thirty or forty years ago we used to have under Father’s and Mother’s
supervision in 28 East 20th Street. At seven all the children came
in to open the big, bulging stockings in our bed; Kermit’s terrier,
Allan, a most friendly little dog, adding to the children’s delight
by occupying the middle of the bed. From Alice to Quentin, each child
was absorbed in his or her stocking, and Edith certainly managed to
get the most wonderful stocking toys.... Then after breakfast we all
went into the library, where the bigger toys were on separate tables
for the children. I wonder whether there ever can come in life a
thrill of greater exaltation and rapture than that which comes to one,
say between the ages of six and fourteen, when the library doors are
thrown open and one walks in to see all the gifts, like a materialized
fairyland, arrayed on one’s own special table.
“We had a most pleasant lunch at Bamie’s [our sister, Mrs. Cowles]. She
had given a delightful Christmas tree to the children the afternoon
before, and then I stopped in to see Cabot and Nannie [Senator and Mrs.
Lodge]. It was raining so hard that we could not walk or ride with any
comfort, so Roly Fortescue, Ted and I played ‘single stick’ in the
study later. All of our connections and all of the Lodge connections
were at dinner with us, twenty-two in all. After the dinner we danced
in the ‘East Room,’ closing with the Virginia Reel,--Edith looking as
young and as pretty, and dancing as well as ever.
“It is a clear, cold morning, and Edith and I and all the children
(save Quentin) and also Bob Ferguson and Cabot are about to start for a
ride. Your loving brother.”
Such were all Christmases at the White House; such was the spirit of
the White House in those days.
During the early years of my brothers presidency, my husband and I
always spent Thanksgiving at the White House, and joined in festivities
very much like the Christmas ones, including the gay Virginia reel,
which was also part, always, of the Thanksgiving ceremony. After they
bought a little place in Virginia, they spent their Thanksgiving
anniversary there.
During the following winter, I visited the White House more frequently
than usual, and enjoyed the special ceremonies such as the diplomatic
dinner, judicial reception, etc., and I used to station myself near the
President when he was receiving the long line of eager fellow citizens,
and watch his method of welcoming his guests. Almost always he would
have some special word for each, and although the long line would
not be held back, for he was so rapid in speech that the individual
welcome would hardly take a moment, still almost every person who
passed him would have had that extraordinary sense that he or she was
personally recognized. It was either a reference to the splendid old
veteran father of one, or some devoted sacrifice on the part of the
mother of another, or a deed of valor of the person himself, or a merry
reminiscence of hunting or Rough Rider warfare; but with each and every
person who passed in what seemed occasionally an interminable line,
there was immediately established a personal sense of relationship.
Perhaps that was, of all my brother’s attributes, the most endearing,
namely, that power of his of injecting himself into the life of the
other person and of making that other person realize that he was not
just an indifferent lump of humanity, but a living and breathing
individual coming in contact with another individual even more vividly
alive.
After my own visit of special festivity I apparently suggest certain
people for him to ask to the White House, or at least I ask him to
see them, for in a letter, also in his own handwriting, on February
21, 1904, he says: “Thank you for suggesting F. W. I am glad you told
me; it was thoughtful of you. I will also try to see B----, but I
don’t know whether it will do any good. He is a kind, upright, typical
bourgeois of the purely mercantile type; and however much we respect
each other, we live in widely different and sundered worlds.” So
characteristic, this last sentence. Willing he always was to try to do
what I wished or thought wise, but also he was always frank in giving
me the reason why he felt my wish, in some cases, would bear but little
fruit. The bourgeois, mercantile type did indeed live in a different
and sundered world from that of the practical idealist, Theodore
Roosevelt.
In the summer of 1904, when again I was far from well, he writes from
the White House, August 14: “Darling Corinne: The news in your letter
greatly worried me. I wish I could call to see you and try to amuse
you. I think of you always. Let me know at once, or have Douglas let me
know, how you are. Edith came back here for a week with me, and we had
a real honeymoon time together. Then she went back to the children....
Every spare moment has been occupied with preparing my letter of
acceptance. No one can tell how the election will turn out; but I am
more than content, whatever comes, for I have been able to do much that
was worth doing. With love to Douglas and very, very much love to you,
I am, Your devoted Brother.” In the midst of the pressing cares of the
administration and the fatigue of his letter of acceptance he still has
time for the usual unfailing interest in me and mine!
On October 18, again my brother writes:
“Of course, I am excited about the election, but there really isn’t
much I can do about it, and I confine myself chiefly to the regular
presidential work. Nobody can tell anything about the outcome. At the
present time, it looks rather favorable to me.” And again to my husband
on October 25: “As for the result, the Lord only knows what it will be.
Appearances look favorable, but I have a mind steeled for any outcome!”
In spite of his “mind steeled for any outcome,” the one great ambition
of Theodore Roosevelt’s life was to be chosen President on his own
merits by the people of the United States. He longed for the seal of
approval on the devoted service which he had rendered to his country,
and one of my clearest memories is my conversation with him on Election
day, 1904, when on his way back from voting at Oyster Bay, I met him
at Newark, N. J., and went with him as far as Philadelphia. In his
private drawing-room on the car, he opened his heart to me, and told
me that he had never wanted anything in his life quite as much as the
outward and visible sign of his country’s approval of what he had done
during the last three and a half years. I frankly do not feel that this
wish was because of any overweening ambition on his part, but to the
nature of Theodore Roosevelt it had always been especially difficult to
have come into the great position which he held through a calamity to
another rather than as the personal choice of the people of the United
States. His temperament was such that he wished no favor which he had
not himself won. Therefore, it seemed to him a crucial moment in his
life when, on his own merit, he was to be judged as fit or unfit to be
his own successor. Not only for those reasons did he wish to be elected
in his own right, but because, as was the case in former days when
he wished to be renominated governor of New York State, he had again
initiated many reforms, and had made many appointments, and he wished
to carry those reforms into effect and to back up those appointments
with his own helpfulness and prestige.
When we parted in Philadelphia, I to return to my home in Orange
and he to go on to meet this vital moment of his career, I remember
feeling a poignant anxiety about the result of the election, and it
can well be understood the joy I felt that evening when the returns
proved him overwhelmingly successful at the polls. Late at night, we
received a telegram from the White House directed to Mr. and Mrs.
Douglas Robinson in answer to our wire sent earlier in the evening. It
ran as follows: “Was glad to hear from you. Only wish you were with us
this evening.” The next morning I received a letter, only a few lines
but infinitely characteristic. They were penned by my brother upon
his arrival at the White House after we had parted in Philadelphia,
some hours before he knew anything of the election returns. In this
letter he describes his sudden reaction from the condition of nervous
excitement from which he had suffered during the day. He says: “As I
mounted the White House steps, Edith came to meet me at the door, and
I suddenly realized that, after all, no matter what the outcome of the
election should prove to be; my _happiness_ was assured, even though my
ambition to have the seal of approval put upon my administration might
not be gratified,--for my life with Edith and my children constitutes
my _happiness_.” This little note posted to me on the eve of his great
victory showed clearly his sense of proportion and his conception of
true values.
On November 11, 1904, he writes again: “Darling Corinne: I received
your letter. I have literally but one moment in which to respond, for I
am swamped with letters and telegrams. We have received between eight
and ten thousand. I look forward with keen eagerness to seeing you and
Douglas.”
And so the crucial moment was over, and by a greater majority than had
ever before been known in this country, the man of destiny had come
into his own, and Theodore Roosevelt, acclaimed by all the people whom
he had served so faithfully, was, in his own right and through no sad
misfortune, President of the United States of America.
Almost immediately after the excitement of the election, namely, on
November 12, 1904, my brother writes to my husband: “If you and Corinne
could come on with us to the St. Louis Fair, it would be the greatest
possible delight. Now, for Heaven’s sake, don’t let anything interfere
with both of your coming.”
Needless to say, we accepted the invitation joyfully, and the trip to
the St. Louis Fair was one of our most unique experiences. Coming as
it did almost immediately after the great victory of his overwhelming
election, wherever the train stopped he received a tremendous ovation,
and my memory of him during the transit is equally one of cheering
groups and swarming delegations.
In spite of the noise and general excitement, whenever he had a spare
moment of quiet, I noticed that he always returned to his own special
seat in a corner of the car, and became at once completely absorbed in
two large volumes which were always ready on his chair for him. The
rest of us would read irrelevantly, perhaps, talk equally irrelevantly,
and the hours sped past; but my brother, when he was not actually
receiving delegations or making an occasional impromptu speech at the
rear end of the car to the patient, waiting groups who longed to show
him their devotion, would return in the most detached and focussed
manner to the books in which he absorbed himself.
Our two days at St. Louis were the type of days only led by a
presidential party at a fair. Before experiencing them I had thought
it would be rather “grand” to be a President’s sister, with the
aforesaid President when he opened a great fair. “Grand” it certainly
was, but the exhaustion outbalanced the grandeur. I ran steadily for
forty-eight hours without one moment’s intermission. My brother never
seemed to walk at all, and my whole memory of the St. Louis Fair is
a perpetual jog-trot, only interrupted by interminable receptions,
presentations of gifts, lengthy luncheons and lengthier evening
banquets, and I literally remember _no night_ at all! Whether we never
went to bed during the time we were at the fair, or exactly what
happened to the nights after twelve o’clock, is more than I can say.
At the end of the time allotted for the fair, after the last long
banquet, we returned to our private car, and I can still see the way in
which my sister-in-law (she was not _born_ a Roosevelt!) fell into her
stateroom. I was about to follow her example (it was midnight) when my
brother turned to me in the gayest possible manner and said: “Not going
to bed, are you!” “Well,” I replied, “I _had thought_ of it.” “But no,”
he said; “I told my stenographer this morning to rest all day, for I
knew that I would need her services to-night, and now she is perfectly
rested.” I interrupted him: “But, Theodore, you never told _me_ to rest
all day. I have been following you all day--” He laughed, but firmly
said: “Sit right down here. You will be sorry if you go to bed. I am
going to do something that is very interesting. William Rhodes has
asked me to review his second and third volumes of the ‘History of the
United States.’ You may have noticed I was reading those volumes on the
way from Washington. I feel just like doing it now. The stenographer is
rested, and as for you, it will do you a great deal of good, because
you don’t know as much as you should about American history.” Smilingly
he put me in a chair and began his dictation. Lord Morley is reported
to have said, after his visit to the United States, when asked what he
thought most interesting in our country: “There are two _great_ things
in the United States: one is Niagara, the other is Theodore Roosevelt.”
As I think of my brother that night, Lord Morley’s words come back to
me, for it seemed as if, for once, the two great things were combined
in one. Such a Niagara as flowed from the lips of Theodore Roosevelt
would have surprised even the brilliant English statesman. He never
once referred to the books themselves, but he ran through the whole
gamut of their story, suggesting here, interpolating there, courteously
referring to some slight inaccuracy, taking up occasionally almost
a page of the matter (referring to the individual page without ever
glancing at the book), and finally, at 5 A. M., with a satisfied
aspect, he turned to me and said: “That is all about ‘Rhodes’s
History.’”
I rose feebly to my feet and said: “Good night, darling.” But not at
all--still gaily, as if he had just begun a day’s work, instead of
having reached the weary, littered end of twenty-four hours, he said
once more: “Don’t go to bed. I must do one other piece of work, and I
think you would be especially interested in it. Peter Dunne--‘Dooley,’
you know--has sent me an article of his on the Irish Question, and
wants a review on that from me. I am very fond of Dunne, and really
feel I should like to give him my opinions, as they do not entirely
agree with his in this particular article. I feel like doing this now.
Sit down again.” He never asked me to do anything with him that I ever
refused, were it in my power to assent to his suggestion. How I rejoice
to think that this was the case, and there was no exception made to
my usual rule at 5 A. M. that November morning. I sat down again, and
sure enough, in a few moments all fatigue seemed to vanish from me, as
I listened with eager interest to his masterly review of Peter Dunne’s
opinions on the Irish situation at that moment. It was a little late,
or perhaps one might say a little early, to begin so complicated a
subject as the Irish Question, and my final memories of his dictation
are confused with the fact that at about 7 A. M. one of the colored
porters came in with coffee, and shortly after that I was assisted to
my berth in a more or less asphyxiated condition, from which I never
roused again until the train reached the station at Washington. That
was the way in which Theodore Roosevelt did work. I have often thought
that if some of us always had the book at hand that we wanted to read,
instead of wasting time in looking for it, if we always had clearly in
our minds the extra job we wanted to do, and the tools at hand with
which to do it, we might accomplish in some small degree the vast
numbers of things he accomplished because of _preparedness_.
As early as December 19, 1904, my sister-in-law wrote me: “Theodore
says that he wants you and Douglas under his roof for the
Inauguration.” I always felt a deep appreciation of the fact that
both my brother and his wife made us so welcome at the most thrilling
moments of their life in the White House.
In January, 1905, he came to stay with me in New York to speak at
several dinners, and a most absurd and yet trying incident occurred,
an incident which he met with his usual sunny and unselfish good
humor. We had had a large luncheon for him at my home, and when the
time came for him to dress in the evening for the dinner at which he
was to speak, I suddenly heard a call from the third story, a pitiful
call: “I don’t think I have my own dress coat.” I ran up-stairs, and
sure enough the coat laid out with his evening clothes, when he tried
to put it on, proved to be so tight across his broad shoulders that
whenever he moved his hands it rose unexpectedly almost to his ears. I
called my butler, who insisted that he had taken the President’s coat
with the rest of his clothes to brush, and had brought it back again
to his room. This, however, was untrue, for the awful fact was soon
divulged that the extra waiter engaged for the luncheon, and who had
already left the house, had apparently confused the President’s coat,
which was in the basement to be pressed, with his own, and had taken
away the President’s coat! No one knew at this man’s house where he had
gone. There seemed no method of tracing the coat. We dressed my brother
in my husband’s coat, but that was even worse, for my husband’s coat
fell about him in folds, and there seemed nothing for it but to send
him to the large public dinner with a coat that, unless most cleverly
manipulated, continued to rise unexpectedly above his head. No one but
my brother would have taken this catastrophe with unruffled gaiety,
but he started off apparently perfectly contented, rather than give
me a more dejected feeling than I already had about the misadventure.
I, myself, was to go later to the dinner to hear his speech from one
of the boxes, and I shall never forget my trepidation when he began
his address, as I saw the coat slowly rising higher and higher. At the
most critical moment, when it seemed about to surmount his head, a
messenger-boy, flurried and flushed with exertion, ran upon the stage
with a package in his hand. The recalcitrant waiter had been found
by my butler, and the President’s coat had been torn from his back.
Excusing himself for a moment, with a laughing gesture which brought
the coat completely over his head he retired into the wings, changed
the article in question, and a few moments later brought down the whole
house by his humorous account of the reason for his retirement.
On March 3, 1905, as the guests of my cousin Emlen Roosevelt, who took
a special car for the occasion, the members of my family, my husband,
and myself started for the inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt as
President. Memories crowd about me of those two or three days at the
White House. The atmosphere was one of great family gaiety, combined
with an underlying seriousness which showed the full realization felt
by my brother of the great duties which he was again to assume this
time as the choice of the people.
What a day it was, that inaugural day! As usual, the personal came
so much into it. The night before, Mr. John Hay sent him a ring with
a part of the lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair which John Hay himself
had cut from the dead President’s forehead almost immediately after
his assassination. I have never known my brother to receive a gift
for which he cared so deeply. To wear that ring on the day of his
own inauguration as President of the United States, elected to the
office by the free will of the great American people, was to him,
perhaps, the highest fulfilment of his desires. The day dawned dark
and threatening and with snow filtering through the clouds, but
occasionally rifts of sunlight broke through the sombre bank of gray.
The ceremonies were fraught, to those of us who loved him so deeply,
with great solemnity. The Vice-President taking his oath in the
senate-chamber, the arrival there of the judges of the Supreme Court,
the glittering uniforms of the foreign ambassadors and their suites,
the appearance of the President-elect, and our withdrawal to the porch
of the Capitol, from which he was to make his inaugural address--all
of this remains indelibly impressed upon my mind. His solemn, ardent
words as he dedicated himself afresh to the service of the country, the
great crowd straining to hear each sentence, the eager attitude of the
guard of honor (his beloved Rough Riders)--all made a vivid picture
never to be forgotten. An eye-witness wrote as follows: “Old Chief
Justice Fuller with his beautiful white hair and his long, judicial
gown administered the oath, and Roosevelt repeated it so loudly that he
could be heard in spite of the wind. In fact the wind rather added to
the impressiveness than otherwise, as it gave the President a chance to
throw back his shoulders to resist it, and that gave you a wonderful
feeling of strength that went splendidly with the speech itself. The
speech was short, and was mainly a plea for the ‘Peace of Justice’ as
compared with the ‘Peace of the Coward.’ It was very stirring. The
applause was tremendous.”
I would have my readers remember that when Theodore Roosevelt pleaded
for such a peace it was in 1905, nine years before peace was broken
by the armies of the Huns, and during those long years he never once
failed to preach that doctrine, and to the last moment of his life
abhorred and denounced the peace of the coward.
Following quickly on his inaugural speech came the luncheon at the
White House, at which friends from New York were as cordially welcomed
as were Bill Sewall’s large family from the Maine woods and Will
Merrifield, who, now a marshal, brought the greetings of the State of
Montana. After luncheon we all went out on the reviewing-stand. The
President stood at the front of the box, his hat always off in response
to the salutes. The great procession lasted for hours--West Pointers
and naval cadets followed by endless state organizations, governors on
horseback, cowboys waving their lassos and shouting favorite slogans
(they even lassoed a couple of men, _en passant_), Chief Joseph, the
grand old man of the Nez Percé tribe, gorgeously caparisoned, his
brilliant head-dress waving in the wind, followed by a body of Indians
only a shade less superb in costume, and then a hundred and fifty
Harvard fellows in black gowns and caps--and how they cheered for the
President as they passed the stand! Surely there was never before such
an inauguration of any President in Washington. Never was there such a
feeling of personal devotion in so many hearts. Other Presidents have
had equal admiration, equal loyalty perhaps, but none has had that
loyalty and admiration given by so liberal and varied a number of his
fellow countrymen.