following as did Theodore Roosevelt in the election of 1912, but owing
to the fact that opinion was divided, the Democratic party, although
a minority party, was put in power. It has been the habit of some to
speak of my brother as having split the Republican party. This has
always seemed to me an unfair criticism. It was proved by the actual
vote at the polls that the larger half of what up to that time had
been the Republican party was in favor of Theodore Roosevelt for
President. His majority over Mr. Taft was unquestioned. A minority, not
a majority, disrupts a party. Nothing is truer, however, than that a
really great man cannot be defeated. He can lose official position, he
can see the office which he craved because of its potential power for
right doing pass into the hands of another; but in the higher sense of
the word he cannot be defeated if his object has been righteousness, if
his inner vision has been the true betterment of his country.
And so during the years that followed 1912, Theodore Roosevelt,
although holding no official position, became more than ever the leader
of a great portion of the people of America. Loyal as he was, he felt
that having (as he phrased it) “led a vast army into the wilderness,”
he must stand by them through thick and thin.
In 1913, having been asked to make certain addresses in South America,
he decided to accept the invitation. But before sailing he went to
Rochester, N. Y., to make a speech, and arranged that my husband and
I should meet him and have an evening quietly with him. Immediately
after that there was a great farewell dinner to him in New York, at the
Hotel Astor. The crowd was suffocating. It seemed as if the enthusiasm
for him and for Progressive principles was even more poignant than the
year before--perhaps the realization that their leader was to leave
them, even for a comparatively short time, increased the ardor of the
convictions of his followers--and the spirit of that evening was so
vital, so dedicated in quality, that it will never fade from my mind.
The next day he and Mrs. Roosevelt sailed for the Argentine Republic,
and within a few months she returned home, and he again lost himself in
a new adventure. The little boy of six in the nursery at 20th Street
had read with fervent interest of the adventures of the great explorer
Livingston. He had achieved his ambition to follow those adventures
as a mighty hunter in Africa; he had achieved many another ambition,
but none was more intense with him than the desire to put a so-called
“River of Doubt” on the map of the world.
Again Kermit was his companion, and the latter has given, as no one
else could give, the most vivid description of that trip in his book
called “The Happy Hunting Grounds.” In that book he describes his
father’s desperate illness, and his heroic and unflinching courage
when, with a temperature of one hundred and five, he struggled
on through the mazes of the jungle, weak and weary, unselfishly
begging his companions to leave him to die, for he felt that his
condition endangered the possibility of their escape alive from their
difficulties. As in Africa, so in South America his tireless energy,
even when weakened by illness, never failed to accomplish his purpose,
and not only did he put the “River of Doubt” on the map--a river which
from that time forth was called Rio Teodoro, after Theodore Roosevelt,
the explorer--but during those suffering, exhausting weeks he never
once failed to keep his promise to his publishers, and to write, on
the spot, the incidents of each day’s adventures. Robert Bridges, of
Scribners, has shown me the water-soaked manuscript, written in my
brother’s own handwriting, of that extraordinary expedition. In several
places on the blotched sheets he makes a deprecatory note--“This is not
written very clearly; my temperature is 105.” Such perseverance, such
persistence are really superhuman; but perhaps it is also true that
the _human_ being must eventually pay the price of what the superman
achieves.
Theodore Roosevelt returned from that Brazilian trip a man in whom a
secret poison still lurked, and although his wonderful vitality, his
magnificent strength of character, mind, and body, seemed at times
to restore him to the perfect health of former days, he was never
wholly free from recurrent attacks of the terrible jungle fever, which
resulted in ill health of various kinds, and finally in his death.
True to his loyal convictions, he was determined to give all the aid
possible to the candidates on the Progressive ticket for the election
of 1914. His wife writes, August, 1914: “Theodore seems really better,
although I scarcely think he will have voice for the three speeches
he has planned for the last of the month. I asked him if I could say
anything from him about the War, and he simply threw up his hands in
despair.” This letter was written nine days after the cataclysm of
the Great War had broken upon the world. From the beginning he said to
his family what he did not feel he could state publicly, owing to the
fact that he did not wish to embarrass President Wilson. Having been
President himself, he knew it was possible for one in high authority
to have information which he could not immediately share with all the
people, and he hoped this might be the reason of President Wilson’s
failure to make any protest when the enemy troops invaded Belgium.
To his family, however, he spoke frankly and always with deep regret
that the President enjoined a neutral attitude in the beginning. He
felt, from the very first, that the Allies were fighting our battles;
that the British fleet was the protector of the United States as much
as it was the protector of Great Britain; that a protest should have
immediately been made by the United States when the Germans marched
through Belgium. All these views he stated to his family and to his
friends, but for the first few months after August 1, 1914, he felt
that, as an influential citizen, he might hurt the fulfilment of
whatever plan the President might have in view in connection with the
Allies were he openly to criticise the President’s course of action.
Later in the war he told me how much he regretted that, from a high
sense of duty toward the Executive, he had controlled himself during
those first few months when we were asked by President Wilson to be
neutral even in thought.
In my sister-in-law’s letter, quoted above, she speaks of her doubt as
to whether my brother would be strong enough to make the speeches which
he had agreed to make. The Philadelphia _North American_ published,
about that time, an editorial called “The Amazing Roosevelt,” a few
paragraphs of which run as follows:
“On April 30th, there came out of the seething jungles of Brazil to a
river port 1000 miles up the Amazon, a man who was heralded by cable
dispatches as broken in body and permanently impaired in mind.... On
his arrival at home, there were grave dicta from former critics that
never again would this man be a force in public life. The solemnity of
these pronouncements scarcely concealed the gratification which they
gave to some who promulgated them. Unbiassed stories of the hardships
suffered in the tropical forests appeared to be cumulative evidence to
support the belief that Theodore Roosevelt was ‘done for’ as a factor
in public life.
“A sick man had virtually dragged himself through the most obdurate
jungle still unmapped.... It had looked as if the entire party might
be sacrificed and he had begged his followers to go on and leave him
to take care of himself. On his return, he was warned by an eminent
specialist that he must eschew speech-making if he hoped to avoid
permanent injury to his throat. Another specialist warned him that
impaired vital organs necessitated his withdrawing altogether from
public activities. This was the Roosevelt who went to Pittsburgh to
speak to the Progressives of Pennsylvania this week. What was it the
Progressives gathered there to hear? Was it a swan song,--was it the
plea of a broken man,--what was the character of the gathering? Was
it a congregation of saddened and disheartened people, come to pay
a kindly tribute to a passing leader? It was none of these things.
The demonstration for Roosevelt and Progressive principles surpassed
anything in the 1912 campaign, and the Roosevelt who greeted this great
demonstration was the vigorous, fighting Roosevelt who so long had
led the people’s battles. He was never received with more enthusiasm.
The New York _Times_, not a paper in favor of Colonel Roosevelt,
said: ‘The Pennsylvania Progressives gave Colonel Roosevelt a welcome
tonight which must have reminded him of 1912. The demonstration was
a remarkable one.’ And _The World_ said: ‘The Colonel enjoyed every
minute. Malaria was forgotten and all physical weakness along with it
as he stood at the vortex of the night’s enthusiasm.’
“No one can read the speech which Roosevelt made that night without
being convinced that the dismal forebodings that came out of that
Amazon port last April, have already been discredited, and that the
man who in 1912 stood with an assassin’s bullet near his heart, and
insisted upon delivering a message which might be his last, is not to
be broken or even impaired in 1914 by the hardships of a South American
jungle. It is but another example of the amazing Roosevelt.”
That same autumn of 1914 he came to our old home in Herkimer County
once more, but this time he was the guest of my son Theodore Douglas
Robinson, and stayed at his house, which adjoins the old home. From
there Mrs. Parsons and he and I joined the candidate for governor on
the Progressive ticket, State Senator Frederick A. Davenport, and
former State Senator Newcomb, for a short speaking tour to uphold the
candidacy of Senator Davenport. We knew there was very little hope of
success, but my brother had recuperated apparently from the Brazilian
trip, and we spent two merry days dashing through Herkimer and Otsego
counties. In spite of anxiety and a deep sense of distress about Old
World conditions, for a brief moment we threw off all care, and in the
glorious autumn sunshine, followed by cheering crowds, we enjoyed one
of the triumphal processions which were almost always a _sine qua non_
wherever he appeared. One specially merry afternoon and evening was
spent at the home of James Fenimore Cooper. My brother was to speak
at Cooperstown in the afternoon, and Mr. Cooper invited us to dinner,
but I told him that the party must reach Oneonta for dinner, so that
we could only take afternoon tea at his house. I had not confided this
refusal to Theodore, simply taking it for granted that it would be
impossible for us to accept the Cooper invitation and reach Oneonta in
time for his evening speech. The Cooper home, full of treasures that
had descended from Mr. Cooper’s grandfather, the author of “The Last
of the Mohicans,” etc., and equally full of charming people, gave us
so warm a welcome, and we had such an agreeable time there, that my
brother was very loath to leave, but at 6.30 I insisted that we must
start for Oneonta. We were already in the motors when Mr. Cooper,
leaning over to say good-by, assured Colonel Roosevelt of his regret
that he could not stay to dinner. “Dinner?” said my brother. “I didn’t
know I was asked to dinner.” “Yes, you were, of course,” said Mr.
Cooper; “but your sister, Mrs. Robinson, refused to let you stay for
dinner, saying that you would have to reach Oneonta at 8 o’clock.” “May
I ask,” said my brother in a high falsetto, “what business my sister,
Mrs. Robinson, had to refuse a dinner invitation for me?” And, with a
bound, he leaped from the automobile, shaking, laughingly, his fist at
me, and said, “Dinner with the Coopers! Well, of course, I am going to
stay to dinner,” and returned rapidly to the house, followed meekly
by his party. The hospitable and resourceful Coopers, who naturally,
after my refusal, had not expected seven extra people to dinner, turned
in, assisted by Theodore himself, and proceeded to scramble eggs and
broil bacon, much to the amusement and delight of the cook, who had
never had an ex-President in her kitchen before, and of all the merry
dinner-parties that I have ever attended, that one, forced upon the
delightful Fenimore Coopers, was about the merriest.
Senator Davenport had been in poor health at the time, and my brother
called him entirely “Little Eva,” after the angel child of Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” both because of his rather
transparent appearance and his high-minded principles (upon which the
Colonel dilated in his speeches). He called himself “Uncle Tom,” and
Senator Newcomb “Simon Legree,” and those cognomens and no others were
used throughout the entire trip, which proved a veritable holiday.
But neither that trip nor any other trip could have changed the fate
of the Progressive candidates in 1914, and New York State showed at
election time, as did various other states in the country, that America
was not prepared for a third party, even though that party stood, more
than did any other party, for the practical common sense and high
idealism of Theodore Roosevelt.
Just before Election day I accompanied him to Princeton, where Doctor
John Grier Hibben, president of the university, received him with
distinction, and asked him to speak to the body of students there not
only on political faiths but on “Preparedness.” Unless I am very much
mistaken, the first speech on that subject in the United States during
the Great War was that very address made in the auditorium of Princeton
in November, 1914, by my brother. His young and eager listeners among
the student body applauded him to the echo. The cause of preparedness
and true Americanism had no stancher upholder at that time, nor in the
difficult years to come, than President Hibben of Princeton University.
Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Leonard Wood, John Grier Hibben,
Augustus P. Gardner, and other far-seeing patriots, stood from the
beginning for the Allies against the Huns, and for “Preparedness” of a
thorough kind. Had their advice been followed, Germany would very soon
have sensed how formidable an influence in the war America could be. I
am convinced there would have been no sinking of the _Lusitania_, and
hundreds of thousands of gallant young men would not have lost their
lives on Flanders Fields.
On November 12, 1914, after Election day, my brother writes me:
“Darling Corinne:--That is a very dear letter of yours! I shall make no
further statement. Did you see my quotation from Timothy II, Chapter
4, verses 3 and 4? It covers the whole situation. Ever yours, Theodore
Roosevelt.”
The verses referred to are as follows:
(3) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears;
(4) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be
turned unto fables.
He was very apt to sum up a situation in some pregnant verse from the
Bible.
The winter of 1915 was trying to him in certain ways, especially on
account of the Barnes libel suit. He had made the statement that Mr.
Barnes had, politically, a bipartisan attitude, and indeed more than
attitude, and Mr. Barnes decided to bring a suit for libel against him.
In spite of this annoyance, however, he writes me various letters, some
merry, and all dealing with subjects where he or I could be of help to
others less fortunate. In one case, in connection with a certain French
pastor, to whom I could not be of assistance in the way in which he had
hoped, he writes: “I understand perfectly. I felt like a swine when I
wrote you, but the poor, dear pastor was such a pathetic figure that
from sheer mushy weakness I yielded, and strove to do something for
him.” And later, in connection with a penniless poet: “Can you give me
any advice? I wish I knew some wealthy creature who was interested in
poor struggling poets and could help them, and also help their poor
wives and children after their deaths. Lord! how hard life is!” That
time I was able to help him, and raised quite a sum for the struggling
individual in question, whom I thought truly deserved help.
Just then Mrs. William Astor Chanler arranged a charming play for the
benefit of a war charity, a play in which there were scenes depicting
Washington at Valley Forge. My little grandson took the part of his
many times great-grandfather, Captain Isaac Roosevelt, and my brother,
with sympathetic pleasure, came as an honored guest to the performance,
and was later photographed with the small actors. He writes from
Syracuse, where he had gone to take the defense for himself in the
libel suit: “Was little Captain Isaac Roosevelt one of the bewildering
number of small Revolutionary leaders who had their photographs taken
with me? I have felt a pang that I did not particularly seek him out,
but the confusion was so great that I could not identify any one of the
constantly revolving small boys and girls behind the scenes; and until
we were actually in place I had supposed that they were all to have
their photographs taken with me.” In this same letter he says, speaking
of the fact that his wife had been ill when he left New York: “I have
been so worried about Edith that this libel suit has bothered me very
little. Of course I was rather tired by my nine days on the witness
stand, but I felt I made my case pretty clear. How the suit will go I
have no idea, but in any event I do not feel that my friends have any
cause to be ashamed of me.” On May 24, at the end of the suit, in which
he scored a great triumph, he writes: “Dearest Corinne and Douglas: It
was fine to get your telegrams and letters. You two were among those
who I knew would stand by me absolutely, win or lose; but I am awfully
glad it is a case of winning and not losing. Just as soon as you get
back from Virginia I must see you both and tell you everything.” He did
tell us everything, and many were the things that he told!
Twice in his life Theodore Roosevelt took part in libel suits. In the
first case _he_ brought the suit against a newspaper which had openly
accused him of intoxication. In the second place he was the defendant,
as I have already mentioned. Nothing was ever more unfounded than
the strange and persistent rumor that Theodore Roosevelt indulged in
intoxicating liquors. It has been my great good fortune to have been
associated with men of great self-control as regards drink, but of all
my intimate contemporaries, no one ever drank as little as my brother.
I do not think he ever in his life tasted a cocktail, and he hated
whiskey, and it rarely could be found at Sagamore Hill. He occasionally
took a glass of sherry or port or champagne, but those, even, only
occasionally; and how the report started that he overindulged in drink
no one has ever been able to discover; but like many another sinister
thing it swelled with its own volume, and after serious thought he
chose an occasion when he could make a definite charge, and demanded
a trial when the newspaper in question _printed_ the heretofore
only whispered untruth. I do not believe that so many distinguished
men ever before travelled to a remote Western town, as travelled to
give testimony about the sobriety of Theodore Roosevelt. Foreign
ambassadors, famous generals, scientists, literary men, artists, all
journeyed in an endless trail to give, with ardent loyalty, their
personal knowledge of the impeccable habits of my brother. The result
was an award of damages which my brother refused to take and the most
abject apologies on the part of the editor. The other suit, the Barnes
suit, was entirely different, for in that transaction he was the man to
make the accusation, and his opponent was a most brilliant and acute
individual, and even although my brother’s followers were confident
of the accuracy of the statement he had made, for his statements
were consistently accurate, still we felt that some apparent lack of
proof, even though only apparent, might bring about an unfortunate
result. Mr. John Bowers, one of the most able of his profession, was
my brother’s lawyer, and he later gave me many an amusing description
of that extraordinary case. The counsel for the plaintiff were always
averse to allowing my brother to testify, for the effect he produced
upon the jury was immediate and startling. The opposing side would
object to nearly _everything_ he said, simply because _anything_ he
said induced a rapid and favorable response from the jury. In one part
of the testimony Mr. Bowers told me that my brother had repeated a
conversation between Mr. Barnes and himself, and had gone into accurate
detail, which was listened to by the jury with intense and sympathetic
excitement, whereupon the lawyer for the plaintiff objected to Mr.
Roosevelt’s statement as an “irrelevant monologue.” Quick as a flash my
brother turned upon the objector and said that “of course the gentleman
in question might _call_ it a monologue, but as Mr. Barnes had had as
much to do with the conversation as himself, he, personally, would call
it a _dialogue_.” This retort brought down not only the house but the
jury, and the unfortunate opposing lawyer withdrew his objection. That
story and many others my brother recounted to us with humorous and
sarcastic delight, shortly after the end of the trial, around a family
tea-table one Sunday evening at Sagamore Hill.
In September of that year, 1915, we suffered the loss of our beloved
friend Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge. Since the early days of 1884, she
had shared the joys and sorrows of our lives. Beautiful, brilliant,
sympathetic, exquisite in her delicate individuality, in her
intellectual inspiration, in her fine humor and sense of values--her
beautiful head like a rare cameo, her wonderful gray-blue eyes looking
out under dark, level brows, she remains one of the pictures most
treasured in the memories of the Roosevelt family. My brother was
always at his best with her, and I have rarely heard him talk in a
broader and more comprehensive way of politics and literature than in
the homelike library at 1765 Massachusetts Avenue, the house where
Senator and Mrs. Lodge were always surrounded by an intimate circle of
friends. By her tea-table, in the rocking-chair bought especially for
him, Theodore Roosevelt would sit and rock when he snatched a happy
half-hour after his ride with the senator in those old days when he
was the President of the United States. Mrs. Lodge had the power of
stimulating the conversation of others, as well as the gift of leading
in conversation herself, and the best “talk” that I have ever heard was
around her tea-table in Washington. Her sudden death was a great blow
to my brother as it was to us all.
All through that year and through the year to come, although severely
censured for his criticisms of the President’s policies, my brother
worked with arduous determination, shoulder to shoulder with General
Leonard Wood and Augustus P. Gardner, to arouse the American people
to the danger of non-preparedness, and to the shame of allowing the
exhausted Allies to bear without America’s help the brunt of the
battle. Those men of vision realized, fully, that in a world aflame,
no nation could possibly escape the danger of conflagration. Not only
from that standpoint did the apostles of preparedness press forward,
but from the love of democracy also. These courageous patriots wished
to have their country share spontaneously from the beginning the effort
for righteousness for which France, England, and Italy were giving the
lives of the flower of their youth.