8061 1 run IVd A jXs ■sc jg PJOiX EO Roosevelt Night Middlesex Club Boston October 27 1920 ADDRESSES Hon. CHARLES G. WASHBURN Mrs. CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON Hon. henry CABOT LODGE Rev. M. ASHBY JONES PRINTED BY THE CLUB 1920 OFFICERS OF THE MIDDLESEX CLUB LOUIS A. COOLIDGE vice-presidents Henry Cabot Lodge John W. Weeks John L. Bates asst. secretary Benjamin F. Felt Charles H. Ramsay executive committee Charles S. Proctor, Chairman A. S. Apsey Caspar G. Bacon James E. Baker Herbert E. Fletcher Charles T. Cottrell Joseph W. Gerry Sidney M. Hedges Charles H. Innes Charles E. Fay Walter R. Meins Lincoln R. Welch John Jacob Rogers Paul S. Burns Seward W. Jones Edgar R. Champlin George H. Doty Frank W. Stearns Edward E. Jameson Joseph B. Jamieson advisory board Samuel L. Powers Charles G. Bancroft ADDRESSES CHARLES G. WASHBURN. MRS. CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON, HENRY CABOT LODGE AND REV. M. ASHBY JONES BEFORE THE MIDDLESEX CLUB. "ROOSEVELT NIGHT", AT HOTEL SOMERSET. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS WEDNESDAY EVENING. OCTOBER 27. 1920 Louis A. COOLIDGE, TresiJing The CHAIRMAN. As president of the Middlesex Ckib I am very proud to-night. I am proud to preside over this, the largest dinner which the Club has ever held; I am proud that in our number we see for the first time our newest voters [applause], the women Republicans of Massachusetts, who have shown us the great consideration of not objecting when cigars were lighted. I am proud that the Middlesex Club, the first Club to recognize the anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt [applause], continues in the path it has marked out for itself by holding on this, the second anniversary following his death, the second dinner which bears his name. It is fitting that we Americans, quickened by his spirit, thrilling with the genius of his patriotism, should gather every year to drink anew at the pure waters of the fountain which gushed out when he smote the rock. I am proud that we have here his sister [applause], Mrs. Robinson; that we have here his closest friend and associate in political life, Henry Cabot Lodge [applause and cheers] ; that we have here an eloquent clergyman from the State of Georgia from which his ancestors hailed. Rev. M. Ashby Jones [applause], an old friend of this Club, and that we have his intimate classmate, biographer and friend, Charles G. Washburn. [Applause.] I welcome you to meet them, to hear them and with them pay tribute to this noble, fear- less leader of his countrymen. 3 [At this point a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt was unveiled, all the members rising and applauding. This was followed by the singing of one verse of America.] The CHAIRMAN. As the first speaker of the evening I pre- sent the Hon. Charles G. Washburn of Worcester, Theodore Roosevelt's classmate and friend. [Applause, all rising.] HON. CHARLES G. WASHBURN Mr. Chairman, Members of the Middlesex Club, Ladies and Gen- tlemen: We are met together this evening to do honor to the memory of a very great American who, in the minds of his countrymen, is associated with two of his predecessors in the presidential office — Washington and Lincoln. His life is known-^more intimately to us than theirs can ever be. For more than forty years as fierce a light has beat upon every detail of it as ever beat upon a throne. I knew him at Harvard when he was a boy of eighteen, just after he had won his first great victory and by the sheer force of his will had made a strong man out of a frail child. He stood in a class by himself even then and was regarded by a few of his closest friends as a man of destiny. His pathway to the presidency was unlike that which had ever before been trodden. A service in the legislature which he thought was to be only for one year extended to three. Then he broke off all connection with politics and devoted himself largely to litera- ture and to his ranch. Then he had a place upon the National Civil Service Commission and upon the Police Commission of the City of New York, neither one of which carried with it the slightest hope of political preferment. Then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, from which post he resigned to become a soldier. Then Governor of New York ; then against his express will, Vice- President of the United States ; and finally made President by the hand of an assassin. Certainly up to this time there is lacking every element that usually makes for political advancement. He became a national figure at the age of twenty-six when he went to the Chicago Convention as one of the delegates at large from the State of New York. He made the Civil Service Com- mission respected and the Police Commission of New York City feared. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy he made adequate 4 preparation for the war with Spain, and then resigned that office, against the advice of his best friends, to lead his regiment upon the field of battle. When he returned, he was drafted as the Republican candidate for Governor of New York and was elected. He filled that great office with distinction. He left it unwillingly to become the Vice-President of the United States and then be- came President. In that great office he quickened the conscience of the American people. He built the Panama Canal and held the scales of justice even between capital and labor. He compelled a reluctant Congress to pass beneficent legislation, curbing the greed of the powerful and in the interest of the weak and helpless, and when he finished his term of office the American people would willingly have conferred upon him the unprecedented honor of another election. It was not a question of his being nominated by the Republican party ; it was merely of his willingness to accept the nomination. His closest personal and political friend, Henry Cabot Lodge, happily here present at this table this evening, was chairman of that convention of 1908 to effect two purposes, to make the nomination of Roosevelt impossible and to make the nomination of Taft certain. After that interesting trip to Africa and to Europe, he returned to this country in June, 1910, and was then, unless we except the day when his death was made known to the world, at the very zenith of his fame. He might, in 1910, have retired from all public activities, content with the great services he had rendered and satisfied to live out his life as the best beloved and most highly respected citizen of the United States, but he preferred to hold himself in readiness for any ser\-ice he might be able to render to his countrymen and if need be to engage in political strife. As time went on and 1912 approached, here and there in constantly increasing volume came a demand for him to be again a candidate for the presidency. At first he lent a deaf ear to the call. Later on, and with great reluctance, he felt compelled to listen to it, and finally when he became convinced that the great policies that he cared for most were likely to be abandoned, he consented to allow his name to go before the Republican conven- tion and then to be the candidate of the Progressive Party. Who of us will ever forget those awful days? Many of his former friends left him, some in anguish of spirit and others with resent- ment, but it made no difference to him ; his mind was made up, and like a crusader of old he led the Progressive Party, which, though defeated, polled over four million votes. When it is re- membered that the Progressive campaign was conducted without any organization, against the combined political ability of both of the old parties, against ninety per cent, of the press of the country, and practically by Roosevelt alone, I think it must be regarded as the greatest personal triumph ever achieved by a political leader in the history of constitutional governments. This, of course, is not the time or place to make an argument, and yet I cannot leave this great political struggle, his part in which has provoked more hostile criticism than any act in his career, without recording my conviction that it was his devotion to the cause that drove him on, and not any political ambition. This, I believe, is capable of easy demonstration. You will re- member that when the six governors sent their letter to him on the tenth of February, 1912, and after he had made up his mind to be a candidate, but before he had sent his letter of acceptance, which was dated February 24, he made that speech before the Ohio legislature on "A Charter of Democracy," in which, among other things, he advocated the recall of judicial decisions. This alienated hundreds of thousands of Republican votes. He did not need to make it to secure the votes of radicals — those were his already. He must have known, as well as any one, what the result would be. And then, when he had left nothing undone and had done everything to make his nomination in a Republican con- vention impossible, he agreed to be a candidate. In advocating the recall of judicial decisions, how many, many friends of Roosevelt said of him, "He has gone off on a tangent." The tangent was a straight line. Since 1885 Roosevelt had been considering what he regarded as a great wrong, and what was a wrong, the tendency of the courts to ignore the expressed wishes of the legislatures touching the exercise of the police power. When he was in the legislature, a bill in the interest of public health, which he favored, was passed. It prohibited the manufacture and preparation of tobacco in any form in tenement houses, in certain cases. Later it was declared unconstitutional by the Cir- cuit Court of Appeals of New York on the ground, among others, that it was not a proper exercise of the "police power". The judge rendering the decision deplored the fact that the bill would force the cigar maker from his home and its hallowed associations. 6 Imagine the kind of home the sanctity of which that bill invaded, — a couple of rooms, perhaps, in a tenement house with the usual domestic equipment combined with a tobacco factory. That was the kind of judicial decision that Roosevelt so rebelled against, and he had been searching for well nigh thirty years for a remedy which he thought he had found in the recall of judicial decisions. That speech was not the hasty utterance of a demagogue ; it was the well-considered opinion of a man who had given the subject many years' consideration. I do not ask any one to agree with the conclusion that he then reached, but I want every man, woman and child throughout the length and breadth of the United States to know that Theodore Roosevelt in his advocacy of that policy was actuated by the highest motives. [Applause.] When in 1914 the fortunes of the Progressive party were at their lowest ebb, Roosevelt believed that the American people had lost all interest in him, but he was not dismayed. Compare his attitude at that time with that of Daniel Webster who, after bitter disappointment in his political life and when weakened by disease, would exclaim, "Oh, vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" Not so with Theodore Roosevelt. No one who heard him say, with a cheerful face, that he never was any happier than he was at that time could fail to be struck with the fact that his peace of mind was not dependent upon any earthly success. Most of his fellow citizens then thought that all had gone wrong with a very great career, but there were some who believed that his star would again be triumphantly in the ascendant, and so it was. The moment that war was declared and we needed some mighty personality to rally our heterogeneous population, North, South, East and West, into an homogeneous whole that stood for America and nothing else, his was the voice, his was the personality which accomplished that great purpose. [Applause.] And then how quickly did his fame revive ! It was not long before he was urged to be Governor of the State of New York in 1918 as preliminary to his being the nominee of the Republican party for President in 1920. [Applause.] And he had not changed one of his views for which he had formerly been condemned. In every crisis of his life he said with Seneca's Pilot, "Oh, Neptune, you may save me if you will, you many sink me if you will, but whatever happen, I will hold my rudder true." [Applause.] He said it when he was in the New York legislature ; he said it when the spoilsmen 7 sought to remove him from the Civil Service Commission; he said it when he enforced the excise laws in the city of New York against almost a united protest; he said it when he gave up his duties as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and risked his life in Cuba; he said it when, as Governor, he proposed the taxing as realty of corporate franchises and was threatened with political ruin ; he said it when he was President, and the business interests of the country, almost with one voice, protested against his en- forcement of the anti-trust laws. He said it in an interview with Samuel Gompers, James Duncan, John Mitchell, and other members of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, when he declared that he was President of all the people of the United States, without regard to creed, color, birthplace, occupation, or social condition ; that his aim was to do equal and exact justice as among them all ; that in the employment and dis- missal of men in the government service, he could no more recog- nize the fact that a man did not belong to a union, as being for or against him, than he could recognize the fact that he was a Protestant or a Catholic, or a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or against him. He said it in Chicago in that great strike when the labor leaders came to him for comfort, and that very night at a public dinner he turned to the mayor of the city and said, "Mr. Mayor, behind you is the city of Chicago, behind the city of Chicago is the State of Illinois, and behind the State of Illinois is the Government of the United States." [Applause.] What manner of man was this whom we honor here to-night? Unlike, certainly unlike any other man we have ever known or read about, a character as transparent as a child's, tender in his family relations, a faithful friend, but when aroused, in conflict terrible, and when engaged in fighting for a great cause he loved to ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm. A radical by nature, a lover of his fellow men, he delighted to think that his support was derived from the plain people, the people from whom Abraham Lincoln sprang. He said in 1912 to a friend, "I am merely trying to apply the principles of Abraham Lincoln to conditions as I find them at the present time." He placed his country above his party; he was not a strict party man in the sense in which we use that expression or in the sense in which we formerly used it. He regarded a party as a means to an end, but he thought in 1918 and he would have thought in 1920, as he 8 did in 1885, that the Republican party by reason of its traditions and its membership was best calculated to safeguard the welfare of the United States. [Applause.] There never lived a man of wider sympathies than his. He was at home in the conferences of ecclesiastics, among men of letters, among historians. He was at home upon the plains of the West, and in the mining camp, wherever his fellow men were honestly and earnestly engaged in some line of human activity. After his triumphant passage through Europe, when he got to England, he set apart a day to walk through the New Forest with Sir Edward Grey, that he might listen to the song birds of Eng- land ; and when he got to Liverpool, he telegraphed to Seth Bullock and his wife to come and join him because he said by that time he felt that he must meet his own people who spoke his neighbor- hood dialect. Seth Bullock, you remember, was at one time sheriff out in the Black Hills, who said that the first time he saw Roose- velt and his companions he thought it was some kind of a tin horn gambling outfit that he might need to keep an eye on. I cannot refrain from telling two simple little stories, perhaps familiar to you, but they admirably illustrate his genius for getting next to people. He was out in Colorado hunting, and one of his old Rough Riders came to him and said, "Mr. President, I have been in jail a year for killing a gentleman." The President said, "How did you do it?" The man-killer thought his only interest was to know the technique of the operation and he replied at once, "38 on a 45 frame." Now, tell me what President of the United States from Washington down to and including Wilson [laughter] would have received that kind of an answer from a man-killer? On another occasion one of his old comrades wrote him from jail, "Dear Colonel, I am in trouble. I shot a lady in the eye, but I did not intend to hit the lady ; I was shooting at my wife." He believed that the Colonel's sympathetic heart would acquit him of any evil intention. [Laughter.] As time went on and in large mea.sure as a result of his trip to South America, illness and suffering became the lot of this great man. I have often heard the question asked, "Why did Roosevelt risk so valuable a life by going to South America, into that fever- laden climate?" The answer is obvious, and it is adequate. H he had not possessed the spirit that took him there, he would not have possessed the spirit that made him what he was. He paid with his body for his soul's desire. [Applause.] 9 When he went to his bed on the fifth day of January, 1919, he did not know that his end was near, but presently, in the gray of the early dawn and while he slept, that mighty spirit released from its earthly tabernacle winged its way through the vast spaces to take its place among the immortals. That voice that has so often summoned great multitudes to his standard is forever stilled. That rugged frame which has so frequently resisted exposure, hardship and disease and has seemed the very incarnation of a vitality which could never be subdued, has at last been overcome. That fascinating personality which so long held enthralled multi- tudes of his fellow men is now but a memory, and yet Theodore Roosevelt still lives. His example will be an inspiration and his precepts a guide to generations now unborn. He has taken his place for all time among the great leaders of the world. [Applause.] The CHAIRMAN. While I was listening to the noble tribute by which we all have been deeply moved, my eye rested on the pic- ture which I hold here. You all have it. It is the last picture ever taken of Theodore Roosevelt, and on the lapel of the coat you will see the service stars symbolic of the country which he and his so greatly loved and served. It is my pecuHar pleasure to have conferred upon me to-night the distinction of presenting this audience to Theodore Roosevelt's sister, Mrs. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson. [Applause, all rising.] MRS. CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lodge and Mr. Washburn and Mr. Jones, Citizens, as I like to say, of an unsurrendered America [applause] : I want to thank Mr. Coolidge for the privilege that he has given me in being present to-night. I want to thank Mr. Washburn for words that have made it almost impossible for me to speak, know- ing as I do the great unswerving devotion which Mr. Washburn gave to my brother and which the President returned in kind. It is a great joy to me to speak in the presence of two of his dearest friends to-night. We have been with my brother so often together that it seems almost as if his spirit were really with us to-night. I recall so many loving, charming, enchanting, delight- 10 ful hours when we have sat together and talked and thought aloud together. When I think of my brother the one special character in which he comes to niy mind is that of the great sharer. Many people think of him as the great statesman ; many people think of him as the great public man; many as the great hunter, some as the great historian, some as the great naturalist, but to me, his sister, the one special thought that always comes into my mind is the beauty of that power of sharing everything with those he loved. I have felt over and over again that wonderful privilege when being with him closely. I have had him talk to me for hours and hours. I have had him even listen to me when I have asked him not to do something that he wanted very much to do ; I have even had him listen to me when I have asked him not to say something that he wanted very much to say. And so I have had that wonderful closeness of relationship, and I think perhaps from me to-night you will like to hear one or two little intimate things that will show what that relationship was. Amongst other things I go back in my mind and think of him as a little delicate boy in the nursery in the house in Twentieth street when my brother Elliott and I even younger but less delicate children were always asking for a story. And Theodore Roose- velt in those days, delicate as he was, breathing terribly with that curse of asthma that was on him, never refused the story to the two younger ones in the nursery. I can see him now on the rather high chair, leaning forward because of this great difficulty in breathing, but telling us, in spite of that effort, the kind of wonder- ful story that I used to say in later years Mr. Kipling himself would have envied, for in all those stories in the Twentieth-street nursery there was always a marvelous impersonation of an animal ; there was always a boy, the boy that Kipling calls Mowgli, the boy that lived in the heart of my brother Theodore Roosevelt. And those stories went on from year to year. And then later when grown more powerful, as Mr. Washburn says, more powerful because of his determination to make his own body, which he accomplished by sheer, absolute determination and will-power, I remember the lovely long days at Oyster Bay when we were all children together, the days in the boats, the little tiny boats. He never wanted a big boat ; he wanted a little boat that was always nearly swamped in the Sound in the big waves. He 11 didn't want to sail, he wanted to row ; he wanted that hard manual labor. He wanted to have a bigger wave than the boat could quite get over ; he wanted to have a big neck of land that he pulled the boat over himself. He was always a person who wanted an obstacle to overcome, and he always wanted to go over and through and never around. And that attitude was characteristic from his early boyhood. Then as time went on the sharing quality seemed to grow stronger and stronger. I remember very well when he went to the Assembly, and that first winter we were all living at my mother's house, for he did not take a house then in Albany ; and when he would come back for Sundays and holidays we would say, "We are going to share Theodore, and Theodore is going to share all his experiences with us." And even in those early days, as you know very well, he became a feature in the country; he became in fact so much of a feature, although only twenty-two years old, that one of my earliest and most poignant memories is the time that he was invited by a very high-brow club called the Nineteenth Century Club to come down and speak before it in his native city. The Nineteenth Century Club had for its presi- dent a gentleman who did not care very much for Theodore Roose- velt, but he was invited because people were talking about him. The president of the Club did not care for Henry Cabot Lodge either, for he was the editor of the New York Evening Post. Theodore Roosevelt was already talked about. You might like him or dislike him, but you always talked about him. And in those days at twenty-two, just as later in life, he was being talked about. And so the high-brow club invited him to come and speak to it, and he came, and I — who always went everywhere with him all his life long whenever I could — with great interest and with great pride at the age of seventeen went to hear his maiden speech in a great hall in his native city. Seated in that hall was the coldest, least interested audience that could be imagined, and I think it is a most potent fact to remember that there, in this first speech he ever made in his native city, he chose the subject which was the subject of the last lines he ever wrote from his sick bed at Oyster Bay. The plan of the evening was this: The speaker chose his sub- ject and spoke half an hour, and then the speaker who was to reply was given twenty minutes to rebut all the arguments of the first 12 speaker, and then the first speaker was given ten minutes more in which to rebut the rebutter! I can still hear Theodore Roose- velt speaking before that audience, having chosen the subject which he had already deep in his heart and on which later he was to ring the changes through his whole life, the subject "Ameri- canism". I believe it is appropriate at this moment to remember that that was the whole tenor of the subject of Theodore Roose- velt's life. And I see him now. He came forward, eager, ardent, and began to speak to this cold audience and began to explain what he thought Americanism meant. And he spoke for half an hour urgently, anxious to make them think as he did. And I sat down there below realizing already that the audience did not care one bit about Americanism or Theodore Roosevelt. And then he sat down with little, very little, very faint applau.se. Then the man who had been chosen to answer him was intro- duced, St. Clair McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. He was a man with a considerable reputation as an orator and pro- ceeded to wipe up the floor, so to speak, with his twenty-two- year-old opponent. He got up and began in a rather sneering fashion with the statement that every "ism" was a fad. He began with spiritualism, and all the fads of hypnotism and turning to fanaticism, tore all the "isms" to shreds, and the Nineteenth Cen- tury Club became quite excited and thought this was a most magnificent orator and listened with great interest, and I became frightfully worried. I had that uncomfortable feeling that made me wish to crawl away and hide. And suddenly I saw a smile come on my brother's face, the smile that every one of you knows who has ever seen him when he was replying to a heckler in a crowd, and that smile gave me a sense of confidence and I knew that I need worry no more. Then Mr. McKelway sat down and the Club rose and cheered him. My brother rose again and he came forward almost into the audience, he was so determined and so ardent, and he leaned over to this unsympathetic audience and he almost shouted at them as he began, "I have ten minutes in which to reply to my adversary ; I don't want ten minutes ; I only want one minute, and in that one minute I will ask you one question, and as you answer that ques- tion you will answer as to whether I have won in this debate or my adversary: If every 'ism' is a fad, what about patriotism?" [Applause.] 13 What about patriotism? That was the question that Theodore Roosevelt asked his fellow citizens all his life. I used to tell him in those days that were so hard for him to bear when the man who "kept us out of war" kept Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt out of war, when that man was doing as we all know he did before he was the great altruist that he has now become — in those hard days when he wanted, Theodore Roosevelt wanted so much to offer his life for the countries whom he called Allies, not associates — when he wanted that possibility of sacrifice beyond measure, I remember I used to say to him, "After all, Theodore, there are so many that would gladly give their lives for their country in its day of need," there is not one single one of us here that would not bare our breasts to any bullet if America's abso- lute need was in question, "but the same people who go forth in a great war, in a great crisis, in a great cataclysm, do nothing during the days of commonplace peace at home." And the dif- ference between Theodore Roosevelt and those other people was that he gave his life for his country, not only in a crisis but every moment of that life. [Applause.] There is the difference. There is the difference. That is true patriotism. That is true Americanism. Ambition is an easy thing to translate into action, but the every day quality of thinking first of America, that is the thing that is achieved by few and for that reason and for no other reason so greatly as for that reason, does every single American, I think, in this whole country when patriotism or Americanism is mentioned turn in his thoughts towards Theodore Roosevelt. I want to read to you in closing a couple of extracts from two letters that he wrote. They are, I think, very interesting. I am sure that Senator Lodge will be especially interested in one extract, because there has been so much discussion in the past as to whether Theodore Roosevelt did or did not say that he would not take a third term in connection with the presidency. So much has been said about that "third cup of coffee" in the past that I consider it a very interesting fact that the other day in looking over a number of old letters, as I myself am compiling a few memories of my brother, I came across this letter written to me in 1908. It, I think, will settle that question forever. Generally the things for which Theodore Roosevelt has been criticised are eventually settled in the way that is to his credit, and this is an 14 interesting and human document. It was written to me, and I made this extract from it especially for this dinner, because I thought it would interest you all. It was written from the White House in 1908. He says : "My English friends are incapable of understanding the reason for my view in not accepting a renomination, and they think it due to weakness or some fantastic scru- ple on my part. My theory has always been that the presidency should be a very powerful office and the Presi- dent a powerful man who will take advantage of his power, but as a corollary, a man who can be held to ac- countability to the people after a term of four years and who will not in any event occupy the position for more than eight years at a stretch." That is a valuable piece of evidence in the case, and I was glad indeed to run across this special letter. The other letter shows him in his great sorrow, and shows the spirit with which he met that great and appalling blow of Quentin's death. That spirit is so stimulating to all who have to meet sorrow that I wanted also to bring it to you, for it was written so short a while before he died. It was from Dark Harbor, Maine, August, 1918, and he says: "After all, when the young die at the crest of life in the golden morn, the degrees of difference of sorrow are only degrees in bitterness. Yet there is nothing more foolish and cowardly than to be beaten down by sorrow which nothing we can do will change." For that reason in July, 1918, almost at the moment that he heard of Quentin's death, when he was due in Saratoga to make a speech at the informal convention of his own state, he insisted upon keep- ing the engagement. And I shall never forget how he came into that great assembly holding his head high, although the news of his boy's death had just come to him, and when he met me after- wards he said, "Of course I went. It was even more necessary for me to go than before, for I have preached strength and I have preached patriotism above all else in the world, and this is the moment when my patriotism is proved, for they need me in the councils of the Republican party." 15 When he was lying on his sick bed, not his death bed, for it was nine months before he died, but when he had been taken in February, 1918, to the Roosevelt Hospital, we thought one night that he was dying, and they sent for me. He sent for me, and my sister-in-law who came out of the sick room said that the doctors had just told her that they did not think he would Hve through the night. She said to me, "He wants to say a few words to you. You must be very calm, for perhaps if he moves his head to the right or left it will be less likely that he can recover. Put your head close to his lips, for he will not be content until he has said these words to you." He thought they would be his last words to me. They were so like him. I was not with him when he finally departed on the night of January 6, 1919, but this time when I came in the room and leaned down to him — it was in 1918, and that terrible message had just come to us from General Haig that the English troops were with their backs to the wall, and all his four sons were at the front, every one of them, and my son also — as I leaned my head down to his lips, this was what he said : "I am glad that it is not one of my boys, for they can die for their country." [Applause, all rising.] The CHAIRMAN. The leader of the United States Senate, the Qiairman of the great Committee on Foreign Relations, an honor to his state and to his country, Henry Cabot Lodge. [Applause and cheers, all rising.] Mrs. ROBINSON. He will be known in the ages to come as the savior of American independence. [Applause.] HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE. Mr. Chairman, my Fellozv Members of the Middlesex Club : I do not wish to draw any distinction by the use of the word "fellow"; I include both sexes in the word. [Laughter.] It is always a pleasure to come here, and the pleasure now that I connect with the Middlesex Club is always enhanced by the thought that it was permitted to me to make the motion, unani- mously adopted, that the Club should set aside the 27th of October to commemorate Theodore Roosevelt. After the beautiful speech made by Mr. Washburn, his class- mate, his intimate and devoted friend, his biographer, and after 16 the speech made by Theodore Roosevelt's sister, whose eloquence and charm, known to some of us for many, many years, have in this past year become the possession not only of a great party but of the country itself, after such speakers I feel no little embarrassment in trying to say anything at all on the man who is uppermost in our minds to-night. I should like to speak of him personally, of some of those traits which were more known to those who were closest to him than to the world at large, but I will say to you frankly that I cannot trust myself to do so. The wound is too deep, the sorrow is too near. But I think that I can and that I ought to speak in regard to him as a public man and in regard to his attitude, as I understand it, and as I think I may say I know it, in relation to certain ques- tions which have been absorbing the attention of the American people. I want to speak to you of his Americanism, to which Mrs. •Robinson has so beautifully referred. He never needed but he always heeded Emerson's injunction to have the passion for America cast out the passion for Europe. The love of his coun- try, the thought of his country were the guiding impulses of his whole life. I do not want you to think from that that he was not a master of foreign relations or that he did not understand foreign countries. No President, very few men that I have ever heard of, had equal knowledge with that of Theodore Roosevelt with regard to all the countries of our western civilization. I do not mean to limit it there. He had a great knowledge of some countries that did not belong to western civilization. But his minute knowledge of the past of all nations, owing to his astonishing power of acquisi- tion and an iron memory, I have never seen equalled. I remember on one occasion there was a very distinguished Englishman, holding a very high office, in Washington, and I asked Theodore to come and meet him at dinner. He was one of those Englishmen of whom there are many who was very much in search of information on all subjects, and I mentioned this and said, "I want you to come and meet him," and Theodore said, "I am just the man." [Laughter.] "I do not suppose there is anybody living who has so many kinds of useless knowledge as I have." [Laughter.] And after dinner I heard him talking to this Englishman, and he was very distinguished, held an im- portant office, and was in search of information, about the racial 17 origin of all the athletes of America [laughter], the men of the prize ring, the men who played baseball, the men who played football, and I saw my distinguished guest pulling out his cuflf, taking out his pencil. The moment I caught the conversation they were talking about football, and Theodore said, "Now, there is the great Yale quarterback"— it is a great many years ago— "there is the great all- American Yale quarterback; his name is HefTelfinger ; he is of German descent," and the Englishman said, "How very interesting!" [laughter] and wrote it down on his cuff. And I felt that Theodore Roosevelt had justified his state- ment that he had a wider variety of useless knowledge than any- body I have ever known. But useless knowledge generally turned out pretty useful in his hands, and he had this remarkable knowledge of foreign relations in the past, of the history of foreign countries, and the most dis- tinct and clear conception of how foreign questions when they arose should be dealt with by the Government of the United States. I have been led off a little from the point of Americanism, but I am coming to it. The two men in our history whom Theodore Roosevelt most admired were Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In the questions with which he was immediately engaged and with which he is most associated in our minds, the sympathy, as Mr. Washburn has said, for the weak and the helpless, the en- deavor to make things better for humanity in his own country— in that he turned I think most often to Lincoln. When the shock of war came he turned to the man who urged upon the country again and again that the way to preserve peace was to be prepared for war. I want to call attention to the fact, as I started to speak of Americanism, that one reason for his admiration of Washington was that he felt that Washington was a great American. Mr. Matthew Arnold said that Washington was an English squire. If he was, it seems to me at times as if he had got over it. [Laughter.] Of course, he was born a subject of King George, but when he got through there were no Americans subjects of King George. I am going to read one or two extracts from his letters. This is an extract from a letter of Washington to the Earl of Buchan, dated April 22, 1793 : "I believe it is the sincere wish of United America to have nothing to do with the pohtical intrigues or the squabbles of. European nations ; but, on the contrary, to exchange commodities and live in peace and amity with all the inhabitants of the earth ; and this I am persuaded they will do, if rightfully it can be done." In 1795 he wrote to Patrick Henry: "In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced that we act for our- selves and not for others." And then again he wrote to Timothy Pickering less than a year later: "Do justice to all and never forget that we are Ameri- cans, the remembrance of which will convince us that we ought not to be French or English." And I read from the bottom of this card which I hold in my hand: "I believe we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people." How well they go together. After leaving the presidency Wash- ington wrote to Thomas Pinckney : "It remains to be seen whether our country will stand upon independent ground or be directed in its political concerns by any other nation. A little time will show us who are its true friends or, what is synonymous, who are true Americans." And then there is the Farewell Address. I have heard a dis- tinguished speaker say to a great audience when he mentioned Washington's Farewell Address, "Don't laugh." There was not the slightest intention of laughing on the part of the audience, but the speaker thought it well to begin with that apology. I make no apology for quoting from Washington, and I am only going to read two or three short passages from the Farewell Address which I ask you to consider. 19 "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. "Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artifi- cial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friend- ships or enmities." The answer that I hear made to that is that Washington lived a long time ago. He did; he could not help it. But I some- times think that he would be a bold man who should say that Washington would wish to be living in this distracted and tor- tured world which we are now in at this moment. In his message to Congress on July 4, 1861, speaking of the ofificers of the regular army from the seceding States who had remained true to the government of the Union, Lincoln said: "This is the patriotic instinct of the plain people. They understand, without an argument, that the destroy- ing of the Government which was made by Washington means no good to them." Now, I come to our third great American. On December 21, 1918, I made a speech in the Senate in which I discussed the fourteen points. There were fourteen points then. They have become somewhat of an historical antiquity since ; most of them have gone. [Laughter.] I also discussed some of the momentous questions raised by the proposition for a League of Nations. Colonel Roosevelt wrote an article in the Kansas City Star upon that speech, approving it and commending it. I read a single paragraph from it : "Our need is not as great as that of the vast scattered British Empire, for our domains are pretty much in a ring fence. We ought not to undertake the task of polic- 20 ing Europe, Asia and Northern Africa ; neither ought we to permit any interference with the Monroe doctrine, or any attempt by Europe or Asia to police America. Mexico is our Balkan Peninsula. Some day we will have to deal with it. All the coasts and islands which in any way approach the Panama Canal must be dealt with by this nation, and by this nation in accordance with the Monroe doctrine." On January 3, 1919,— the Friday before his death— he dictated another editorial which appeared in the Kansas City Star after his death. I wish time would permit me to read it all, but I will read only one paragraph: .... "Let each nation reserve to itself and for its own decision, and let it clearly set forth, questions which are non-justiciable. . . . Finally, make it perfectly clear that we do not intend to take a position of an in- ternational Meddlesome Mattie. The American people do not wish to go into an overseas war unless for a very great cause, and where the issue is absolutely plain. Therefore, we do not wish to undertake the responsibility of sending our gallant young men to die in obscure fights in the Balkans or in Central Europe, or in a war we do not approve of. Moreover, the American people do not intend to give up the Monroe doctrine. Let civilized Europe and Asia introduce some kind of police system in the weak and disorderly countries at their thresholds. But let the United States treat Mexico as our Balkan Peninsula and refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers to interfere on this continent in any way that implies per- manent or semi-permanent possession. Every one of our Allies will with delight grant this request if President Wilson chooses to make it, and it will be a great mis- fortune if it is not made." I think I have shown pretty well the almost complete identity of view of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, and the secret of it is that they were all Americans, devoted to America, not unmindful of the rest of the world, not unmindful of their duties to humanity ; not one of them wanted the American people to be 21 neglectful of their duties to humanity, but they felt that if they had a duty to other nations, they also had a duty and a higher duty to the people of the United States [applause] and that the true path to enable us to render the greatest service to humanity and the rest of the world was to strengthen and build up and hold firm the United States. Lincoln gave his life to the preservation of the American Union. Washington served all his life either in the army or in the presi- dency, first to free America, then to make America great and respected. Roosevelt's whole life from his boyhood to the end was given to America primarily. When he dealt with foreign nations he thought as an American and he did his duty to the rest of the world as thoroughly as any President we have ever had. He did not forget, for example, his duty to the world when he carried through the Panama Canal which was a great benefit to mankind. And that is what is the characteristic of all those three great men. I have read to you those extracts because I wished to lay before you one or two of the things which Theodore Roosevelt said himself in a public way. But I think on an occasion like this I may be permitted to say that I was with him for two morn- ings just a week before his death. He had not then returned to Oyster Bay; he was in the hospital. He went just after I saw him. Mrs. Robinson was present on one occasion, I think on both, certainly on one. We had two long conversations and we discussed very fully the situation which confronted the country at that moment. The first draft of the Covenant of the League of Nations had not then been published, but enough had come to us to show very clearly what was intended and what we might ex- pect in the draft. We were able to discuss the substance of it from the dispatches which had been received and I can only say — I won't undertake to repeat the conversation; we went into the whole subject — and I can only say, and I say it in this presence with all the solemnity possible, that I believe I know exactly what his policy and beliefs then were, and I am certain that I have not deviated from them in what I have done or tried to do since his death in one particular. [Applause.] I do not say that for the sake of escaping responsibility. All I have done and said I have done on my own responsibility and I am quite ready to bear it. But I say it because I want you to know that the strongest 22 inspiration I had came from those talks with Theodore Roosevelt when he was very ill but when none of us thought his death was so near, and it is a comfort and a happiness to me to think that whatever may befall I have at least followed that inspiration from a man whose love and devotion to America no one can ever contest, and whose great character and whose splendid service are already part of the finest portion of the history of our country. I am going to read one or two more extracts by way of explana- tion: "The Republican party purposes in the realm of inter- national affairs such an association of nations as will most effectively further the aspiration for world-wide and permanent peace without sacrificing any part of the inde- pendence of the American nation. It believes that America can and must bear its full part in the responsi- bilities of the world, but it always believes that America alone must decide what that part must be." [Applause.] If you still have in your mind those two extracts of President Roosevelt's from the Kansas City Star you will see that it is the inspiration of that paragraph. I will read one more : "As soon as possible after my election I shall advise with the best minds in the United States and especially I shall consult in advance with the Senate, with whom, by the terms of the Constitution, I shall indeed be bound to counsel and without whose consent no such inter- national association can be formed. I shall do this to the end that we shall have an association of nations for the promotion of international peace, but one which shall so definitely safeguard our sovereignty and recognize our ultimate and unmortgaged freedom of action that it will have back of it, not a divided and distracted sentiment, but the united support of the American people." [Applause.] I need not say to you after reading them that those extracts are taken from two recent speeches by Senator Harding [applause], and I think they are inspired by the same spirit that you find in Washington's farewell address, in Lincoln's message, in Roose- velt's utterances, and that is, by a spirit of Americanism. 23 Fault has been found by Mr. Cox in his pleasant way [laughter] with the words which have been much used in this campaign, "America first." What country does he propose to put first, if not America? [Laughter and applause.] Are we in our pursuit of aid to other countries to forget America? We went to the Peace Table in Paris. I say We. [Laughter.] Mr. Wilson went to the Peace Table in Paris. We were still following- nobody had proposed changing it — we were still following as we have for one hundred and thirty years the policies of Washington and of Monroe, and we went there after a war in which we had lent to the people whom Mr. Wilson then declined to call our Allies ten billions of dollars ; we had two million men fighting on the soil of France ; we had two million more ready to cross the sea or in camp in this country. And I am going to repeat now a few words that I have said many times elsewhere, because it seems to me to go to the very root of the subject. We had done our part ; we did not go as soon as I think we ought to have gone. If we had gone earlier we should have saved months of fighting and thousands, perhaps millions of precious lives, and billions of hard-earned treasure. But we went, and when we went with these great loans, these four million men, our coming was decisive. I say it in no boastful way. No one admires more than I the magni- ficent fighting of England by land and by sea, or the equally splen- did fighting of France. No one can say anything too high for the stand they made. They fought as they did under Aetius when they drove back the Huns of another time at Chalons. And the same is true of Italy and of Belgium. I have nothing but praise for one and all of them. But the war had reached a point when we came with our masses of men, our untouched resources of money depicted by a great French cartoonist who published a picture representing the Kaiser crouching before an angel and behind him the whole scene is filled with marching troops, and he is saying to the angel whose wings, I may say, bear the Stars and Stripes, "What formidable fleet has brought these masses of men to Europe?" and the angel replies, "The Lusitania." We came at the moment when Russia had fallen away, the moment of crucial danger, and we flung our sword into the scale and turned it in the cause of victory and civilization. And then we appeared at the council table. The other nations all have taken territory; they seek money also for reparation; 24 I do not grudge them a dollar or a foot of land. We took nothing. We asked nothing, and we got nothing. And I am prouder of that than anything else. But what is it that comes to us now when we are presented with a Covenant of a League of Nations which many of us, I believe a great majority of the American people, distrust in their inmost soul, and are told that this is the only way of peace ; that the ways of peace described by Lincoln, by Washington, by Roosevelt no longer hold good? The great cause of peace is not shut up in the four corners of the napkin which contains the Covenant of the League of Nations. And when they come to us, what do they say ? "Give, give, give." Yes, we are ready to give ; we always have been and we are ready to-day. Senator Harding says : "We propose to help the cause of peace and do our duty. But if it is simply, 'Give, give,' I claim for the United States, and that is all I claim, that we have the right to say when we shall give and what we shall give and how we shall give." [Applause, all rising.] The CHAIRMAN. When Sam Powers glorified the place which I now occupy he ordained a chaplain for the Middlesex Club, and recognizing the country-wide interest and affiliations of this mar\'elous organization, he did not confine himself to Boston or Massachusetts in selecting a man for that holy office. He went to Georgia and he conferred the honor upon an eloquent divine who has spoken here more than once, with whose eloquence we have all of us been charmed and whom we are delighted now to listen to again. Rev. M. Ashby Jones of Atlanta, Georgia. [Applause, all rising.] REV. M. ASHBY JONES. Mr. President, Mrs. Robinson, and I feel I have a right to say, My Very Dear Friends of the Middlesex Club : I have felt indeed this evening as if I were an intruder walking on very sacred ground. To hear beloved personal friends of Theodore Roosevelt speak so genuinely out of their hearts would in itself make me feel as if no other word should be spoken, but when one nearer and dearer than friend itself, with a spirit so like her great brother, came at such a sacrifice this evening and 25 poured the libation of her own heart upon the altar of her deep devotion, I feel it wrong that I should say any word more, if it were not, Mrs. Robinson, that I come this evening from your mother state to bear to you the greetings and the genuine admira- tion of Georgia for your great brother. To-night in Atlanta the leading citizens of that city gather around a board like this and remember the day when there was born this great American. Now that I am on my feet will you trust a preacher not to preach a long sermon, and will you trust me simply to speak? I need hardly say that I am not presuming for a moment to bring to this audience, and certainly not in this presence, anything new about the one in whose honor we meet this evening. But would it be of interest to get the standpoint of a Southerner, his view- point of Theodore Roosevelt? It is very difficult to make any just appraisement of a personality. It is hard to tell the worth of a man because we look at one another so much from the angles of race, of caste, of color, of party, of sect, of section, and over and over again we are tempted to judge men by their relationship to my race or my party or my section. We need the perspective of years rightly to appraise the worth of men with their different psychic environment and the differences of origin, of social and political conditions. Instinctively all of us look to that day when there shall be some perfect judgment rendered and when the words of Meg Merrilles to Guy Mannering shall indeed come true, "That Bertram's right and Bertram's might Should meet on Ellangowan height" — a day when men shall drop the cloak of custom, the cloak of fanaticism, when they shall stand naked of all name and all title, and bear the inspection of the realities. A great Teacher once said there should be such a day, indenti- fying himself marvelously with the human race, the greatest to the least. He said: "Inasmuch as ye ministered unto one of these, my brethren, ye ministered unto me or inasmuch as ye minis- tered not, ye ministered not to me." I think in saying this He was laying down a new formula for the judgment of men. Not as a man is to race or color or sect or section, but as a man is to a man, so is the man. After all when we come to think about that it is inevitable. You cannot think of a man by himself if you 26 want to appraise the work of any man. Appraise him in terms of a relationship to other men. You cannot think of a man alone ; you always think of him in terms of his relationship as father or son or brother or friend or neighbor or citizen, and these rela- tionships multiply so across man's personality, as he fulfills or fails in these relationships, so is the personality. I tell you, you cannot read the biography of any man save in terms of other men. The world knows Socrates to-day because of Plato and Xenophon and Aristotle. Aye, the world knows Jesus to-day only because of a Matthew, a Luke, a John, a Peter. You only know any man as you know his impress and impact upon the life of others. How startlingly significant is this when applied to the life of Theodore Roosevelt ! You cannot think of Roosevelt alone. The pictures that imperishably impress themselves on the loving memory of America to-day of Roosevelt are the pictures of Roosevelt and his boys or Roosevelt and his Rough Riders or Roosevelt and the children of the tenement districts of New York, always Roosevelt and some group of human life into which he had translated the purest wine of his spirit, Roosevelt in relation to others all the time. And if you want to read his biography you will find that is true. I think I shall not be misunderstood, Mrs. Robinson, when I say that the book that was least interest- ing to me of Mr. Roosevelt's was his own life. He could not tell his own life; he could state his incidents and he did with charming grace. Aye, but to know his life we have got to know the New York policemen of the early '80's ; we have got to know politicians of Albany of those days; we have got to know the cowboy of the far-flung plains of the West ; we have got to know authors, musicians and artists. Aye, it seems to me most of all we have got to know the motherhood and the childhood of America. Not until they come and bear their testimony shall the full-orbed personality of this well-nigh matchless man stand silhouetted in vividness before the world. I have sought to find some one word that would be most char- acteristic of Theodore Roosevelt, one that should include some- thing of the sweep of his interests, something of the arena of his activities, something of the ideals of his heart. I find it in the word human, touching life in all the sweep of its wonderful inter- ests, — human. I think of him in all of the relationships of his 27 life, his marvelous versatility. There was no nook or cranny of this old world of ours that was sacred or secure from his prying eyes, and yet he approached all the world from the standpoint of the interests of humanity. Whether it was the limitless possibili- ties of its development, whether it was the garnering of its fruit- age, whether it was the preservation of all its splendid resources, it was always for humanity, the idea of gathering all of the forces and possibilities of the world and putting them at the service and the ministering of human life. I am not thinking when I use the word human simply that he had those primary instincts of manhood. He had. Theodore Roosevelt was known, he was recognized by every man as his brother. Marvelous truth! Though of a preferred heritage, reared in an environment for the cultivation of character that was marvelously rich and pure, yet I think I could say certainly that never had he met a man, whether in a ward meeting for political counsel or out on the plains of the West, whether in laboratory or workshop, whether at home or abroad — I believe he never met a man that he did not recognize in some subtle certain way that that man was kin to him. I am very far from saying that he was not discriminating in his judgment. No man was more so. Some of the severest criti- cisms, and I think some of the most unjust criticisms of men, came showing that he made his decided differences in the person- alities of men, and yet even his severest criticisms I think have sprung from Roosevelt's deepest faith in the possibility of human life. He believed in a man just because he was a man ; he believed he was made in God's image ; he believed there sleep possibilities beneath the very secrets of the soul's faculties and forces that needed to be called into existence to find expression. Aye, but if the man did not play the part of a man, if a man shirked, no matter whether in the battlefield or in his own God-given respon- sibilities of citizenship at home — if the man shirked, then over and over again there leaped like the liquid lava from his lips the damn- ing condemnation of a man who had the possibilities of a man and failed to be a man. I love his words that live in the memory of men. Others have used them. Yes, but we forget they have. No one else could say, "A man is straight," like he could. Aye, and I stand here to-night violating none of the proprieties of the occasion when I say that I 28 ha%'e differed with Mr. Roosevelt over and over again. No man could make me madder, except my wife [laughter] , and he did over and over again. Yet in looking back to-night with all the critical eye that I can, I care not how many mistakes he may have made in his life, I dare any man to say that this American was not as straight as any American that ever lived. [Applause.] I believe that Mr. Roosevelt was the first man who ever sounded the human note in practical politics. Many of us had talked in academic terms; many had theorized; many political platforms had been written. Nay, but he first translated political life from the law of supply and demand to the "square deal". He first took out the list of abstractions that mechanical allegiance that told of America and put it into the hearts of undernourished babes or overburdened mothers with the hope of a square deal and a fair chance to every American. Think what you please about his methods. Discuss afterwards if you want any specific legislation that he may have proposed or enacted. All of them may be forgotten. But in the years to come I believe that America will never forget Theodore Roosevelt who for a time at least made our political life to throb with the passion of a human heart. [Applause.] I lay emphasis on that, that he translated this human note into practical politics. As I read Mr. Roosevelt's life, there was little of the philosopher in his make-up. He says himself that he was a practical idealist ; he says himself that he went into politics with no particular theories. I would add, but when a great human need arose he did not dwell long in abstraction. There was something in the very make-up of the man— and I say it with reverence— there was something in the very make-up of the man that just as soon as an idea — an idea of human justice or human right — took posses- sion of his heart, it must have a Bethlehem birth and it came forth and walked among us. There was something that compelled the man's very nature to take these ideas and translate them into life. I have followed him in fancy as he walked as a young man some torrid midnight through the slums of New York with Jacob Riis or some one else. He saw the things just as they were. I think he looked as few men have ever looked underneath even the sur- face of the filth, the stench of the horrid exteriors of human life and saw their causes. Practical, yes. Aye, but he had a spirit- ual vision. He saw Five Points as it was. Aye, but he saw 29 something more. He saw the Five Points as it could be, and for Theodore Roosevelt to see what is and then what can be, was to see what ought to be, and instantly to throw the force and weight of his personality for its accomplishment. I love that vision, the very last that is given in the Book that I love very- dearly. It is the old prophet on the Isle of Patmos, and he is writing, and he says, "I see a new Jerusalem." He had seen the old. "I see a new Jeruselem coming down out of heaven." Aye, but coming down out of heaven to earth. Practical ideal- ism. Oh, Theodore Roosevelt dreamed dreams, too, and dreamed dreams of new Jerusalems, but he cared for no Jerusalem that you could not get down on earth. [Applause.] He dreamed dreams and then he dared to translate his dreams into facts. I will not misuse your patience and your verj- lovely courtesy to one who has come a long way to pay his tribute to one he loved very dearly, but simply recall the last scene, because I did not have the privilege of seeing Mr. Roosevelt often. This was on his visit to Richmond, Virginia, while he was still Presi- dent. May I say that my father, an old Confederate soldier, declared to me he would not go to see him. Finally I persuaded him, but he would not come with us to the luncheon, and after- wards he went over and sat in his old Confederate uniform with the boys from the Soldiers' Home, all in gray. It was just in front of the mansion of Robert Edward Lee that the stand was erected. Out yonder it seemed to me was a never-ending sea of faces. Over here to the right were the old fellows from the Soldiers' Home. As I sat on the stand I just some way knew that Roosevelt was going to see them though he was sitting at the time with his back to them. While they were introducing him to the crowd, by some subtle magnetism of the spirit his eyes turned that way, and the moment he rose, instead of turning away to the great audience here, he turned to those old fellows on the out- skirts and he beckoned to them saying, "Come closer," and they came, my father with them, and then he said to them, "I honor you as I honor any man who fights for the right as God gives him to see the right." I never had to persuade my father again to go to see Theodore Roosevelt. He won the hearts of Confeder- ate and Union alike, for there was the great beat of a human heart within his own soul, and, men and women of America, to-night I look toward the future despite all confusion, I look 30 toward the future as toward the rising sun because I beheve that the words of Theodore Roosevelt have rung around this continent, "Come closer." Come closer to the passion of his own heart and let his spirit lead you into the unknown days undaunted, be- cause his leadership is ever upward. [Applause, all rising.] The CHAIRMAN. Before we separate to meet again a year from now Mrs. Robinson wishes to say one parting word. Mrs. ROBINSON. I would like very much to read a few lines written by a friend of mine, a very short poem which to me expresses my brother more than anything else really that has been written about him. It was written by Arthur Guiterman. It is very simple and very short, and he called it "Our Colonel". He always said there only was one colonel. Deep loving, well knowing His world and its blindness, A heart overflowing With measureless kindness, Undaunted in labor (And Death was a trifle), Steel-true as a sabre, Direct as a rifle, All Man in his doing. All Boy in his laughter, He fronted, unruing, The Now and Hereafter, A storm-battling cedar, A comrade, a brother — Oh, such was our Leader, Beloved as no other ! When weaker souls faltered His courage remade us Whose tongue never paltered, Who never betrayed us. 31 His hand on your shoulder All honors exceeding, What breast but was bolder Because he was leading! And still in our trouble, In peace or in wartime, His word shall redouble Our strength as aforetime. When wrongs cry for righting, No odds shall appall us ; To clean, honest fighting Again he will call us, And, cowboys or doughboys, We'll follow his drum, boys, Who never said "Go, boys !" But always said "Come, boys !" Isn't that like him? [Applause.] 32 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 981 529 4