me that he wanted to bring several men to dinner the following day,
amongst others, Mr. Winston Churchill, of England, now so well known
all over the world, but then still very young, though having had many
experiences as a writer in connection with the Boer War. He was making
a speaking tour in America. As usual, the little party grew, and when
we assembled at dinner the following evening, dear old General Wheeler
(Fighting Joe), Mr. St. Clair McKelway, of the Brooklyn _Eagle_,
and one or two others, I remember being very much interested in Mr.
Churchill’s method of probing Governor Roosevelt’s mind. The young
Englishman, of mixed parentage, had on his American side a certain
quality unusual in the average Englishman, and the rapid fire of his
questioning was very characteristic of the land of his mother’s birth,
while a certain “sureness” of point of view might be attributed to both
countries. At one period during the dinner he referred to a certain
incident that had occurred in Africa, and relegated it to the action
which took place at Bloemfontein. My brother very courteously said: “I
beg your pardon, but that particular incident took place, if I am not
mistaken, at Magersfontein.” The young Englishman flushed and repeated
with determination that it had occurred at Bloemfontein, and added the
fact, which was already known to us, that he had been there. My brother
again, his head a little on one side, and still most courteously,
reiterated: “I think, Mr. Churchill, if you will stop and think for a
moment, you will remember that I am right in this instance, and that
that incident took place at Magersfontein.” Mr. Churchill paused a
moment in the ever-ready flow of his talk and then suddenly, with a
rather self-conscious frown, said: “You are right, governor, and I am
mistaken. It did occur at Magersfontein.” This anecdote I give simply
to show, what is known by all who were intimate with my brother,
namely, the extraordinary accuracy with which he followed the affairs
of the day, and the equally extraordinary memory which retained the
detail of individual occurrences in a most unusual manner. In the soft
spring air we sat later in the evening by the open window while General
Wheeler, son of the South, veteran of the Civil War, and Theodore
Roosevelt, son of the North, who had so lately led his famous regiment
through the Cuban jungles in close proximity to General Wheeler, told
story after story of the way in which, shoulder to shoulder, they had
buried the old differences in the new co-operation.
In May, 1899, I received one of the comparatively few letters which
came to me while my brother was governor, for we met so frequently that
we rarely wrote. The following letter, coming as it did at the end of
his first year of service as governor of New York State, is of special
interest.
“Darling Corinne,” he says, “your letter touched me deeply. It was
so good to catch a glimpse of you the other day. I have accomplished
a certain amount for good this year. I want to see you and go over
it all at length with you. In a way, there is a good deal that is
disappointing about it because I had to act, especially towards the
end, _against_ the wishes of the machine people who have really given
me my entire support, and _with_ the reformers, labor and otherwise,
who are truly against me whenever it comes down to anything really
important to me. We have just returned from a really delightful driving
trip to a quaint, clean, little inn at Crooked Lake, some eighteen
miles off. We drove out there Saturday with every child except Quentin,
and back again on Sunday. Everything went off without a hitch and Edith
and I enjoyed it as much as the children.... My love to Douglas and to
blessed little Corinne. Ever yours, T. R.”
Nothing was more discouraging to my brother during his long and varied
career than the fact that the so-called reformers were frequently so
visionary that they were rarely, if ever, to be counted upon where an
effort to achieve a distinct practical purpose was concerned, but the
disappointments which he perpetually endured from this attribute never
induced him to yield to the machine politicians unless he felt that by
so doing he could achieve the higher end for which he always worked.
A little later in May of that same year, 1899, he writes me in patient
answer to various questions: “In reference to my attitude on the bills
that have not passed, there are hundreds of people to whom, if I had
time, I should explain my attitude, but I have not the time. I have the
gravest kind of doubts, for instance, as to the advantages to the State
of our High School system, as at present carried out.... I strongly
believe that there has been a tendency amongst some of the best
educators recently to divert from mechanical trades, people who ought,
for their own sake, to keep in at the mechanical trades.” He was always
so willing to answer my questions, even when pressed by many harassing
affairs.
From Oyster Bay, on July 17, 1899, he writes as one freed temporarily
from the cares of state, and speaking of my eldest boy, who was then
sixteen, he says: “I am afraid it is dull here for Teddy. You see, we
have no one here quite his age and he has passed the time when such a
simple pleasure as a scramble down Cooper’s Bluff appears enthralling,
although I take him down it nevertheless. He is a very fine fellow....
I have been giving him information about his hunting trip.” Again the
painstaking effort to be helpful to me and mine, and, indeed, all those
who needed his help or advice.
On December 18, having returned to Albany, he plans a hurried trip
to New York, and writes characteristically: “On Thursday, December
21st, may I have dinner at seven o’clock? If you are going out, do
remember, that seriously, I am quite as happy with bread and milk as
with anything else. Ever yours, Theodore Roosevelt.” What could be
more unusual than the governor of New York State being “quite as happy
with bread and milk as with anything else”! And I really think he was
rather happier with bread and milk than with anything else, much to the
occasional discomfort of the fastidious companions who sometimes ran
across his rather primitive path.
My last letter of that year, and, indeed, of the period during which
he was governor, was late in December, 1899, and it ran as follows:
“On Saturday I find Senator Platt wants me to breakfast with him
at the Fifth Avenue.” That was one of the rare occasions when the
unfortunate senator induced the governor to part from his sister,
and the inevitable presence of that sister at the conferences which
Senator Platt quite naturally preferred to have alone with the
governor. The letter continues: “On Friday, at half past eight,
General Greene, Mr. F. S. Witherbee, Mr. Fox and Mr. MacFarlane will
give you the unexpected pleasure of breakfasting with you. Is this
all right?” Needless to say, it was all right; only, if I remember
correctly, a large number were added equally unexpectedly to the four
above-mentioned gentlemen. Those breakfasts were the most delightful
of meals. My brother’s friend Professor William M. Sloane in later
days was frequently a member of the breakfast-parties at my house,
and he used, laughingly, to remark that he wondered why we were all
bidden so promptly at half past eight when the gentleman who so sternly
called others from their comfortable beds on cold winter mornings at
that matutinal hour seemed always able to sit over the breakfast-table
until about eleven! That, however, was not the case in those early
gubernatorial days, for the young governor was pressed with too many
affairs to yield to his Southern inclination to “brood” over the
breakfast-table.
In later days at the rare periods of comparative leisure, between 1910
and 1912, the “half-hours at the breakfast-table” were prolonged into
several whole hours, and many a time my friend Mrs. Parsons and I have
listened to the most enchanting discussions on the part of Colonel
Roosevelt and Professor Sloane, dealing occasionally with Serb or
Rumanian literature or the intricacies of Napoleonic history.
One luncheon during the time that my brother was governor stands out
clearly in my mind, owing to an amusing incident connected with it.
My dining-room at 422 Madison Avenue was small, and fourteen people
were the actual limit that it could hold. One day, he having told me
that he was bringing ten people to lunch, and realizing his hospitable
inclinations, I had had the table set for the limit of fourteen. We
were already thirteen in the sitting-room when the door-bell rang and,
looking out of the window, he turned to me with a troubled expression
and said: “I think I see two people coming up the front steps, and that
will make fifteen.” I suddenly decided to be unusually firm and said:
“Theodore, I have not places for fifteen; you said there would only be
ten. I am delighted to have fourteen, but you will have to tell one of
those two people that they will have to go somewhere else for lunch.”
He went out into the hall, and in a moment returned with one of his
beloved Rough Riders and an air of triumph on his face. I whispered,
“Were there really two, and who was the other, and what has happened
to him?” and he whispered back, like a child who has had a successful
result in some game, “Yes, there were two--the other was the president
of the University of ----. I told them they had to toss up, and the
Rough Rider won”--this with a chuckle of delight!
X
HOW THE PATH LED TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Frédéric Mistral, the Provençal poet, said of Theodore Roosevelt:
C’est lui qui donne une nouvelle espérance à l’humanité.
Toward the spring of 1900, while my brother was in his second arduous
year of activity as governor of New York State, he came one afternoon
to my house, as he frequently did, for he made headquarters there
whenever he was in New York. I remember I was confined to my room
with an attack of grippe. The door-bell rang in the rapid, incisive
way which always marked his advent, and in a moment or two I heard
him come bounding up the stairs to my bedroom. He seemed to bring the
whole world of spring sunshine into the room with him, and before I
could say anything to greet him he called out: “Pussie, haven’t _we_
had fun being governor of New York State?” I remember the grippe seemed
to leave me entirely. My heart was full of that elation which he alone
could give by his power of sharing everything with me. He sat down in a
rocking-chair by me and began to rock violently to and fro, every now
and then receding almost the whole length of the room as he talked, and
then rocking toward me with equal rapidity when he wished to emphasize
some special point in his conversation. When he stopped for breath, I
said laughingly, but with a certain serious undertone in the midst of
my laughter: “Theodore, are you not going to take a complete rest _some
time_ this summer? You certainly need it. It has been year after year,
one thing after another, more and more pressing all the time--civil
service commissioner, police commissioner, assistant secretary of
the navy, lieutenant-colonel, then colonel of the Rough Riders, and
all that that campaign meant, and now nearly two years of hard work
as governor of New York State. Surely, you must take some rest this
summer.”
He looked back at me rather as one of my little boys would look if I
spoke to them somewhat harshly, and answered in a very childlike way:
“Yes, of course you are right. I do mean to take a rest of _one whole_
month this summer.” I said: “That isn’t very much--one month, but still
it is better than nothing. Now, do you really mean that you are going
to rest for one whole month?” “Yes,” he answered, as if he were doing
me the greatest possible favor, “I really mean to rest one whole month.
I don’t mean to do one _single_ thing during that month--except write
a life of Oliver Cromwell.” How I laughed! What an idea of complete
rest--to write a life of Oliver Cromwell! And write a life of Oliver
Cromwell he did during that period of complete rest, but before he was
able to do it there came many another stirring event and change in the
outlook of his existence.
Messrs. Platt and Odell, supposedly the arbiters of the fate of every
New York State governor, agreed that two years of Theodore Roosevelt in
the Executive Mansion at Albany was quite enough, and that come what
might, he should not have another term, and so they bent all their
subtle political acumen toward the achievement of their wish to remove
him. They would, however, have been thwarted in their purpose had not
the Western part of our country decided also that Theodore Roosevelt’s
name was necessary on the presidential ticket, to be headed, for a
second time, by William McKinley.
The young governor, deeply absorbed in the many reforms which he had
inaugurated in the Empire State, was anything but willing to be, as he
felt he would be, buried in Washington as vice-president, but as the
time drew near for the Republican Convention of June, 1900, more and
more weight was thrown in the balance to persuade him to accept the
nomination.
I have frequently said in these pages that one of the most endearing
characteristics of my brother was his desire to have my sister
and myself share in all of his interests, in his glory, or in his
disappointments, and so, when the convention at Philadelphia met, and
as the contending forces struggled around him, he telegraphed to my
husband and myself, who were then at our country home in New Jersey,
and begged us to come on to Philadelphia, and be near him during the
fray. Needless to say, we hurried to his side.
I shall always remember arriving at that hotel in Philadelphia. How
hot those June days were, and how noisy and crowded the corridors of
the hotel were when we arrived! Blaring bands and marching delegations
seemed to render the hot air even more stifling, and I asked at once
to be shown to the room where Governor Roosevelt was. A messenger was
sent with me, and up in the elevator and through circuitous passages
we went, to a corner room overlooking a square. We knocked, but there
was no answer, and I softly opened the door, and there sat my brother
Theodore at a distant window with a huge volume upon his knees. The
soft air was blowing in the window, his back was turned to the door,
and he was as absolutely detached as if vice-presidential nominations,
political warfare, illicit and corrupt methods of all kinds in public
life were things not known to his philosophy. I tiptoed up behind him
and leaned over his shoulder, and saw that the great volume spread
out before him was the “History of Josephus”! I could not but laugh
aloud, for it seemed too quaint to think that he, the centre of all
the political animosity, should be quietly apart, perfectly absorbed
in the history of the Jews of a long-past day. As I laughed, he turned
and jumped to his feet, and in a moment Josephus was as much a thing
of the past as he actually was, and Theodore Roosevelt, the loving
brother, the humorous philosopher, the acute politician, was once more
in the saddle. In a moment, in a masterly manner, he had sketched the
situation for me: ‘Yes, Platt and Odell did want to eject him, that
was true, but it wasn’t only that. The West felt strongly, and the
Middle West as strongly, that his name was needed on the presidential
ticket. No, he didn’t want to give up a second term as governor of New
York State; he hated the thought of a vice-presidential burial-party,
but what was he to do? He didn’t really know himself.’
At that moment, without any ceremony, the door was thrown open, and
in marched the delegation from Kansas. Fife and drum and bugle headed
the delegation with more than discordant noises. Round and round the
room they went, monotonously singing to the accompaniment of the above
raucous instruments: “We want Teddy, we want Teddy, we want Teddy.” My
brother held up his hand, but nothing seemed to stop them. Over and
over again they filed solemnly around that sitting-room, and finally,
forming in a straight line, they metaphorically presented arms, and
stood for a moment silently before him. He stepped nearer to them
and, with a somewhat anxious tone in his voice, said: “Gentlemen of
Kansas, I know that you only want what is best for the country, and
incidentally what you think is best for me; but, my friends, I wish
you would withdraw your desire that I should be the candidate for the
vice-presidency. I _want_ another term as governor of New York State.
I have initiated a good many reforms that I think would help my native
state. I have made many appointments, and the people I have appointed
would feel that I have gone back on them if I can’t be there to help
them with their work. I am sure I could be of more use to my country
as governor of New York State than as vice-president. I wish you would
change your minds and help me to do the thing which I think is the best
thing to do.” The delegation from Kansas looked the pleader gently but
firmly in the eye. The fife and drum and bugle struck up its monotonous
sound again. The leader of the Kansas delegation turned, and, with
all his followers, once more they marched slowly and steadfastly
around that room, making no answer to Governor Roosevelt except the
indomitable refrain of “We want Teddy, we want Teddy, we want Teddy,”
which sounded for a long while down the corridor. As we listened to
their retreating footsteps, he turned to me with a look of mingled
amusement and despair in his eyes, and said: “What can I do with such
people? But aren’t they good fellows!”
And so, as is now well known to history, the Kansas delegation and
other like delegations had their way. Mr. Platt and Mr. Odell thought
_they_ had _their_ way too, and at one of the most exciting conventions
at which I have ever been present--dominated in masterful fashion by
the unique personality of Mark Hanna--Theodore Roosevelt was made the
nominee for the second place on the ticket of the Republican party of
1900. One little incident occurred the next morning which I have always
felt had a certain prophetic quality about it. An article appeared in
one of the Philadelphia papers, signed by that inimitable humorist, the
brilliant philosopher, Peter Dunne, alias “Mr. Dooley.” I wish I could
find the article--I kept it for a long while--but this is about the way
it ran:
“Tiddy Rosenfeldt came to the Convintion in his Rough Rider suit
and his sombrero hat and his khaki clothes, trying to look as
inconspichuous as possible, and as soon as he got there Platt fill on
his chist and Odell sat on his stummick and they tried to crush him
and squeeze the life out of him. And they _think_ they have done it,
and perhaps they have, but, Hinnessey, they needn’t be quite so sure,
for Tiddy Rosenfeldt will get somewhere no matter what happens, _even
though the path lies through the cimitery!_”
Whether “Mr. Dooley” simply meant that as vice-presidents had always
been supposed to be dead men as far as future preferment was concerned,
or whether, with prophetic touch, he visualized the horror that was
to come, and the way in which Theodore Roosevelt’s path to a higher
position actually did lie “through the cemetery,” I know not, but those
were approximately the very words which appeared in that Philadelphia
newspaper the morning after Roosevelt was nominated as candidate for
vice-president on the McKinley ticket.
Later in the autumn he started on one of the most strenuous campaigns
of his life, and swung around the country asking for Republican support
for William McKinley’s second term. Just before Election day he was to
return to New York to make his final address at Madison Square Garden.
As usual, he was to spend the night before and the night of the meeting
at my house. Just before he was to arrive I received a telegram saying
that his voice was entirely gone from the strain of weeks of speaking,
and would I please have a throat doctor at the house on his arrival to
treat his throat. Of course I arranged that this should be done, and he
arrived, bright and gay, although distinctly hoarse. The doctor treated
him, and he was ordered to keep perfectly still during the evening. We
went up to the library after dinner, and I said to him: “Now, Theodore,
we must only have a few minutes’ talk, and then you must go to bed.”
“But,” he said, “I must tell you a few of the very funny incidents
that happened on my trip.” And with that he began--my husband and I
feeling very conscience-stricken, but so fascinated that we had not the
strength of mind to stop him. Suddenly, to our perfect surprise, the
early morning light crept in through the windows, the milk-wagons began
to rattle in the streets, and we realized that the dawn of another day
had come, and that the future vice-president had outraged his doctor’s
orders and had talked all night long! And such stories as they were,
too; I shall never forget them. One after another, he pictured to us
the various audiences, the wonderful receptions, the unique chairmen of
the different meetings. There was always a “bellowing” chairman, as he
expressed it, or else one whose ineffectual voice did not reach even
the first circle of the huge audiences that gathered everywhere to hear
him. Out in the Far West eight-horse vehicles would meet the trains
on which the nominees travelled, and inadvertent bands would blow in
the ears of “shotgun” teams that had never been hitched up before,
with such astounding results as the complete loss of the whole team at
once, which necessitated the dragging of the carriage by ardent cowboy
admirers, or, worse luck, eventuated in terrifying runaways, which,
however, never seemed to produce anything but casual discomfort.
Mr. Curtis Guild, of Boston, and Judge John Proctor Clarke accompanied
Governor Roosevelt on this trip, and on one occasion the aforesaid
“bellowing” chairman introduced my brother as “one whose name was known
from shore to shore and whose life story was part of every fireside,
and whose deeds were household words from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
Finding that this introduction was greeted with vociferous applause, he
then made use of the same extravagant exaggeration in introducing Mr.
Guild. The only trouble in the latter case was that, after stertorously
repeating the aforesaid introduction, the chairman suddenly forgot the
name of the second speaker, “so well known from the Atlantic to the
Pacific,” and turned with solemn disapproval to the refined New England
statesman, whispering hoarsely: “What in h---- is your name, anyway?”
Such were the tales with which he regaled us that too-short night in
November, 1900. Any other man, having so disobeyed the doctor’s stern
commands to refrain from using his voice, would have been punished the
following evening by not having any voice at all; but, on the contrary,
his tones were clear and strong, his personality vital and inspiring,
as he leaned from the platform toward the thousands of cheering human
beings in the great Madison Square Garden, to put the finishing touch
on that stirring campaign for the second nomination of McKinley.
The inauguration in Washington, in March, 1901, had a peculiar charm
about it. Perhaps one felt this charm especially because of the youth
of the Vice-President and of his wife, and because of the contrast
between those two happy young people and the more serious President,
weighed down as he was with many cares, the greatest of which was his
loving anxiety for his fragile little wife.
Because we were the sisters of the Vice-President, Mrs. McKinley sent
for my sister, Mrs. Cowles, and me just after the inauguration, and I
remember very well the touching quality of that dainty personality,
in whose faded face was the remains of exquisite beauty. She received
us up-stairs in her bedroom, and by her side was a table on which was
a little Austrian vase in which bloomed one superb red rose. As we
sat down she pointed to the rose with her delicate little hand, and
said softly: “My dearest love brought me that rose. He always brings
me a rose every day, Mrs. Robinson.” And then, a faint smile flitting
over her face, she said: “My dearest love is very good to me. Every
evening he plays eight or ten games of cribbage with me, and I think
he sometimes _lets_ me win.” I remember the feeling in my heart when
she spoke those words, as I thought of the man in the White House,
oppressed with many cares; even, perhaps, at the time when the shadow
of the war with Spain hung over his troubled head, sitting down with
gentle affection and quiet self-control to play “eight or ten games of
cribbage,” “one for his nob, and two for his heels,” with the pathetic
little creature from whom the tender love of his early youth had never
swerved.