as unemotional as was the reverse in the body sitting in the other
hall, so close at hand. I, myself, went from one spot to the other,
torn with conflicting emotions. In the Republican Convention there
had been no enthusiasm whatsoever for any candidate up to the moment
when Senator Fall, of New Mexico, put the name of Theodore Roosevelt
in nomination. Then, and then only, did the thousands of people in
that great auditorium rise to their feet with one prolonged shout
of approval. The delegates--and, alas! it is the delegates to a
convention, not the people, who apparently choose the men who are to
govern the people--were cold and unresponsive no matter what name was
put before them, and, were it possible, they were even colder, even
more unresponsive, when Theodore Roosevelt’s name was mentioned than
they were at any other time; but the masses--they were neither cold
nor unresponsive! How they cheered as that beloved name was heard for
the first time in that Republican Convention! Over and over again the
chairman tried to bring the convention to order. No blaring bands,
no stimulated marchings, were the cause of the great ovation. It was
actually and vividly the cry of those who wanted a leader and wanted
_their_ leader that was heard in that great hall, but there was no echo
in the hearts of those who held the balance of power in their hands.
That evening there was printed in one of the Chicago newspapers so
exquisite a rhapsody, so loving a swan song, that I can but reproduce
it.
AH! TEDDY DEAR
Ah, Teddy dear, and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?
They say you’re gone from off the stage, that strange cold men,
whom we respect but love not, must be our meat for all the campaign
days to come.
Gray is the prospect; dull is the outlook.
We felt all the while that over in the Auditorium and the Coliseum
they were breaking to us the news of a death in the family. They
were merciful; they held it back; they did not let us have the
shock of it all at once. They meant kindly.
But now that the news has come the kindness of friends can help but
little. Our hearts are broke! We need you and we want you every
minute.
Ah the fun of you and the glory of you!
Where lies the American whose passion or whose imagination you have
not set a-tingling? Who else has meant the savor of life for us?
Who but you has taken us and set our feet upon the high places?
Before you came, all in politics was set and regular. Those who
were ordained to rule over us did so with that gravity with which
stupid grown-ups so oft repress the child. No one ever talked to
us as you did. They called us “voters” or “constituents” or such
big names as these. They never took us by the hand and laughed and
played with us as you did.
They never understood us. They could preach Sunday school and
arithmetic. But the good Lord never gave it to them to speak to the
heart.
And then you came!
Dancing down the road you came with life and love and courage and
fun stickin’ out all over you. How we loved you at the first sight!
And how you loved us!
Friends we were, tho’ you were in the White House and we were
making mud pies. Friends we were together with nothing to come
between us.
Your love would let no harm come near us and we knew it. With your
courage you fought for us. With your life and your fun you took us
out of the drab grind.
You told us of the birds in the air and of the fishes in the
sea. The great tales of the old heroes, the sagas of the
past, you spread before our ’stonished eyes. You gave us new
words--delightful words--to play with; and jokes--delightful
jokes--to make us laugh.
How we wanted you back when you went away! But they stole our right
from us and they wouldn’t let you come back. So we followed you.
Four million of us, in a fight the like of which we never knew.
Joy and religion were in it in equal measure. Hymns and cleanness
and color and battle all were jumbled in it. The good of it is set
forever into the life of the nation.
But the schoolmaster beat you, and the Great War came to crowd you
from our thoughts. We thought only of ourselves because you were no
longer there to make us think of our country. At last we turned to
you--when it was too late.
So now we are not to have you. We must go stumbling on alone,
hoping that the man they’ve given us may show something of that
fire and strength upon which you taught us to rely.
It’s our fault, not theirs. It’s our fault, not yours. You warned
us that we must be ready to go thru to the end. We weren’t. Fear
had come upon us, fear of ourselves. We were split up. We eyed each
other with distrust. The spirit of your old sagas had gone from us.
Now we must face it alone, unless you help us. Do not forsake us to
sulk in your tent. Make the sacrifice they demand, not for their
sake but for ours. Help them win with the cold, good man they’ve
chosen. Help that man to hold his courage and fight worthily for
the things which you have taught us--tho the real right to fight
for them was yours, not his. Don’t let our councils be divided.
Don’t let hotheaded friends force their personal claims upon you.
But whatever you do or whatever you don’t do, be sure of one
thing--we shall never hold it against you. For all that is gone,
you can do no wrong in our sight. The memory of you shall never
fade from our hearts.
Ah, Teddy dear--we love you now and always.[B]
[B] From the Chicago _Evening Post_, June, 1916. The
article was written by Julian Mason, the gifted son of one
who had been a hospitable host of Theodore Roosevelt when,
as a young man, he wrote “The Winning of the West.”
XVI
“DO IT NOW”
Sad America
Dreamed in the distance as a charmed thing
Till Roosevelt, like Roland, blew his horn.
--John Jay Chapman.
One who rang true when traitor thoughts were rife,
One who led straight through all the years of strife.
--From _Horace Mann School Record_.
I went to Sagamore Hill the very moment that I returned from Chicago
after that exciting convention. In fact, I took the first train
possible to Oyster Bay. My heart was aflame, for it seemed to me then,
as it has seemed to me frequently in such contests (nor does this refer
solely to contests in which my brother took part), that the will of the
people had been frustrated.
My brother was seated in the library when I arrived at Sagamore Hill,
and when I burst out, “Theodore--the people wanted you. It seems
terrible to me that they could not have you,” he answered, with a smile
that had a subtle meaning in it: “Do not say that; if they had wanted
me _hard_ enough, they could have had me.” By which he meant that after
all, if enough citizens in our great country would take seriously the
duties of citizenship, the delegates to our conventions would have to
do their will. From that moment, putting himself entirely aside, his
whole thought, his whole effort were given to the achievement of what
he considered the vital need for his country; namely, the election
of the Republican candidate. Waiting until Mr. Hughes had definitely
stated his policy, Colonel Roosevelt, upon that statement, immediately
sent to the Progressive Convention, which met within a few weeks, a
letter stating his position as follows:
“_Gentlemen_: In accordance with the message I sent to the National
Progressive Convention as soon as I had received the notification
that it had nominated me for President, I now communicate to you my
reasons for declining the honor which I so deeply appreciate.... Before
speaking of anything else, I wish to express my heartiest and most
unstinted admiration for the character and services of the men and
women who made up the National Progressive Convention in 1916.... They
represent the spirit which moved Abraham Lincoln and his political
associates during the decade preceding the close of the Civil War. The
platform put forth in 1912 was much the most important public document
promulgated in this country since the death of Abraham Lincoln. It
represented the first effort, on a large scale, to translate abstract
formulas of economic and social justice into concrete American
nationalism....
“Events have shown us that the Progressive party in 1912 offered the
only alternative to the triumph of the Democratic party.... The results
of the terrible world war of the past two years have now made it
evident to all who are willing to see, that in this country there must
be spiritual and industrial preparedness, along the lines of efficient
and loyal service to the nation, and of practical application of the
precept that ‘each man must be his brother’s keeper.’ Furthermore, it
is no less evident that this preparedness for the days of peace forms
the only sound basis for that indispensable military preparedness based
on military universal training, and which finds expression in universal
obligatory service in time of war. Such universal obligatory training
and service are necessary complements of universal suffrage and
represent the realization of the true American, the democratic ideal
in both peace and war.
“Sooner or later, the national principles championed by the
Progressives of 1912 must, in their general effect, be embodied in
the structure of our national existence. With all my heart, I shall
continue to work for these great ideals, shoulder to shoulder with the
men and women, who, in 1912, championed them.... The method however
by which we are to show our loyalty must be determined in each case
by the actual event. Our loyalty is to the fact, to the principle,
to the ideal, and not merely to the name, and least of all, to the
party name. The Progressive movement has been given an incalculable
impetus by what the Progressive party has done. Our strongest party
organizations have accepted and enacted into law, or embodied in their
party platforms many of our most important principles. Yet it has
become entirely evident that the people under existing conditions are
not prepared to accept a new party.... Under such circumstances, our
duty is to do the best we can and not to sulk because our leadership is
rejected.--It is unpatriotic to refuse to do the best possible, merely
because the people have not put us in a position to do what we regard
as the very best.... In my judgment, the nomination of Mr. Hughes meets
the conditions set forth in the statement of the Progressive National
Committee, issued last January and in my own statements. Under existing
conditions, the nomination of a third ticket would, in my judgment, be
merely a move in the interest of the election of Mr. Wilson. I regard
Mr. Hughes as a man whose public record is a guarantee that he will not
merely stand for a program of clean-cut, straight principles before
election but will resolutely and in good faith put them through if
elected. It would be a grave detriment to the country to re-elect Mr.
Wilson. I shall, therefore, strongly support Mr. Hughes. Such being the
case, it is unnecessary to say that I cannot accept the nomination on
a third ticket. I do not believe that there should be a third ticket.
I believe that when my fellow Progressives actually consider the
question, they will, for the most part, take this position.
“They and I have but one purpose,--the purpose to serve our common
country. It is my deep conviction that at this moment we can serve it
only by supporting Mr. Hughes.”
From that moment, “squaring,” as he always did, “conviction with
action,” Theodore Roosevelt set his strong shoulder to the political
wheel which he hoped with all his heart would put Charles E. Hughes
into the White House.
In my brother’s own “Autobiography” he says: “I have always had a
horror of words that are not translated into deeds, of speech that does
not result in action; in other words, I believe in realizable ideals
and in realizing them; in preaching what would be practicable and then
practising it.”
He put the same idea in somewhat different words in a speech in that
very campaign of 1916: “Of course, the vital thing for the nation to
remember is that while dreaming and talking both have their uses,
these uses must chiefly exist in seeing the dream realized and the
talking turned into action.... Ideals that are so lofty as always to be
unrealizable have a place,--sometimes an exceedingly important place
in the history of mankind--_if_ the attempt, at least partially to
realize them is made; but, in the long run, what most helps forward the
common run of humanity in this work-a-day world, is the possession of
realizable ideals and the sincere attempt to realize them.”
Never did my brother more earnestly fulfil the convictions expressed in
the above sentence than in his campaign for the election of Mr. Hughes.
Never did he give himself more selflessly, and with more tireless zeal,
than when he tried to put one so lately a rival for the presidential
nomination into the White House, because of his strong belief that to
do so would be for the good of his beloved country.
On June 23, just before the meeting of the Progressive Convention, he
writes to me: “I should like to show you my letter to the National
Committee which will appear on Monday afternoon. I will then, I trust,
finish my active connections with Politics.” And again, in another
letter on July 21, he says: “For six years I have been, I believe,
emphatically right, emphatically the servant of the best interests of
the American people; but just as emphatically,--the American people
have steadily grown to think less and less of me, and more definitely
determined not to use me in any public position, and it is their
affair after all. Your Teddy [my son at the time was running for the
nomination for New York State Senator] may experience the same fate and
may find that through no fault of his,--in my case the fault may have
been mine,--his talents may be passed by.”
It is interesting to note that although so frequently a justified
prophet in national affairs, my brother’s prophecies concerning himself
rarely came true. The above prophecy was no exception to this rule,
for during the years to come, the Republican party was to turn once
more to Theodore Roosevelt as its greatest leader, and to pledge its
support to him both inferentially and actually in their great effort to
make him the nominee for governor of New York State. In the campaign of
1918 the leaders of the Republican party turned to him as almost one
man, feeling as they did that his election again to that position would
positively secure him the election to the presidency in 1920.
Perhaps the hardest thing for him to bear connected with the political
situation in 1916 was the keen disappointment of those Progressives
for whom he had such devoted affection when he refused to run on the
Progressive ticket as the candidate for President. He felt that in the
hearts of many there was, in spite of their personal devotion to him, a
sense of disillusion, and he tried with earnest effort to make them see
the point of view which he was convinced was the right point of view,
which made him support the candidate of the Republican party.
A Mrs. Nicholson, of Oregon, for whom he had a sincere regard, having
written to him on the subject, he answers on July 18, 1916:
“My dear Mrs. Nicholson: ... You say you do not understand ‘Why we men
make such a fetich of parties.’ I cannot understand how you include me
with the men who do so. Four years ago I declined to make a fetich of
the Republican party, when to do so meant dishonor to the nation, and
this year I declined to make a fetich of the Progressive party when to
do so meant dishonor to honor. I agree with you that issues and men
are the things that count. A party is good only as a means to an end.
Nevertheless, we have to face the fact that has been made strikingly
evident during the past four years that with ninety per cent of our
country-men the party name of itself has a certain fetichistic power,
and we would be very foolish if we did not take this into account in
endeavoring to work for good results. Moreover, it is unfortunately
true that the dead hand of a party sometimes paralyzes its living
members. The ancestral principles of the Democratic party are so bad
it seems to be entirely impossible for it to be useful to the country
except in spasms.
“I believe Mr. Hughes to be honest and to have the good of his country
at heart.”
He was not able to visit us in our country home on the Mohawk Hills, as
we had hoped he might possibly do, during that summer, but on October
5 he writes to me: “I fear I shall be West on the 25th, otherwise I
should jump at the chance to lunch with you and Fanny at the Colony
Club. Can I accept for the first subsequent day when I find that you
and she are available? I am now being worked to the limit by the Hughes
people who are the very people who four months ago were explaining
that I had ‘no strength.’... I most earnestly desire to win; I, above
all things, do not wish to sulk, and therefore, from now on my time is
to be at the disposal of the National Committee. Of course, Teddy’s
nomination meant far more to me personally than anything else in
this campaign. I look forward eagerly to seeing you. Do look at my
_Metropolitan Magazine_ article which is just out. I think you will
like the literary style!” The “literary style” was combined with a
certain amount of plain talk in this particular instance!
On October 12 Colonel Roosevelt, taking the exploits of the German
submarine U-boat 53 off the shores of America as a text, launched an
urgent protest. Colonel Roosevelt declared that the conduct of the war
had led to a “complete breakdown of the code of international rights.”
The man who as long ago as in his inauguration speech in March, 1905,
inveighed against the “peace of the coward,” was stirred to red-blooded
indignation at the Democratic slogan of that campaign of 1916, which
laid all the stress on “He kept us out of war,” a sentence which
Colonel Roosevelt described as “utterly misleading.”
He said:
“Now that the war has been carried to our very shores, there is not an
American who does not realize the awful tragedy of our indifference and
our inaction. Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. By taking
the right step at the right time, America’s influence and leadership
might have been made a stabilizing force.
“In actual reality, war has been creeping nearer and nearer until it
stares at us from just beyond our three-mile limit, and we face it
without policy, plan, purpose, or preparation. No sane man can to-day
be so blind as to believe President Wilson’s original statement that
the war was no concern of ours. Every thinking man must realize the
utter futility of a statesmanship without plan or policy until such
facts as these now stare us in the face.”
Such were the virile statements used many times during the following
campaign. One of the most interesting human documents connected with
Theodore Roosevelt during this period was written by a young reporter,
Edwin N. Lewis, in private letters to his own family, from the special
train upon which Theodore Roosevelt travelled for one of the most
active ten days of his active life, during which he urged the American
people to accept the Republican candidate. With Mr. Lewis’s permission,
I am quoting from these interesting letters, written by the kind of
young American for whom my brother had the warmest and most friendly
feeling, the kind of young American whose family life had been such
that he wished to share with his family whatever was of interest in his
life.
The first letter, dated October 17, 1916, begins:
“Just getting into Rochester--7 P. M.--Dear Ma:--The big tour is on. I
was presented to Colonel Roosevelt by his secretary before the train
pulled out. Since there are only three correspondents in the party, he
insists that we eat in his private car with him. The trip is going to
be a little family party with the Colonel a sort of jovial master of
ceremonies. He permits me, a stranger, to take part in the conversation
with the group. In fact, I feel, now, after my experiences at luncheon,
that I have known him a long while. He is just as remarkable,
energetic, mentally alert and forcible as his chroniclers picture
him. I could entertain you and pa for an evening with the stories he
told this noon, and dinner is coming in a half hour! Wonderful meals
too,--with the New York Central chefs straining every effort to give
Theodore Roosevelt something fine to eat. Cronin of _The Sun_ and Yoder
of the United Press are the only other newspaper men along.... Tomorrow
we face a busy day. From Cincinnati, we turn down through a mountain
section of Kentucky which has never seen a President, an ex-President
or a Presidential candidate. Mountaineers will drive from miles around
to see the man they have worshipped for years. The Colonel makes
thirteen stops between Falmouth and Louisville. I realize how you are
thinking of me on this trip. It helps me to make good.”
Leaving Louisville, Ky., October 18, 11 P. M.:
“This has been a long day with hundreds of miles travelled by our
special train through the valleys of Kentucky in a steady run. I
wrote about 2000 words but do not imagine that all of it will get
in the first edition which you will see in New England. Tonight,
“T. R.” pulled one of his familiar stunts with his changing the whole
introduction to his speech at one-half hour’s notice. He spoke for half
an hour on the Adamson law and what he would have done to prevent the
threatened railroad strikes. I had to shoot in 500 words additional
just as we pulled out. It was written in long hand while the Colonel
delivered the tail end of his talk. Louisville went wild over him. As
we climbed down in the mud and rain, red fire burned, rockets glared
in the mist, and the factory whistles screeched their welcome. As the
New York correspondents travelling with the Colonel, we are members
of his personal body-guard. You can imagine how seriously we take the
job, when you remember that Mr. Roosevelt was shot and severely wounded
when speaking at Milwaukee a few years ago; a man of such intense
affections and such stirring convictions always has venomous enemies.
For this reason, when we take the Colonel through a crowd as we did
tonight, we completely surround him and use our elbows and fists if
need be to protect him. If any harm should come to him, we would all
be crushed. Tonight, however, he was only liable to be hurt by the
overwhelming love of Louisville citizens.... Our relations with him
could not be more cordial and democratic. This noon Colonel Roosevelt
was terribly excited because Cronin and I did not get luncheon with
him owing to the prevalence of Kentucky politicians who swarmed on the
train like rats caught in a flood. He swore that he would eat nothing
tonight until we had been fed. Tonight at 7 P. M. the porter came into
my compartment and announced that Mr. Roosevelt was waiting dinner for
Mr. Lewis and Mr. Cronin. He still apologized although we protested
that the chef had filled our most prominent cavity successfully with
sandwiches and coffee at 3 P. M. This gives you just one little glimpse
of this remarkable man. I could write all night along this line. Mind
you, he is taking all these precautions not for old friends but for two
newspaper men whom he has never seen before and whose articles he has
never read.
“Tonight as he left the hall, I jumped around to his right side,
grabbed him by the arm and offered to act as a bumper against his
admirers who fought like bears to shake his hand. He still remains
the great idol of the American people. He smiled at me, drew his arm
through mine and we swayed, pushed, and shoved our way out.
“The Colonel is a little older than he used to be. I think he will be
fifty-eight the day we return to New York. At times, in the thick of
the excitement, an expression of fatigue flashes across his features.
There is a touch of sadness too, I believe, in his face, as he looks
out over these crowds of people who have come for miles just to see
him. He is not a candidate for President, thanks to the Chicago
Convention,--but in spite of all these things which would discourage
an ordinary man, he is travelling four thousand miles to win the
election.... If the Colonel likes a person, he loves them with gigantic
affection. His favorite character in literature is Great Heart from
‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’