzled as to what he was about to say. He continued: “You may
remember that Balaam was riding upon the ass through a dark forest,
and that suddenly the ass stopped, and even more suddenly, _the ass
spoke_!” Mr. Choate paused again, and the audience suddenly rippled
out their mirth and their realization that the “ass” who spoke had a
distinct reference to the utterances of Croker. As the laughter grew
louder, Mr. Choate suddenly lifted his hand in the most impressive
manner, and continued in a serious tone full of dramatic power: “But,
ladies and gentlemen, you have perhaps forgotten _why_ the ass spoke.
The reason that he did so was because directly in his path, in shining
garments, stood a young man with a flaming sword in his hand!” As one
man the audience rose to its feet! Simultaneously, a great cheer rose
to the lips of every one present, for the figure of speech had done its
work, and each person in the house visualized the figure of Theodore
Roosevelt, ardent and young, courageous and honest, truly “a young man
with a flaming sword in his hand!”
Election day came and with it an overwhelming victory for the man who
so lately had written to Douglas Robinson: “As for the political effect
of my actions, I never can get on in politics.”
During his incumbency as governor of New York State he always made
his headquarters either at the house of my sister, Mrs. Cowles, or at
my house, and many were the famous breakfast-parties at 422 Madison
Avenue in those strenuous days. He was criticised for breakfasting with
Mr. Platt and Mr. Odell (Mr. Platt’s associate boss), but almost all
of those much-discussed meals took place at my own house, and many
a time Messrs. Platt and Odell had the unusual experience of finding
that they were apparently expected to sit upon one chair, as my brother
had invited so many more people to breakfast than could possibly be
seated at my comparatively small table. After breakfast was over, Mr.
Platt would say in a rather stern manner, “And now, Governor Roosevelt,
I should like to have a private word with you,” and my brother would
answer, “Why, certainly, Mr. Platt, we will go right up to my sister’s
library--good-by, gentlemen,” turning to his other guests, and then
to Mr. Platt again, “We shall be quite private except for my sister.
I always like to have her present at all my conferences. She takes so
much interest in what I am doing!” This with a humorous side-glance
at me, knowing how irritating my presence was to the gentleman in
question. I can bear witness to the fact that through those many
conferences my brother’s courtesy to the brilliant older man never
failed, nor did he ever lose his independent outlook or action. My
brother’s effort to work with Mr. Platt rather than against him also
never failed, and many a time I have heard him say: “Mr. Platt, I would
rather accept your suggestion of an appointee than that of any one else
_if_ you will suggest as good and honorable a man as any one else. I
_want_ to work with you and I know that your great information about
Republican affairs is of enormous value to me, but I must reserve my
own power of decision in all matters, although I hope always to be in
accord with you.”
The Rough Riders were always turning up on every occasion, or if they
did not actually turn up in _propria persona_, strange letters on many
and varied subjects came to my house from them. Amongst these letters
one arrived when my brother was breakfasting with me one morning at
my house. The mail that morning was unique in more ways than one, for
another letter arrived with no name and no address on it. Instead of
name and address there was a drawing of a large set of teeth, and on
the reverse side of the envelope was written: “Please let Jack Smith,
211 W. 139th Street, know whether this letter reaches its destination.
It is a bet and a lot of money hangs in the balance”! Those strong
white teeth, which had been the terror of the recreant policemen, were
quite as much a factor at the Capitol on the hill at Albany.
In the same mail, as I said, came a very characteristic epistle from a
Rough Rider, which ran as follows:
“Dear Colonol: Please come right out to Dakota. They ain’t treatin me
right out here. The truth is, Colonel, they have put me in jail and I
ain’t ought to be here at all, cause what they say ain’t true, Colonel.
They say that I shot a lady in the eye and it ain’t true, Colonel, for
I was shootin at my wife at the time.--I know you will come and get me
out of jail right off, Colonel,--please hurry. J. D.”
How my brother laughed as he turned the manuscript over to me, and
said: “They are the most unconscionable children that ever were, but oh
what fighting men they made!”
Another amusing incident occurred at the house of my sister, where we
were all lunching one day, having one of our merry family reunions
to meet the governor. My sister had just returned from Europe with
a “perfect treasure” of an English butler, who had not yet become
entirely accustomed to the vagaries of the Roosevelt family! We were
in the midst of a specially merry argument when the door-bell rang and
the butler left the dining-room to answer the bell. In a few moments he
returned with a somewhat puzzled expression on his face, and leaning
over my brother’s chair, he said in a stage whisper: “There is a ----
there is a ---- _gentleman_ in the hall, sir ---- he says, sir, that
his name, sir, is ---- _Mr._ ‘Happy Jack’ of Arizona.” “Why,” said my
brother, leaping to his feet, “I didn’t know that ‘Happy Jack’ was
in New York,” and he hurriedly left the room to welcome his precious
Rough Rider. In a few moments he came back literally doubled up with
laughter, and burst out: “You know, there has been a great deal in the
newspapers about the trouble that I have had with importunate office
seekers, who have forced themselves, in a very disagreeable way, into
the executive mansion at Albany. Dear old ‘Happy Jack’ read, way out
in Arizona, about the annoyance I was having with these people, and
he just packed his kit and came all the way from Arizona to offer to
be ‘bouncer-out’ of the executive mansion! Wasn’t that fine of ‘Happy
Jack’!”
Several years later, when my brother was President of the United
States, I was in England and I spent a week-end with the St. Loe
Stracheys in Surrey, where Lord and Lady Cromer were also passing
Sunday. Lord Cromer having, as a young man, visited our Western plains
and prairies, adored the stories of the Rough Riders, and especially
the incident of “Happy Jack’s” desire to become “bouncer-out” of the
executive mansion. He loved the story so much that he insisted upon
my telling it to another English peer, in whom the sense of humor was
less striking than in Lord Cromer. I shall never forget the dreary
sensation of struggling to tell Earl S---- that particular story. We
were at a rather dreary garden-party, and Lord Cromer had presented
his friend for the special purpose of having me tell this Rough Rider
story. Much against my will, I acceded to his request, and the story
seemed to get longer and longer and duller and duller in the telling.
Having mentioned the “perfect treasure” of a butler in the beginning
of the tale, that seemed to be the rudder to which Earl S---- clung
through the involutions of Rough Riderism, and as I stumbled on to
the ever-lengthening end of that unfortunate anecdote, the English
peer in question turned to me as I fell into silence and said, coldly
and courteously: “Is that all?” “Yes,” I said hastily, “quite all.”
“Oh!” said my companion, with a sigh of relief, and then feeling that
he had not been quite sufficiently sympathetic, he added courteously:
“And did the butler stay?” When I returned with this sequel to the
story of “Happy Jack” of Arizona and recounted it to my brother, he
laughed immoderately and said: “I know you must have suffered telling
the story, but that postscript to the story is worth all the pain you
suffered.”