followed when he was President by the delightful, informal supper at
tables set in the upper hall of the White House. That night he was
particularly gay, and many witty repartees passed between him and our
beautiful and gifted friend, Mrs. Cabot Lodge, the friend who had for
us all, through her infinite charm and brilliant intellectuality, a
fascination possessed by no other. She almost always sat at his table
at the informal suppers, and, needless to say, those two were the
centre of attraction. The table at which I myself sat that night had
the distinguished presence of General Leonard Wood, General Young, and
the French ambassador, Monsieur Jusserand, one of my brother’s favorite
companions on the famous White House walks, hero of the true story of
the time when on one of those same famous walks they inadvertently came
to the river, into which my brother plunged, followed immediately by
the dauntless French ambassador, who refused to “take off his gloves
for fear of meeting the ladies”!
I spent one whole morning in the office during that visit, having
asked my brother if I might sit quietly in a corner and listen to his
interviews, to which request he gladly acceded. One after another,
people filed in to see him. I made a few notes of the conversations.
One of his first answers to some importunate person who wished him to
take a stand on some special subject (at that time he was anxious not
to embarrass his successor, Mr. Taft, by taking any special stands)
was: “As Napoleon said to his marshals, ‘I don’t want to make pictures
of myself.’”
In receiving Mr. Hall, the president of the Gridiron Club, he remarked
that he (Theodore Roosevelt) had been one of the few people who used
these dinners as “a field of missionary endeavor.” Doctor Schick, of
the Dutch Reformed Church, in which he had been a regular attendant,
came to arrange for a good-by meeting at the church. To a man who came
in to see him on the subject of industrial peace, he replied: “The
President believes in conciliation in industrial problems.” Endless
subjects were brought up for his consideration, and many times I heard
him say: “Remember, a new man is in the saddle, and there can’t be
two Presidents after March 4th.” These notes were taken at the time,
February, 1909, and are not the result of memory conveniently adjusted
toward later happenings.
Every time I talked with my brother on the subject of the future, he
repeated the fact that he was glad to plunge into the wilderness, so
that no one could possibly think that he wanted a “finger in the pie”
of the new administration. Over and over again he would say: “If I
am where they can’t get at me, and where I cannot hear what is going
on, I cannot be supposed to wish to interfere with the methods of my
successor.”
One quiet evening when we had had a specially lovely family dinner,
I turned to him and said: “Theodore, I want to give you a _real_
present before you go away. What do you think you would like?” His eyes
sparkled like a child who was about to receive a specially nice toy,
and he said: “Do you really want to make me a _real_ present, Pussie? I
think I should like a pigskin library.” “A pigskin library,” I said, in
great astonishment. “What is a pigskin library?” He laughed, and said:
“Of course, I must take a good many books; I couldn’t go anywhere, not
even into jungles in Africa without a good many books. But also, of
course, they are not very likely to last in ordinary bindings, and so
I want to have them all bound in pigskin, and I would rather have that
present than any other.” The next day he dictated a list of the books
which he wished, and the following evening added in his own handwriting
a few more. The list is as follows:
BOOKS IN THE PIGSKIN LIBRARY
Bible.
Apocrypha.
Borrow: Bible in Spain.
Zingali.
Lavengro.
Wild Wales.
The Romany Rye.
Shakespeare.
Spenser: Faerie Queene.
Marlowe.
Mahan: Sea Power.
Macaulay: History.
Essays.
Poems.
Homer: Iliad.
Odyssey.
La Chanson de Roland.
Nibelungenlied.
Carlyle: Frederick the Great.
Shelley: Poems.
Bacon: Essays.
Lowell: Literary Essays.
Biglow Papers.
Emerson: Poems.
Longfellow.
Tennyson.
Poe: Tales.
Poems.
Keats.
Milton: Paradise Lost (Books I and II).
Dante: Inferno (Carlyle’s translation).
Holmes: Autocrat.
Over the Teacups.
Bret Harte: Poems.
Tales of the Argonauts.
Luck of Roaring Camp.
Browning: Selections.
Crothers: Gentle Reader.
Pardoner’s Wallet.
Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn.
Tom Sawyer.
The Federalist.
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
Froissart.
Gregorovius: Rome.
Percy’s Reliques.
Euripides (Murray’s translation):
Bacchæ.
Hippolytus.
Scott: Legend of Montrose.
Antiquary.
Guy Mannering.
Rob Roy.
Waverley.
Cooper: Two Admirals.
Pilot.
Dickens: Pickwick.
Mutual Friend.
Thackeray: Vanity Fair.
Pendennis.
The famous pigskin library, carried on the back of “burros,” followed
him into the jungles of Africa, and was his constant companion at the
end of long days during which he had slain the mighty beasts of the
tangled forests.
Immediately after that happy week at the White House, I was stricken by
a great sorrow, the death of my youngest son by an accident. My brother
came to me at once, and sustained me as no one else could have done,
and his one idea during those next weeks was to make me realize his
constant thought and love, even in the midst of those thrilling last
days at the White House, when among other events he welcomed home the
great fleet which had completed its circle of the world.
A few days before the death of my boy, and immediately after that
enchanting last visit to the house we had learned to regard as
Theodore’s natural home, he wrote me the last letter I received from
him dated from the White House. It was written February 19, 1909:
“Darling Corinne: Just a line to tell you what I have already told you,
of how we shall always think of you and thank you when we draw on the
‘Pigskin Library’ in Africa. It was too dear of you to give it to me.
That last night was the pleasantest function we had ever held at the
White House, and I am so glad that you and Douglas were there. Tell
Douglas he cannot imagine how I have enjoyed the rides with him.” The
above was typewritten, but inserted in his own handwriting at the end
of the note were the characteristic lines: “You blessèd person. I have
revelled in having you down here. T. R.”
XIII
WALL STREET HOPES EVERY LION WILL DO ITS DUTY
THE LION THAT ROOSEVELT SHOT
Now in Elysian woods, at last foregathered,
Comrades, we range together, sire and sire,
We who on earth were kings, and nobly fathered,
And, regally, wore each his earth attire.
How proudly at his heel in dawn or gloaming,
With him, the lion-hearted, I am roaming!
--Isabel Fiske Conant.
A great though quiet and personal demonstration came to Theodore
Roosevelt just before he sailed for Africa. The heart of the people
turned to him with overwhelming affection and he received, during the
last week in his own country, between fifteen and twenty thousand
farewell letters. Hundreds of mothers wrote him that they felt as if
their own son were leaving them, and that their prayers would follow
him in his wanderings; hundreds of others wrote that they would not
feel that the country would be safe until he should return--but the
“big business” men (not the “great” business men) of Wall Street,
according to the “bon mot” of some wag, “hoped every lion would do its
duty.”
As my brother was leaving Oyster Bay to set sail on his great
adventure, he wrote me that he would spend one whole day with me,
except for necessary business engagements, to which engagements I took
him in my motor. And so my last memories of the time before he sailed
are, as usual, of his unfailing devotion. On March 26 he writes again
from the steamer: “Your dear little note was handed me as I sailed, and
I loved it. It was so good to see you as I did the day before. Darling
sister, I think of you all the time. I suppose your children told you
of the wild whirl of confusion in which I said ‘Goodbye.’ I was very
much touched by the number of acquaintances who came down to see me
off. Indeed hundreds of them were not even acquaintances. They came in
the shape of clubs, societies, delegations, and even more, by scores of
what might be called real friends.”
All through his various sea trips--these sea trips rather bored him--he
writes as follows: “There are plenty of people with whom it is really
pleasant to talk in English or in those variants of volapuk which with
me pass for French and German.” He encloses me a photograph of Kermit
and himself and Selous, the naturalist, which shows a merry moment on
one of those same sea trips. In May of that year he writes from Juja
Farm, Nairobi:
“Really, I have been so busy that I have had no time to myself, and
even have not been regularly homesick; of course, down at bottom I am
homesick the whole time, but it isn’t able to come to the surface, so
to speak, because when I am not actually hunting, I am lying still
because I am tired out.... This house is as pretty and comfortable as
possible, and my host and hostess are the very kindest of the kind. I
am sitting on a cool verandah with vines growing over the trellises,
having just returned from a morning hunt in which I killed a python
and an impala antelope. Yesterday I killed two antelopes, and the day
before, a rhino and a hippo, and the day before that, Kermit killed a
leopard which charged him viciously after mauling one of the beaters. I
have also killed six lions,--four of them big ones. I am sunburned and
healthy, and look like a burly and rather unkempt ruffian.
“Kermit has really done very well. He is very handy, both cool and
daring, in fact, rather too daring sometimes.
“Darling sister, I think of you continually, and would so love to see
you....”
Later, on his return to the same farm after an extended hunting trip,
he says:
“I have worked very hard writing the articles about this trip, and have
put my heart into them, for this trip has been to me one of absorbing
interest; but of course, I haven’t any idea whether I have written
anything worth reading.
“I am happy to say that I know nothing whatever of politics at home,
and I hope to keep in the same blessed state of ignorance until I
return next June. Then I shall take up political work again, but
probably not in any direct partisan sense,--that is, I will go in with
the _Outlook_ people on such matters as the conservation of natural
resources, the control of big corporations, and how to deal with
socialism, and the like.”
The above shows clearly how strong were his intentions not to interfere
in any way with the administration then in power.
On June 21, in a letter headed “On Safari,” he writes:
“I am so busy writing my _Scribner_ articles that I have but little
time to write family letters, except of course, the letters to Edith. I
have had plenty to write about for _Scribner’s_, but it is not always
easy to write in the field, and I do not really know how I have done
it. Sometimes when I come in early from a hunt, I just point blank
refuse to write at all, and spend an hour or two reading a book from
the ‘Pigskin Library,’ which has been the utmost possible comfort and
pleasure. Fond though I am of hunting and of wilderness life, I could
not thoroughly enjoy either if I were not able, from time to time, to
turn to my books. I am anxiously looking for news of your Helen and the
baby that is to be.
“Kermit is a great pleasure to me. My trouble with him is that he is
altogether too bold,--pushing, daring, almost to recklessness.”
Writing in October to my husband (there never was a more devoted
friendship than existed between him and my husband), he says:
“You old trump, Douglas. I really do believe that you are about
the best fellow and the staunchest friend alive. Your letter was
really delightful. I am so glad Bridges told you that they liked the
_Scribner_ articles. I only hope they guess right as far as the public
is concerned.
“I hope the Robinson Minimus or Minima has arrived. [Referring to the
expected baby in my eldest son’s family.] Of course, to go back to
Henderson was terribly hard for you both at first, but it would have
been the worst possible mistake to have avoided it or left it. The
nettle had to be grasped.”
What a characteristic sentence! It _had_ been very hard to go back
to our old home, but, as he said, “the nettle had to be grasped.” I
don’t think in his whole life he failed to grasp any nettle that had
to be grasped. In a letter of the same date to me he says, referring
again to our sorrow: “As our lives draw toward the end, we are sure to
meet bitter sorrow, and we must meet it undauntedly. I have just been
writing Cabot and Nannie [they had lost their talented son, the young
poet George Cabot Lodge] and again, there was nothing for me to say....
It has been a horrible wrench for me to leave Edith during this trip,
but I am sure I have done the wise thing from every standpoint.”
On January 21, 1910, as he is nearing civilization once more, in a
letter dated on the Upper Nile, he writes: “Certainly our trip has been
a complete success. If we did not shoot another thing, it would still
remain unique, for the great quantity of skins and other scientific
specimens collected for the museum; and personally, I do not care if
I do not fire off my rifle again. I have enjoyed the trip to the full
and feel that it was well worth making. I am naturally overjoyed that
I am to see Edith in less than eight weeks, and I shall never go away
from her again if I can help it. The ‘Pigskin Library’ continues to be
a wellspring of comfort. Darling sister, I love you very much. Your
devoted brother.”
On March 10, 1910, in another letter dated Upper White Nile, he says:
“Darling sister mine: At Gondokoro I found your welcome letter; and on
the steamer, descending the 1100 miles to Khartoum, bumping into sand
banks, and doing various odd things, I send you this line of answer.
“Joe Alsop [my only daughter had just become engaged to Joseph Wright
Alsop, of Connecticut] represents to me what I like to think of as the
ideal American citizen--pretty strong praise, and I mean every word of
it. I should be overjoyed if Ethel married a man like him. He is the
big, brave, strong, _good_ man of sound common sense, who works hard
_in the country_, who does his duty in politics, who would make a fine
type of soldier in civil war. I have always put him in the same class
with Bob Ferguson, and with Pinchot, Garfield, Cooley, and the rest of
the ‘Tennis Cabinet.’”
His “Tennis Cabinet” shared the same warm corner of his heart in which
his “Rough Riders” were firmly ensconced!
His last letter from the White Nile, March 14, 1910, has in it the
foreboding of what was to come. “Ugh!” he writes, “tell Douglas that I
hate the prospect of being dragged into politics at home. I don’t like
the political outlook.” Even then, although regretting the probability,
he realized the imminence of being “dragged into politics at home.”
His wonderful reception in Egypt and the admiring recognition shown
him by kings and potentates when he emerged from his year of seclusion
in the jungle are well known to the world. Emperors and monarchs and
presidents vied with each other to do him honor, and never was there
a more triumphant progress than that of Citizen Theodore Roosevelt
through the great countries that had known him as President of the
United States. His tales later of the various potentates were amusing
to the last degree; everything he recounted was told in the most
good-natured, although humorous, spirit, and in many cases he spoke
with warm regard and even affection for the rulers who welcomed him so
warmly to their homes and lives. He referred to the King of Italy as
“a very intelligent and really good man.” He had never felt that the
Emperor of Germany was a _great_ man, nor did he change his opinion,
in spite of the many courtesies shown him by the Kaiser, although he
enjoyed his experiences in Germany and was much interested when asked
to review the great German army by the Emperor. Of all the reigning
monarchs, he seemed to think with the most affection of the King of
Norway, to whom he paid the characteristic compliment of saying that
he “would enjoy having him settle down quietly near him at Oyster
Bay,” and he also spoke with regard of Alfonso of Spain. He gave an
especially interesting account of the funeral ceremonies of King Edward
VII, to which ceremonies he was appointed special envoy; but most of
all he wrote with keen delight of his “bird walk” through the New
Forest and over the adjacent lowlands and uplands with that fellow
bird-lover, the secretary for foreign affairs, then Sir Edward, now
Earl, Grey. Nothing could have been more characteristic of Theodore
Roosevelt than the way in which that walk had been arranged.
Before he left America to plunge into the African jungle, he wrote to
Lord Bryce in England to the effect that on his return, practically a
year and a quarter from the date on which he wrote, he would like some
one versed in the bird-songs of England to walk with him for a day at
least to acquaint him with the notes of the British feathered singers.
He knew, he said, the appearance and habits of every English bird, but
had never had the chance to match the bird to the song, and he was
very anxious to do so. Lord Bryce happened to meet Sir Edward Grey,
the secretary for foreign affairs, and laughingly mentioned the desire
on the part of President Roosevelt to make this somewhat premature
engagement, and expressed uncertainty as to whom he could choose for
the President’s companion. Sir Edward immediately offered himself,
saying that the knowledge of bird song and lore happened to be one of
his assets, but even Sir Edward felt that the experiences with the
mighty creatures of the jungle, the excitement of the political furor
aroused by a certain speech of Theodore Roosevelt’s in Cairo, and the
triumphal procession through other parts of Europe might, perhaps, have
effaced from his memory his desire for a walk in English woodlands.
But not at all. Sir Edward Grey himself told me, not long ago, that on
the 1st of May, 1910, several weeks before he was expected in England,
there came a note reminding the British secretary for foreign affairs
that the ex-President of the United States wished to be his companion
for twenty-four hours at least of remote enchantment “far from the
madding crowd,” and so when the time came they started together and
tramped through the New Forest, and later over lush meadows inundated
by spring rains. Earl Grey told me that although he had often taken
this particular walk, he had never encountered the slightest difficulty
during the transit, but to be with Theodore Roosevelt was synonymous
with adventure of some kind. While traversing a usually innocuous
meadow, they suddenly came upon a piece of flooded lowland, in this
particular case so flooded that unless they deflected or retraced their
steps, it would mean walking breast-high in water for some distance.
The secretary for foreign affairs referred the decision about the
situation to the ex-President of the United States, and, needless
to say, the man who was accustomed to swim the Potomac River in his
stride, did _not_ deflect his course because of the flooded English
meadow. Later, as they stood under a tree drying themselves in the
afternoon sunshine, a very sweet, delicate song was heard. My brother’s
keen ears caught the trickling notes, and turning with vivid interest
to his companion, he said: “Of all the songs we have heard to-day, that
is the only one which resembles in any degree an American-bird song,”
and he listened eagerly as the obliging bird repeated its dainty music.
“That,” said Earl Grey, “is the crested wren.” “It is a wren also that
sings like that in America,” said my brother. Earl Grey was very much
interested in this, and a few days afterward, meeting a great bird
expert in the British Museum, he repeated the remark of my brother in
connection with the fact that the crested wren’s song was the only one
of any English bird resembling the song of an American bird, and the
expert confirmed what my brother had said.
Mr. John Burroughs used to say, although he had given his whole life to
ornithology, that Theodore Roosevelt, to whom in later years it became
only a recreation, was almost as well informed on the subject as he was.
In June, 1910, he returned from Europe, and never in the annals of
American history has such a reception been accorded to a private
citizen. Frankly, I do not think that Theodore Roosevelt was ever
regarded as a _private_ citizen; he was always a public possession!
What a day it was! We went to meet him in a special launch, and from
the moment of his landing until he finally reached his beloved home
at Oyster Bay there was nothing but one great call of delight from
his fellow citizens to the man who still stood to them for the whole
of America. His triumphs, the adulation which he had received from
foreign countries, epitomized to them the regard and respect poured out
to the United States by those other countries of the world. The great
crowds of his waving, cheering fellow citizens lined the avenue of his
triumphant progress, but when he finally joined us at the house at
which the family were assembled as a vantage-point, he seemed just the
same sweet, simple, joyous, and unostentatious comrade as of yore.
That very first day he gave us the most amusing accounts of some of
his European experiences, humorously describing informal lunches
in Buckingham Palace, when the children of King George and Queen
Mary behaved very much as “young America” is accustomed to behave.
He also gave us what our family has always been pleased to term a
“personal charade” of certain events, especially one moment when
the Kaiser behaved rather like an arrogant schoolboy to one of the
other royalties. He laughingly referred to a message from the Kaiser
during his stay in London, when the above potentate sent him word
that he, William, would be glad to give him (ex-President Roosevelt)
three-quarters of an hour the next day of his precious time! And
ex-President Roosevelt in return sent him a rapid message saying that
_he_ would be delighted to see William, but he regretted that he could
only give him twenty-five minutes! He regaled us for a long while with
many such amusing stories, and then went home to his beloved Sagamore
Hill.
The following day an incident occurred which had a certain prophetic
quality about it. A great dinner was to be given to him by Robert
Collier, and as usual with his loving thought of me (I had just
returned from a trip around the world and was in very ill health) he
wished to come to my house to spend the night so as to see me. He
arranged to be with me at five o’clock in the afternoon, thus to have a
long, quiet talk before the dinner. I came in from the country and had
afternoon tea waiting for him in my library. A half-hour passed, and
then another half-hour, and I began to get distinctly nervous, because
he was the most prompt of individuals. At a little after six he arrived
looking jaded and worried, and as he took his cup of tea, he turned to
me and said: “A very unpleasant thing happened which made me late. As
you see, I am dressed perfectly inconspicuously, and I slipped into
Scribners [his publishers] a little before five to say a word or two
about my ‘African Game Trails.’ [Scribners at that time was situated at
22d Street and Fifth Avenue.] When I went in there was no crowd at all,
but somebody must have seen me enter the bookstore, and when I came
out a short while afterward, a huge crowd had assembled, and literally
would not let me pass. They wanted to carry me on their shoulders;
they wanted to do utterly impossible and objectionable things; and I
realized at once that this was not the friendly reception of yesterday,
but that it represented a certain hysterical quality which boded ill
for my future. _That type_ of crowd, feeling _that_ kind of way, means
that within a very short time they will be throwing rotten eggs at me.
I may be on the crest of the wave now, but mark my words, the attitude
of that crowd means that they will soon try to help me into the trough
of the wave.” He was so impressed by this incident that that night at
the Collier dinner he repeated and enlarged upon the theme of the crest
and the trough of the wave.
Yet, in looking back over my brother’s life, I do not think it can be
said that in the true sense of the word he ever experienced the trough
of the wave. The great movement which resulted in the Progressive
party, instigated by internal dissensions in the Republican party,
brought Democratic rule into our country, but, although he was defeated
for public office, it did not throw him into the trough of the wave,
for in reality he emerged from that great movement the leader of the
majority of the Republican party, as was shown on Election day in
November, 1912, when the vote for Theodore Roosevelt was infinitely
larger than that cast for the “regular” Republican candidate, William
Howard Taft.
XIV
THE GREAT DENIAL
Who would not be
A baffled Moses with the eyes to see
The far fruition of the Promised Land!
--C. R. R.
How can we manage with our Brother gone,
We smaller folk who looked to him to voice our voicelessness?